USEFUL STUFF SATURDAY
15th July 2017
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15th July 2017
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13th July 2017
Why? Because we can!
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13th July 2017
The treatment takes cells from a patient’s body, modifies the genes, and then reinfuses those modified cells back into the person who has cancer. If the agency approves, it would mark the first time the FDA has approved anything considered to be a “gene therapy product.”
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12th July 2017
Better pump fast, after all we’re going to be running out of oil soon.
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11th July 2017
The device in question was initially believed to be a Google Home, but Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office then said it was an Alexa-enabled gadget.
“In the 911 recording the victim can be heard yelling ‘Alexa, call 911’”, it says.
We have the technology.
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11th July 2017
The Kalpakkam reactor will generate 500 megawatts of electricity by using the element thorium instead of uranium, which is rare in India. The only other commercial fast breeder nuclear reactor in history is located in Russia, but this uses uranium instead of thorium. Fast breeder reactors would revolutionize nuclear power because they’re capable of generating more nuclear fuel then they consume while generating less nuclear waste.
“[F]ast reactors can help extract up to 70 percent more energy than traditional reactors and are safer than traditional reactors while reducing long lived radioactive waste by several fold,” Yukiya Amano, Director General of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the Times of India.
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8th July 2017
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5th July 2017
There are a small set of facts here, but they have profound implications for how we live our lives.
- There’s a new Kickstarter project called Amabrush.
- It’s shaped like a mouthguard, and it brushes your teeth all at once in 10 seconds.
- A removable handle makes the whole setup look like an adult pacifier. It’s what vibrates the “brush” mouthpiece and dispenses the toothpaste.
- The handle uses proprietary toothpaste capsules.
Notice what’s missing? That’s right, there’s no app. How am I supposed to set up an IFTTT recipe to tweet @ my mom every time I brush?
Does it do flossing? I have to pacify the dentist.
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5th July 2017
I can see the Democrats doing that with Hillary.
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5th July 2017
And will promptly fill it with a communist.
Martha Minow, Harvard Law’s outgoing dean, offered praise for Scalia and for the Considine Family Foundation
“Justice Scalia had a singular impact on statutory analysis and legal thought. He also had a great love of learning, so it is especially meaningful that he will be honored with a professorship that will provide enduring support for teaching and scholarship at the Law School and beyond,” Minow said, according to Harvard Law Today.
Liberals will tell any lie in order to get their hands on other people’s money. But you knew that.
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5th July 2017
The Wall is effective even when it doesn’t exist.
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5th July 2017
Now that’s comedy.
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5th July 2017
I must confess that I’ve always thought sit-ups were bullshit and now I have SCIENCE to back me up.
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3rd July 2017
The innovative elevated bus expected to revolutionize public transportation in China is officially dead.
…
“The invention of the Transit Elevated Bus is considered a revolution for environmental-friendly public transportation,” TEB Technology wrote on its website, which is no longer active. Authorities in Qinhuangdao have torn down the test track, hauled off the bus, and detained 32 people for illegal fundraising through questionable peer-to-peer transactions, reports the Financial Times.
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1st July 2017
One curious aspect of American political geography is that variables that predict partisanship at the individual level often do a poor job of predicting the partisan balance at the state level. African Americans are among the most reliable Democratic voters, but the region with the largest African American population (the Deep South) is reliably Republican; wealthy Americans are, on average, more likely to vote Republican, yet the Northeast, where so much of the nation’s wealth is concentrated, consistently gives its Electoral College votes to Democrats. This pattern makes it difficult to find variables that accurately predict whether a state falls in the Red or Blue camp. One of the few such variables is the median age at first marriage.
,,,
One such variable, which government policy can influence, is home affordability. To my knowledge, the blogger Steve Sailer was the first person to make the connection between home values, marriage rates, and vote choice. However, the existing scholarly literature supported this hypothesis.
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28th June 2017
The ultimate goal of a lumpectomy is to remove all the cancerous tissue from a person’s breast while saving as much of the healthy tissue as possible. But that’s even harder than it sounds. Without the ability to look at tissue under a microscope, it’s currently impossible to tell whether the area surrounding a tumor contains cancerous cells or not. Surgeons deal with this by taking samples from around the removed tumor, waiting for a pathologist to look at them, and performing additional surgeries if they turn out to be cancerous. This is not only time consuming and expensive, but also extremely stressful for the patient.
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25th June 2017
Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.
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24th June 2017
America’s comms regulator, the FCC, will fine a Florida Man $120m for flooding the country with nearly 100 million robocalls in three months.
The watchdog said that Adrian Abramovich of Miami ran a scheme that made more than a million calls a day – each with its caller ID information altered – with the aim of selling travel packages and condo timeshares.
The calls, 96 million of them in total, were presented on caller ID as coming from travel companies like TripAdvisor, Expedia, Hilton, and Marriott. When answered, they played a recorded message and, if the user prompted for more information, they were connected to an overseas call center, where the operator would try to sell a vacation package.
…
The spoofed numbers are a violation of the FCC’s Truth in Caller ID Act of 2009, opening the door to the massive nine-figure penalty. Abramovich was also cited for violating the Telephone Consumer Protection Act and federal wire fraud laws.
Waterboarded. I want him waterboarded as well. Once for each call.
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23rd June 2017
Just in case you were wondering. I know I was.
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21st June 2017
We have the technology.
I don’t know of anybody outside of the military who makes a bed. Maybe maids in a hotel.
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21st June 2017
This is actually pretty clever.
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20th June 2017
If you like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you will like.
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20th June 2017
I find that vaguely disturbing.
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18th June 2017
A number of casualties have been reported after a van plowed through a group of pedestrians in London Sunday.
One person has been arrested after a vehicle struck pedestrians in Seven Sister Road in north London. The incident took place outside a mosque, according to Mail Online.
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17th June 2017
Microsoft has quietly unveiled a new “Modern Keyboard” with an integrated fingerprint reader. The Modern Keyboard is the successor to the Surface Keyboard, and looks identical. The only changes are a new fingerprint reader and the ability to use a cable for a wired connection instead of wireless.
Microsoft has integrated the fingerprint reader into the second Windows key on the right-hand side of the keyboard, and it can be used to log into Windows 10 or websites using Windows Hello. The new Modern Keyboard will work with Windows 10, MacOS, and the latest versions of Android.
Yet another thing to hack.
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17th June 2017
Nobuyoshi Yamasaki’s venture TBM Co. makes paper from limestone, a rock it proclaims is “almost inexhaustible.” He says it’s the answer to concerns over deforestation and water shortages, with world demand for paper set to double by 2030.
I can see it now: Save The Rocks!
TBM’s paper is so durable and moisture-resistant it can be written on underwater, and has just signed a deal to make menus for more than 400 sushi restaurants run by Sushiro Global Holdings Ltd. across Japan.
Yet another reason not to eat sushi.
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16th June 2017
The soles are “waterproof, cut-proof and slip-proof”, according to the manufacturers Nakefit. Costing £26 for ten pairs, the flip-flop alternatives look to save the scorching feet of holidaymakers world over.
Wearers can also be sure of attracting attention in the eye-catching elastic soles available in bright pink, blue and black.
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16th June 2017
Watch it, if you dare….
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16th June 2017
Jeff Bezos: “Alexa, buy me something from Whole Foods.”
Alexa: “Sure, Jeff. Buying Whole Foods now.”
Jeff Bezos: “WHA- ahh go ahead.”
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16th June 2017
It’s been nearly 12 years, or 4,253 days, since the last major hurricane made landfall in the U.S., which is the longest such period on record.
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On a global level, accumulated cyclone energy is at its lowest level on record, according to Colorado State University hurricane expert Philip Klotzbach.
How about that Global Warming, hey?
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15th June 2017
Good. They’d just screw it up.
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15th June 2017
I always wondered how he got that way.
Posted in News You Can Use. | Comments Off on Police Seize Nearly $1 Million In Meth-Infused Lollipops Shaped Like Yoda
15th June 2017
Saw that coming.
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14th June 2017
Polycarbonates from sugars offer a more sustainable alternative to traditional polycarbonate from BPA, however the process uses a highly toxic chemical called phosgene. Now scientists at Bath have developed a much safer, even more sustainable alternative which adds carbon dioxide to the sugar at low pressures and at room temperature.
Get rid of that ugly fat and save the planet at the same time. What’s not to like?
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14th June 2017
Read it. And watch the video.
ON A CLEAR, sunny day at a vineyard in the northern California town of Ukiah, a most unusual train chugs through a field of barely budding syrah grapes. Well, it doesn’t chug so much as whoosh because this train—actually, a one-sixth scale train—doesn’t rely upon a diesel engine or electricity to get around. It uses vacuum power and heavy duty magnets.
The 89-year-old man who built it believes it could change how the world moves.
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13th June 2017
In a classic tale of science taking twists and turns before coming to a conclusion, two teams of researchers–one a group of theorists and the other, experimentalists–have worked together to solve a chemical puzzle that may one day lead to cleaner air and renewable fuel. The scientists’ ultimate goal is to convert harmful carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere into beneficial liquid fuel. Currently, it is possible to make fuels out of CO2–plants do it all the time–but researchers are still trying to crack the problem of artificially producing the fuels at large enough scales to be useful.
In a new study published the week of June 12 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), researchers report the mechanics behind an early key step in artificially activating CO2 so that it can rearrange itself to become the liquid fuel ethanol. Theorists at Caltech used quantum mechanics to predict what was happening at atomic scales, while experimentalists at the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (Berkeley Lab) used X-ray studies to analyze the steps of the chemical reaction.
We have the technology … maybe.
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10th June 2017
Bali’s famous rice terraces, when seen from above, look like colorful mosaics because some farmers plant synchronously, while others plant at different times. The resulting fractal patterns are rare for man-made systems and lead to optimal harvests without global planning.
We have the technology.
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9th June 2017
I am not making this up (although they might be).
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9th June 2017
A Japanese company claims to have developed a new coal-burning technology that boosts coal’s energy efficiency by 30 percent while reducing its carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 40 percent. Unlike conventional plants, which burn coal at around 700 degrees Celsius, the Osaka Coolgen plant roasts coal at more than 1,300 degrees Celsius while simultaneously blowing oxygen over it to convert the solid fuel into a gas. The plant also uses exhaust heat to generate power, and it extracts hydrogen from the gas to use in fuel cells to create electricity.
Using conventional technologies, burning enough bituminous coal to produce 1 million British Thermal Units (BTUs) emits 205 pounds of carbon dioxide. If the new technology reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 40 percent, that would cut emissions to roughly 123 pounds. Getting the same energy yield from natural gas emits 117 pounds of carbon dioxide.
Once again, technology comes through to demonstrate that the drastic cuts promoted by the ec0-Nazis are not the only way forward.
In general, history has consistently shown that negative externalities (such as pollution) are only a transitory phase until technology catches up — for which the externality-creating activities are a necessary step.
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5th June 2017
Apple announced Monday that it would be adding a new feature to its Safari browser that will block any video content that opens and starts automatically.
Go, Apple.
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3rd June 2017
BioImplant™ is the world’s first – and only – custom milled, fully ceramic, truly anatomic, root analogue, immediate dental implant which can be placed without surgery. BioImplant™ is not a simple copy of the root, but provides an individual surface based on the “Principle of Differentiated Osseointegration”(patented), with the roughest surface (patented) in the industry, delivering enhanced osseointegration.
Do not go through life with deficient osseointegration. Just don’t.
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30th May 2017
The first ever genetic analysis of mummies found that ancient Egyptian kings were more closely related to West Asians than Africans, according to a study published Tuesday by scientists at the Max Planck Institute.
This is going to upset the Black Lives Matter crowd.
The research found that ancient Egyptians were most closely related to Neolithic Levantine, Anatolian and European populations. The mummies tested did not share strong genetic links to Africa often found in modern Egyptians.
Modern Egyptians are a mixed bag brought in by Muslim slave traders over the centuries. This ought to come as no surprise to anyone. They call themselves ‘Arabs’, not ‘Egyptians’; the native Egyptians are the Copts (and Christian).
It’s further evidence that ancient Egyptians were genetically different than modern day residents. Scientists largely agree that ancient Egyptians were indigenous to the Nile area, but a vocal minority of “Afrocentric” scholars claim that the area’s ancient population was entirely African.
Those scholars claim ancient Egyptians were similar to Sub-Saharan African cultures, arguing that famous Egyptian rulers, including Tutankhamun and Cleopatra, were more African than Caucasian.
Who are you going to believe, Black Lives Matter or your lyin’ DNA?
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30th May 2017
From the Good Old Days when men were men and women could cook.
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30th May 2017
Is this a great country, or what?
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28th May 2017
Scientists are worried that in 100 years, the effect on global temperature might almost be measurable, if the USA pulls out of the Paris Agreement.
Time to panic.
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27th May 2017
If you’re interested in that sort of thing.
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27th May 2017
I’ll bet you didn’t know that.
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26th May 2017
I’ve always had my suspicions about the Welsh.
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26th May 2017
Read it. Well, part of it, anyway.
Hey, that’s one way to get Newt out of Washington.
Seems rather extreme, though.
Maybe he doesn’t consider the Vatican all that important. Can’t imagine where he got that idea.
Oh, wait, maybe I can.
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25th May 2017
An American company has launched a rocket into space from New Zealand, the first from a private launch facility.
Rocket Lab’s 17m-long (56ft) Electron lifted off from the Mahia Peninsula, in the North Island, the firm said.
The test flight was the first launch from New Zealand and is a major first step in an emerging market: launching cheap disposable rockets to carry small satellites and other payloads.
The company plans to start frequent commercial launches later this year.
Space — it’s not just for governments any more.
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