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Fortnite developer Epic Games is moving its Cary, North Carolina headquarters across town to a large shopping mall, the company announced. It’s planning to convert the 87-acre Cary Towne Center into its new home base by 2024.

Once development is complete, Epic says the site will include recreational and office space, “customized from the ground up to accommodate its long-term growth.”

Actually, I’m surprised that more big companies don’t do this. So many malls are going broke, especially during the Pandemic Panic, that they can be had for fire-sale prices. Plenty of parking, plenty of space for amenity stores to suit your employees, there’s just no down-side.

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As of December, the company had 50 clinics operating in its stores. Walmart has announced plans to open at least seven more this year, CNBC said.

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As more entrepreneurs and investors relocate from traditional tech hubs to emerging startup ecosystems, Miami—with its tropical climate, diverse population and lack of state income tax—has suddenly become a tech hot spot.

But it’s really about the taxes….

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Pennsylvania election data shows that over 432,000 votes were removed from President Donald Trump during the November election, data scientists say.

According to an analysis by the Data Integrity Group, obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times, votes for Trump – from both Election Day and mail-in ballots – were removed from the totals in at least 15 counties.

Time-series election data shows Trump’s votes decrementing in various counties at numerous time points instead of increasing as would be expected under normal circumstances.

Seems like an easy thing to check.

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That would certainly explain the counter-intuitive election results.

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No indication of whether it will be dragged into orbit by horses.

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For more than two years, Kalamazoo County sheriff’s detectives investigated French’s murder without making any arrests. Then, according to police records obtained by NBC News, one of the detectives learned of an emerging field — digital vehicle forensics — which focuses on extracting the treasure trove of data stored in an automobile’s onboard computers.

They returned to French’s 2016 black Chevy Silverado pickup truck, which had been stolen around the time he vanished, and discovered time-stamped recordings of someone else’s voice using the hands-free system to play Eminem on the radio at the time of French’s murder.

The voice, according to the police report obtained by NBC News, belonged to Joshua Wessel, now 32, who used to tinker on cars and motorcycles with French. Wessel’s voice was identified by relatives, including his wife, key evidence that allowed investigators to reconstruct his movements and the final hours of French’s life, the police report says. In July, Wessel was arrested and charged with French’s murder. He has pleaded not guilty and is awaiting trial subject to psychiatric assessment.

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The cells of all multicellular organisms rely on the organelles called mitochondria to make their biochemical fuel — all multicellular organisms except mistletoes, that is. Not only do their mitochondria produce little if any of this fuel, they’ve lost many of the genes needed to make it. In the few years since botanists discovered this anomaly, scientists worldwide have tried with no more than limited success to figure out how mistletoes pull off this trick.

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A new study at the University of Chicago has shown that elaborate protein structures accumulate over deep time even when they serve no purpose, because a universal biochemical property and the genetic code force natural selection to preserve them.

Well, I thought it was interesting.

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If, of course, that’s what you want to do.

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Georgi Democratic Senate candidate Jon Ossoff has come under fire for refusing to disclose details about his personal finances and investments, including media deals he made with state-owned news outlets in Qatar and China.

The 33-year-old trust fund Democrat is facing GOP Sen. David Perdue in one of two crucial Peach State races which will decide whether Democrats control the upper chamber of Congress, as the New York Post reports.

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A bevy of Wall Street executives, bankers and fund managers are abandoning New York for Florida, embracing the Sunshine State over metropolitan New York as the coronavirus pandemic has eliminated many benefits of working from a global financial hub.

Since legions of finance industry employees began working from home in March, Florida’s warm weather, low taxes, affordable space and quick, easy flights back to New York, when needed, have elevated its status.

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That would be interesting.

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This is a Javascript program for designing Celtic knots. Initially the display is a simple weave of intersecting threads. You can design a knot by clicking on the points where the threads intersect. The program ensures that your knot is always properly woven (over then under). Your knot will look best if it has some symmetry or pattern to it (for bonus points, use a single thread).

Knotwork (and interlace) is fairly simple to design using paper and pencil but automating the process is convenient.

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Committee assignments are one of the least eye-catching parts of politics, but they’re also one of the most important ways in which actual political power is wielded. Certain committees in the House, like Energy and Commerce, Ways and Means, and Appropriations, have outsized influence and money power. (They are often called the “money” committees, not just because they’re where the action is but because members can earn lots of money in campaign contributions from industries with business before them.)

Deliberations over the next several days will be extremely important for progressives in the House, as they angle to lock down seats on these powerful committees for their members. To that end, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) was expected to secure a prized position on the Energy and Commerce Committee, a seat vacated by outgoing New Yorker Eliot Engel. Among other issues, the committee has jurisdiction over health care and climate change issues, a natural for a congresswoman who has championed Medicare for All and the Green New Deal.

Ocasio-Cortez was expected to cruise comfortably to the position. She was the first to raise her hand for the seat, and she won the backing of dean of the New York delegation Rep. Jerry Nadler. But last week, as Politico reported, Long Islander Kathleen Rice made an out-of-nowhere, last-second bid for the seat, interrupting the process. Rep. Rice is a backbencher from the party’s right flank who, in 2018, refused to support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. Without the support of Nadler, and with the famous opposition of Steering Committee leader Pelosi, Rice’s attempt didn’t seem to be serious.

You mess with the bull, you get the horns every time.

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Connecticut-based company LiquidPiston is developing a portable generator for the US Army that uses its X-Engine, a fresh and extremely powerful take on the rotary engine that’ll deliver as much power as the Army’s current-gen-set at one-fifth the size.

We’ve written a few times before about the fascinating LiquidPiston rotary engine. It’s not a Wankel – indeed, it’s closer to an inside-out Wankel – and with only two moving parts, it’s able to deliver extraordinary power density at up to 1.5 horsepower per pound (0.45 kg).

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And about time.

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A string of high profile tech investors and executives are leaving San Francisco, too: Last week, Elon Musk said he has moved to Texas after selling his Bel Air homes earlier this year.

Such moves are to be expected during the pandemic, when people are working from home anyway. Several tech firms have said they’ll give employees the option to permanently work from home even after the pandemic ends.

But the relocation of corporate headquarters, company founders and big-name VC investors points to a corporate diaspora of the tech industry — and what some have called a “tech exodus” from the Bay Area.

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A drone converted into a flamethrower is being used on a mission to eliminate more than 100 wasp nests in central China, The Associated Press reported Saturday.

Blue Sky Rescue and Zhong county residents joined forces to annihilate the wasps, the AP reported. Blue Sky Rescue is composed of volunteers dedicated to emergency work, including search and rescue operations.

Video footage from Blue Sky Rescue shows the drone hovering over a wasp’s nest before turning igniting fuel through a nozzle affixed to the drone to incinerate a nest in a treetop.

I wonder whether this would work against AntiFa?

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Silicon Valley and San Francisco are over. Everyone is leaving California.

And who could blame them?

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Time to leave.

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Tom Brady and Gisele Bündchen are planning to move to South Florida, where they will become Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump’s new neighbors on an exclusive Miami island. According to Page Six….

That ‘No State Income Tax’ gets ’em every time.

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St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner and her whole staff have been removed from the case against Mark McCloskey, who with his wife Patricia was charged with brandishing weapons against Black Lives Matter protesters earlier this year, after the prosecutor referred to the case in her fundraising emails.

…

Circuit Judge Thomas Clark II said Gardner’s emails “raise the appearance of impropriety and jeopardize the defendant’s right to a fair trial,” according to The Associated Press.

Suffice it to say that Kim Gardner is a Soros puppet and racist black female.

UPDATE: St. Louis Prosecutor Removed From McCloskey Case After She ‘Initiated A Criminal Prosecution For Political Purposes,’ Court Says

UPDATE: “Like A Needle Pulling A Thread”: Prosecutor Kim Gardner Kicked Off McCloskey Case

UPDATE: Kim Gardner disqualified from prosecuting Mark McCloskey

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While there aren’t any species of mushroom large enough to live in, one Bay-area designer thinks he can make one if he only cranks out enough of his patented “mushroom bricks.”

 

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In a landmark phase 3 clinical trial, the international team, coordinated by Dr. Patrick Yu-Wai-Man from the University of Cambridge and Dr. José-Alain Sahel from the University of Pittsburgh and Institut de la Vision, Paris, successfully treated 37 patients suffering from Leber hereditary optic neuropathy (LHON). Subject to further trials, the treatment could help thousands of people across the world to regain and retain some of their sight.

If the Corporate Media weren’t so focused on bashing Trump we might get some decent coverage of amazing news like this.

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One small Georgia county has reportedly tossed a monkey wrench into Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger’s recertification that gave Joe Biden the win over President Donald Trump, doubting the “credibility” of its recount.

Coffee County Board of Elections officials sent out a letter last week saying they couldn’t certify the electronic recount numbers given its “inability to repeatably duplicate creditable election results,” WALB.com reported Tuesday.

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I’m a sucker for multitools.

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Musk cited business interests as the primary reason for the move in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. Tesla is opening a new factory outside Austin and SpaceX uses a launch site in south Texas, according to The Verge.

Musk said that California had become complacent and too used to “winning” like a dominant sports team might. “They do tend to get a little complacent, a little entitled, and then they don’t win the championship anymore,” Musk told the Journal.

Megan McArdle.

Megan does this feature every year (usually) and it’s always a treat.

The microplane lemon zester is, of course, a popular tool in every interrogator’s kit.

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A team of University of Arkansas physicists has successfully developed a circuit capable of capturing graphene’s thermal motion and converting it into an electrical current.

“An energy-harvesting circuit based on graphene could be incorporated into a chip to provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors,” said Paul Thibado, professor of physics and lead researcher in the discovery.

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Forest Products Laboratory (FPL) researcher Junyong Zhu in co-collaboration with colleagues from the University of Maryland and University of Colorado, have developed a transparent wood material that may be the window of tomorrow. Researchers found that transparent wood has the potential to outperform glass currently used in construction in nearly every way.

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Flush with cash, city dwellers from New York City have been panic buying condos in the suburbs as homes in these outline areas become too pricey, according to Bloomberg.

Following the virus pandemic, social unrest, and surge in violent crime, an exodus of New Yorkers have fled to the surrounding rural communities over the last eight or so months. Dwindling supply of suburban homes created the next chapter in the flight out of the city; that is, buying interest for apartments in suburbia has erupted this fall.

Time to leave.

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“We assembled five genes from maize that code for five enzymes in the C4 photosynthetic pathway into a single gene construct and installed it into rice plants,” said lead author Dr. Maria Ermakova, who works at The Australian National University (ANU), as part of the international C4 Rice Project, led by Oxford University.

Rice, one of the main world food staples, uses the less efficient C3 photosynthetic pathway. Scientists predict that the introduction of the more efficient C4 photosynthesis traits into rice can potentially increase photosynthetic efficiency by fifty percent, improve nitrogen use efficiency and double water use efficiency.

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Everybody goin’ to Texas.

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Dying retinal cells send out a rescue signal to recruit stem cells and repair eye damage, according to the findings of a new study published today in the journal Molecular Therapy. The findings open the door to restoring eyesight by modifying stem cells to follow the signal and transplanting them into the eye.

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Last week we saw the first successful virtualization of ARM Windows 10 on an M1 Mac. The good news is that it even appeared to be “pretty snappy.” Now we’ve got a look at a helpful walkthrough and peek at real-world performance in a new video, including the M1 Mac mini blowing away Microsoft’s Surface Pro X.

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Quick, to the Biden!

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The scientists have created A.I. software that uses a protein’s DNA sequence to predict its three-dimensional structure to within an atom’s width of accuracy.

The achievement, which solves a 50-year-old challenge in molecular biology, was accomplished by a team from DeepMind, the London-based artificial intelligence company that is part of Google parent Alphabet. Until now, DeepMind was best known for creating A.I. that could beat the best human players at the strategy game Go, a major milestone in computer science.

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Developer Alexander Graf has successfully virtualized the Arm version of Windows on an M1 Mac, proving that the M1 chip is capable of running Microsoft’s operating system (via The 8-Bit).

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A state judge in Pennsylvania temporarily blocked the state Wednesday from further certifying its general election results, after the state certified President-elect Joe Biden’s win Tuesday, while a Republican-led lawsuit attempting to block Pennsylvania’s election results plays out in court, though the order has now been paused due to an appeal.

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According to Trump officials, the judge set a Dec. 3 hearing date and is allowing 15 depositions. What’s more, the campaign plans to present its evidence that could result in the rejection of tens of thousands of mail-in ballots in Democratic Clark County where Biden ballots outnumbered Trump ballots by 91,000 in unofficial results.

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I was wondering when someone would get around to that.

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MLive.com reported that the Kalkaska County Board of Commissioners voted 4-2 on a resolution backing calls for Whitmer’s impeachment. The measure will now be sent to the Michigan legislature for consideration.

County Commissioner David Comai blamed what he called Whitmer’s “unconstitutional executive orders” for Kalkaska’s economic crisis. Many conservatives have expressed outrage at actions Whitmer has taken to slow the spread of the coronavirus.

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President Donald Trump’s legal team held a press conference Thursday afternoon, explaining the alleged evidence of voter fraud they believe would have impacted the results of the 2020 presidential election.

The press conference was led by Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, who was joined by Trump campaign lawyer Jenna Ellis, lawyer Sidney Powell, and lawyer Joe Digenova. Giuliani, explained that they believe there is “direct evidence” to show there was voter fraud in the presidential election.

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Researchers at Tel Aviv University (TAU) have demonstrated that the CRISPR/Cas9 system is very effective in treating metastatic cancers, a significant step on the way to finding a cure for cancer. The researchers developed a novel lipid nanoparticle-based delivery system that specifically targets cancer cells and destroys them by genetic manipulation. The system, called CRISPR-LNPs, carries a genetic messenger (messenger RNA), which encodes for the CRISPR enzyme Cas9 that acts as molecular scissors that cut the cells’ DNA.

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A new bioinspired material is here to overtake petroleum-based plastics. A team led by Prof. Shu-Hong Yu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) reports a method to manufacture materials with similar structure as nacre from wood-derived fiber and mica, with adaption to mass production, good processability, and tunable coloration.

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In the 1980s, Howard-Yana Shapiro, now chief agricultural officer at Mars, Incorporated, was looking for new kinds of corn. He was in the Mixes District of Oaxaca in southern Mexico, the area where the precursors to maize (aka corn) first evolved, when he located some of the strangest corn ever seen. Not only was it 16 to 20 feet tall, dwarfing the 12-foot stuff in American fields, it took six to eight months to mature, far longer than the 3 months needed for conventional corn. Yet it grew to those impressive heights in what can charitably be called poor soil, without the use of fertilizer.. But the strangest part of the corn was its aerial roots–green and rose-colored, finger-like protrusions sticking out of the corn’s stalk, dripping with a clear, syrupy gel.

Shapiro suspected that those mucousy fingers might be the Holy Grail of agriculture. He believed that the roots allowed this unique variety of corn, dubbed Sierra Mixe and locally bred over hundreds or even thousands of years, to produce its own nitrogen, an essential nutrient for crops that is usually applied as fertilizer in epic amounts.

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The U.S. Navy has shot down an intercontinental ballistic missile over the Pacific Ocean with an SM-3 Block IIA missile in a milestone test that demonstrated a potential scheme to defend Hawaii, the Missile Defense Agency announced Tuesday morning.

The test, which comes on the heels of the revealing of a larger North Korean ICBM in October that could potentially strike the U.S. East Coast, is the first time the United States has shot down an ICBM with anything other than a ground-based interceptor, an MDA official said.

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Materials stay cooler when water evaporates off of them, but once all the water is gone, the cooling effect stops. Bearing this in mind, MIT scientists have developed a camel fur-inspired material that could keep items cool without using electricity.

Although it might initially seem like a bare-skinned camel would stay cooler overall than one covered with fur, that isn’t the case. The fur acts as a gas-permeable insulating layer, shading the animal’s skin from external heat while still allowing sweat to evaporate off of it. As a result, the evaporative cooling effect lasts longer – the camel still sweats, but not as much as the hypothetical bare-skinned one would before becoming dehydrated.