Tom Elwood -best of the internet.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

What's the greenest way to travel?

A bus is pretty green for short-medium distances, while a plane is best for long distances (especially if it's a direct flight and there's not a busy hub with excessive taxiing)

What happens when a Tesla reaches 100,000 miles?

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/what-happens-when-tesla-reaches-100000-miles-150000-miles

Minimal problems compared to other cars.

"...about 5 -7% battery degradation."
"...As for the drive units, they are warrantied for infinite miles or 8 years. The earlier designed units had steel ball bearings on the rotor shafts, that caused come milling noise, due to microscopic pitting. They came up with a new design using ceramic bearings and the drive units (motor, invertor, gear reduction box) are designed to last a million miles."
"...Unlike most auto companies, Tesla reduces its parts costs as its volumes increase and their own costs go down. For example the center CPU/17" HD display used to be $4,000 and is now $1,200."
"I have 93,000 on my 2015 85D model S, Other than a set of new tires, it has not required anything. It has lost around 3% battery life."

Police Unlock AI's Potential to Monitor, Surveil and Solve Crimes | WSJ

https://youtu.be/H_fyQCeBaeM

These systems are already in place, able to track a person's movements before a crime, able to search through reams of footage for a specific object, and capable of self-learning what constitutes unusual activity at a location.

Japan Points the Way to Better Safety

https://youtu.be/etUejYb48BE

Japan train drivers point and call out safety checks in a proven method to reduce errors.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

The Mighty Translatotron

https://youtu.be/38ZXwJj6j8k

It seems like there's an incredible amount of computation going on here. Deciphering speech to meaning to translated speech using the original speaker's voice. Incredible.

Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch.

Your browser is sending thousands of cookies to advertisers, not unlike surveillance.

"it's much easier to switch to a browser not owned by an advertising company."

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-to-switch/

Friday, June 21, 2019

Sought-after Silicon Valley School abhors tech.

https://youtu.be/eAZ-fuWdz8M

At 3:13, she says "It's become a real sign of status and privilege to be tech-free. Children from low-income families spend on average about 3 hours more per day on their phones."

Can Kids Navigate Their Way Across London Alone? | ITV

https://youtu.be/AqI0lAb8RQg

Endearingly cute.

Where snow is. And odd snow formations.

"About 98% of snow on Earth is in the northern hemisphere."

http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/sastrugi-penitentes-and-sun-cups-10-weird-things-you-don-t-know-about-snow

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

How much honey?

"An average worker bee makes only about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime."
http://www.goldenblossomhoney.com/education_bees.php

https://www.apexbeecompany.com/honey-bee-facts/

1 tsp
"A single bee can produce 1 tablespoon of honey in its lifetime. 683 bees fly roughly 32,550 miles to gather 5.93 lbs of nectar from about 1,185,000 flowers in order to make one 9.5 oz. jar of Big Island Bees’ honey!"
https://bigislandbees.com/blogs/bee-blog/14137349-interesting-bee-honey-facts

Actual ICD codes (medical billing codes) for really bizarre things

Monday, June 17, 2019

Everything About Grain Bins - Smarter Every Day

https://youtu.be/ywBV6M7VOFU

Grain bins are built without cranes or heavy equipment by building from the top down and jacking it up hydraulically.

Grain is held at the optimum humidity (too wet promotes mold, too dry decreases profit when it's sold by weight) by fans blowing up from below, drying an incrementally ascending layer of beans gradually. What he doesn't explain is the over-drying of lower layers while attempting to dry upper layers. It's probably best to harvest close to the optimal moisture level so you don't have to do much active drying.

The farmer also mentions that he will increase the humidity by blowing the fans on humid days, if need be.

You've been training AI for free

https://youtu.be/1-cZkc7gyfI

Think of all those times you think you're proving you're a human, on a website, when in fact in the background you may also be teaching an AI system to recognize things better, as seen at 3:00.

Sunday, June 16, 2019

How environmentally friendly is your cruise holiday? | The Guardian - sustainable business

This article says that cruise ships emit a lot of harmful emissions, but it doesn't mention the amount of fuel per passenger compared to other means of travel.
"...these giant floating playgrounds leave an enormous environmental impact...Friends of the Earth’s (FOE) report card, cruise line companies are mostly doing a poor job at reducing air and water pollution. Foe’s report card, the sixth from the US nonprofit, assigned 17 cruise lines and their 171 ships a grade between A and F in four categories: sewage treatment, water quality, air pollution reduction and transparency...FOE found much of its information for the report online, Keever said. The sources included contractors who have installed waste treatment technologies and air purifiers on the ships.
"...companies have made the biggest improvement in reducing their air pollution by using newer technology. They made that switch in response to a recent international regulation, which requires all ships sailing within 200 nautical miles of the US and Canada coastline to use cleaner fuel or install technology that reduces the sulfur content in emissions...
"...Many cruise lines are using outdated systems to filter their sewage, resulting in minimally treated sewage being dumped into the water..

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jun/12/cruise-ships-environment-ocean-liners-emissions-waste

This article says that cruise ships are worse per passenger mile than long-haul flights.

""According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere)."
"Quite aside from the carbon emissions, there is a high cost to the ocean. The cruise industry has a poor record in terms of waste water treatment and disposal...
"a rough initial calculation for the Queen Elizabeth II. Cunard says the ship burns 433 tonnes of fuel a day, and takes six days to travel from Southampton to New York. If the ship is full, every passenger with a return ticket consumes 2.9 tonnes. A tonne of shipping fuel contains 0.85 tonnes of carbon, which produces 3.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide when it is burnt. Every passenger is responsible for 9.1 tonnes of emissions. Travelling to New York and back on the QEII, in other words, uses almost 7.6 times as much carbon as making the same journey by plane.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Using restaurant grease to "supercharge" biogas production in wastewater treatment facilities.

At 4:47, Supercharging the biogas production, reducing the plant's energy costs 90% from half a million down to $50,000 a year, at 5:20.