Stainless steel animals by Australian sculptor Georgie Seccull.
Update on the brain-machine interface being developed by Elon Musk's Neuralink.
Slate on the political results of riots against police violence.
The Sarcophagi of the Termessian Necropolis
NY Times story on re-introducing jaguars to a national park in Argentina.
Review of a new book about London's Mecklenburgh Square between the wars, when it was home to female intellectuals like HD and Dorothy Sayers.
Besides being horrible for individual mental health, the pandemic and the lockdown are playing havoc with a lot of relationships. (NY Times)
Toyota's flying car is flying.
Eight of the 15 Hurricane Laura -related deaths confirmed by the Louisiana Department of Health are attributed to carbon monoxide poisoning from portable generators
Nazi plans for Norway included rebuilding cities and installing a network of maternity centers to encourage Aryan baby making.
Big utilities are building power plants that can run on either natural gas or hydrogen.
Toyota's flying car is flying.
ReplyDeleteAs the article suggests, it's essentially an upscaled quadcopter drone, which makes a great deal of sense, and amusingly enough sort of validates the old idealistic notions of autogyros being the future of personal "flying car" technology.
That said, I forsee three major problems.
1) Legal issues: we already don't quite know what to do about drones, imagine how much thornier it will get with these things.
2) Cost: unless these can be produced and sold cheaply, they're going to remain gimmicks for the rich.
3) Idiots: people already chaos enough destruction and mayhem with their reckless use of automobiles, it'll be far worse once the third dimension is added. The sheer number of morons who will absolutely try to park on the roofs of grocery stores and whatnot makes my head hurt just thinking about it - and that's a MILD possibility.