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Triso— short for “tristructural isotropic”—fuel is made from a mixture of low enriched uranium and oxygen, and it is surrounded by three alternating layers of graphite and a ceramic called silicon carbide. Each particle is smaller than a poppy seed, but its layered shell can protect the uranium inside from melting under even the most extreme conditions that could occur in a reactor.

This appears to be a variant of the existing pebble-bed reactor design.

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Over the past couple of days, the dominant left-leaning media have again demonstrated a tendency to ignore gun owners who intervene to fight back against violent criminals as most national news shows ignored the fact that an alleged gunman in Louisville, Kentucky, Steven Lopez, was taken down by a bystander with a gun who shot him in the leg.

So far, Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends is the only national news show to inform their viewers of this key detail of a story about one of the liberal protest gatherings that got out of hand.

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According to this report by CNBC (which can’t be happy about it), a social medium platform called Parler is suddenly making huge strides. After a Wall Street Journal story reported that Team Trump is looking for alternatives to Twitter and Facebook, and mentioned Parler as such an alternative, Parler quickly became the top-ranked iPhone app in the news category, ahead of Twitter and Reddit. The number of Parler users increased from 1 million to 1.5 million in about a week, according to Parler’s 27-year-old founder and CEO John Matze.

UPDATE: Conservatives are flocking to the social media app Parler

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Most engineering projects in the U.S. have used the international foot since 1959, but land surveys—which map boundaries and infrastructure locations—use whichever foot an organization or state wants. (The international foot is exactly 0.3048 of a meter, whereas the U.S. survey foot, 1200/3937 of a meter, has an unending decimal.) This means that anyone working in multiple U.S. locations or with different agencies must keep careful track of which foot is in use. A recent poll of 530 attendees of a National Geodetic Survey Webinar, who were mostly surveyors, found that 62 percent blamed confusion between the two feet for problems in their work.

I’ll bet you didn’t know that.

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Woodrow Wilson was not only a thoroughgoing racist but also a thoroughgoing fascist (before fascism was coo)l. The fact that it took this long and gratuitous outside pressure for them to make this change tells you everything you need to know about the Princeton coven of the new clerisy.

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Traditional folded steels combined two steels that varied by carbon content and in their microscale structure, which is controlled by how quickly it cools (by quenching). In this case, the researchers were using a nickel-titanium-iron alloy steel that works well with these 3D printing techniques, in which metal powder is fed onto the work surface and heated with a laser.

Rapid cooling of this steel also produces a crystalline form as in quenched high-carbon steels. But further heat treatment leads to the precipitation of microscopic nickel-titanium particles within the steel that greatly increase its hardness—a pricey material called “maraging steel.”

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Smead said that although taxes in Seattle are lower, candidate recruitment is harder and the cost of living within the city is more expensive than Phoenix.

“We’re hearing rumors of 40-story buildings that will be only 20-percent occupied by October,” Smead said.

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Back in 2011 the United States and China both introduced electronic fire control systems for 40mm long-barrel grenade launchers. Nearly a decade later both of these longer range, highly accurate 40mm weapons are still in production. Both are niche weapons and popular enough to keep getting made and upgraded.

40mm is about an inch and a half.

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Think of it as evolution in action.

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The DynaRig concept has proven itself as an effective alternative to conventional rigs for superyacht owners who are looking to reduce crew numbers and optimize sailing time. This is a new chapter for the innovative rig solution and aims at making the efficient, safe, and high-performance rig more accessible.

Totally automating the process of setting and furling sails.

We have the technology.

Watch it.

Cheaper, more efficient, and much smaller, yet less risky and less powerful that traditional nuclear plants, the new technology offers a new path forward for a source of carbon-free energy whose progress has stalled since the 1970s.

And about time, too.

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But but but … I thought Trump was Putin’s puppet?

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This could get interesting.

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A team of researchers in Louisiana has proposed a method of combating the coronavirus: issuing booster doses of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine, CNN reported.

The MMR vaccine is a “live vaccine,” using highly weakened versions of the measles, mumps and rubella viruses to provide protection to the immune system that goes beyond just the injected viruses. The MMR vaccine works to boost general immunity, as well as train the body to recognize specific viruses, which may be effective in combating COVID-19.

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Now a lofty new air taxi being built by the Israeli startup firm Urban Aeronautics hopes to cash in on those promises with its new Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) car that unites technology with Jetsons-like futuristic dreams mostly only observed in films like Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Back to the Future, and most recently on TV in Season 3 of HBO’s Westworld.

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Cora, the world’s first all-electric, self-flying air taxi, resumed testing in both the US and New Zealand after a three-month delay because of Covid-19 concerns. Cora is considered one of the most advanced electric vertical takeoff and landing (eVTOL) aircraft, having gained its flight certificates in 2017. It was designed and is being developed by Wisk, an urban-air-mobility company backed by Boeing and Kitty Hawk.

Most of these devices are designed to be ‘self-driving’, and I can’t see that getting a lot of traction.

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And about time, too. I’m getting tired of this shit.

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Criminals be stupid.

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Us this a great country or what?

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A military veteran, who helped disarm an Islamist gunman during a train ride from Amsterdam to Paris in 2015, is vying to get involved in politics, Fox News reports.

Alek Skarlatos, an Army National Guard veteran who served in Afghanistan, is looking to unseat liberal Oregon lawmaker Peter DeFazio.

It’s in LeftCoastistan, so he probably won’t win, but kudos to him for trying.

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I’m sure they will.

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Gee, I wonder why that would happen?

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So all this panic was over nothing.

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The way it works is simple. Instead of the traditional ink you’d find in everyday pens, the Forever Pininfarina Cambiano Inkless Pen features a metal alloy capable of writing on regular paper. And even without any lead or graphite, this forever pen can be used to draw and sketch with ease. And while the pen represents a new, modern way of writing, it boasts a classic, wooden design, making it a piece you’ll treasure forever.

Well, maybe. I’d want to see how it writes first.

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The Minneapolis Police Department will be withdrawing from union contract negotiations amid concerns that police unions hinder accountability and reform measures, numerous sources reported.

Gee, Republicans have been saying that for decades.

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Modern science has presented us with some experimental compounds that offer exciting possibilities when it comes to tackling obesity. Some trick the body into thinking that it has already had enough to eat, others manipulate the metabolic process so that the body burns off more fat than is actually necessary. Researchers have come across a new molecule that falls in with the latter category, reducing body fat in mice without changes to their diet.

Mice get all the good stuff.

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Man’s best friend indeed.

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Creating synthetic replacements that truly match the properties and behaviors of biological tissues hasn’t been easy. But University of Colorado Denver scientists, led by mechanical engineer professor Chris Yakacki, PhD, are the first to 3D print a complex, porous lattice structure using liquid crystal elastomers (LCEs) creating devices that can finally mimic cartilage and other biological tissues.

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Genetic testing firm 23andMe have discovered that Type-O blood is particularly resistant to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

…

Perhaps most interesting is that Type-O blood is also associated with a 66% reduction in the odds of developing severe malaria compared to the non-O blood types, according to a 2007 study.

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There was an alien race in Larry Niven’s RINGWORLD universe, called the Outsiders, that uses a similar mechanism for their metabolic processes.

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I wonder if it will call 911 and provide location info if you are being  beaten up by rioters? Or does it check for their color first?

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I don’t really care about professional sports but I love new technology and this looks especially interesting.

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Must be the tail end of that Obama Economy we’ve been hearing so much about.

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Another obscure legal term in the news.

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Scientists have successfully split water into hydrogen and oxygen using light and meticulously designed catalysts, and they did so at the maximum efficiency meaning there was almost no loss and undesired side reactions. This latest breakthrough in solar hydrogen production makes the likelihood of scalable, economically viable hydrogen production more than likely, paving the way for humanity to make the switch to clean energy.

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Hammer tech.

Think of it as evolution in action.

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The Hennepin County Medical Examiner (ME) conducted Mr. Floyd’s autopsy on May 26, 2020. The full report of the ME is pending but the ME has made the following preliminary findings. The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation. Mr. Floyd had underlying health conditions including coronary artery disease and hypertensive heart disease. The combined effects of Mr. Floyd being restrained by the police, his underlying health conditions and any potential intoxicants in his system likely contributed to his death.

The news you won’t get from the ‘news media’.

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What do they know that you don’t?

Probably not a whole lot.

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We data scientists call this data profiling, and it is the essential first step in constructing an accurate data model.

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I’m sure they’ll land cushy posts elsewhere in the Deep State. The Crust take care of their own.

It’s nice having fewer liars on TV, though.

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I haven’t tried any of these so I have no idea how well they work, or even if they work at all. I have an innate distrust of claims by Professors.

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German startup Sinn Power has developed a modular maritime platform able to generate renewable energy from waves, wind and solar sources. Starting later this summer, it hopes to offer solar panel manufacturers the chance to test and demonstrate photovoltaic arrays on a floating platform off the Greek coast as part of an off-grid energy solution.

Apparently these are designed to be used around islands.

Check it out.

Let’s hope they work better than the professor-created climate change and pandemic models.

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Didn’t know that was a contest.

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Electric VTOL air taxis are one of the great emerging technologies of our time, promising to unlock the skies as traffic-free, high-speed, 3D commuting routes. Much quieter and cheaper than helicopter travel, they’ll also run on zero-local-emission electric power, and many models suggest they’ll cost around the same per mile as a ride share.

Eventually, the market seems to agree, they’ll be pilotless automatons, even cheaper and more reliable than the earliest piloted versions. Should the onboard autopilot computers get confused, remote operators will take over and save the day as if they’re flying a Mavic drone, and every pilot gone will be an extra passenger seat in the sky.

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If you are interested in that sort of thing, which I am.

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Every cloud has a silver lining.

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Plant Vogtle in Georgia installs more Westinghouse reactors while Oregon-based NuScale awaits final approval of its small modular reactor design.

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DNA damage is common to our cells, but when we’re young our bodies can fix it pretty easily. Unfortunately we lose that ability over time, leading to many of the symptoms of aging that we know all too well. A new study from MIT has found that reactivating a certain enzyme improves repair of DNA damage in neurons, which helps Alzheimer’s patients and others with cognitive decline.

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In April, the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) began letting new users sign up for Google Fi using the eSIM embedded in iPhone XR, XS, XS Max, 11, 11 Pro, 11 Pro Max and 2020 iPhone SE. With Google Fi version 2.5, which was released on Monday, Google is starting to slowly introduce eSIM support so that its MVNO members can free up the physical SIM slot on their dual-SIM iPhones.

I have no idea what ‘Google Fi’ is, but it sounds very interesting.