2018-05-25

Fwd: Self driving uber

According to the NTSB report, the vehicle first registered Elaine Herzberg on lidar six secondsbefore the crash — at the speed it was traveling, that puts first contact at about 378 feet away. She was first identified as an unknown object, then a vehicle, then a bicycle, over the next few seconds (it isn't stated when these classifications took place exactly

Then, 1.3 seconds before impact, which is to say about 80 feet away, the Uber system decided that an emergency braking procedure would be necessary to avoid Herzberg. But it did not hit the brakes, as the emergency braking system had been disabled, nor did it warn the driver because, again, it couldn't


2018-05-23

Fwd: The US and its court's have gone insane

Trump blocking Twitter users violates Constitution, judge rules

U.S. District Court Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that Twitter serves as a 'designated public forum' and is protected under the plaintiffs' First Amendment rights

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/05/23/trump-block-twitter-users-ruling-604462

2018-05-22

Full Star Wars Movie Schedule and Release Date Calendar

Fwd: Sweden

Cashier-less Amazon Go Store

Tariff cut

China Makes Massive Cut to Car Tariffs After Truce With Trump

Tariff reduced to 15% from 25%, boosting automaker shares
Expected shift comes after truce in the U.S.-China trade war

The Finance Ministry said Tuesday the levy will be lowered effective July 1 from the current 25 percent that has been in place for more than a decade,

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-05-22/china-is-said-to-cut-car-import-duty-in-boost-for-lexus-bmw

2018-05-18

Fwd: World's Strongest Bio-Material Outperforms Steel and Spider Silk

The scientists started with commercially available cellulose nanofibres that are just 2 to 5 nanometres in diameter and up to 700 nanometres long. A nanometre (nm) is a millionth of a millimetre. The nanofibres were suspended in water and fed into a small channel, just one millimetre wide and milled in steel. Through two pairs of perpendicular inflows additional deionized water and water with a low pH-value entered the channel from the sides, squeezing the stream of nanofibres together and accelerating it.

This process, called hydrodynamic focussing, helped to align the nanofibres in the right direction as well as their self-organisation into a well-packed macroscopic thread. No glue or any other component is needed, the nanofibres assemble into a tight thread held together by supramolecular forces between the nanofibres, for example electrostatic and Van der Waals forces

Measurements showed a tensile stiffness of 86 gigapascals (GPa) for the material and a tensile strength of 1.57 GPa. "The bio-based nanocellulose fibres fabricated here are 8 times stiffer and have strengths higher than natural dragline spider silk fibres," says Söderberg. "If you are looking for a bio-based material, there is nothing quite like it. And it is also stronger than steel and any other metal or alloy as well as glass fibres and most other synthetic materials." The artificial cellulose fibres can be woven into a fabric to create materials for various applications. The researchers estimate that the production costs of the new material can compete with those of strong synthetic fabrics

https://www.rdmag.com/news/2018/05/worlds-strongest-bio-material-outperforms-steel-and-spider-silk