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Remember, engineering decisions have consequences. Even if you're not building bridges, take heed of the processes that did not result in a successful outcome.
This one is potentially big enough news that you've probably read it already: air and electricity goes in, gasoline comes out at $4/gallon. The full paper is ungated. There are some concerns about the research being funded by oil companies but the fact that there's an actual demo plant and not just some diagrams behind it is impressive. Stick one of these next to every solar farm in the middle of nowhere and get a global logistics and delivery system for free!
English doesn't borrow from other languages, it famously pursues other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary. But what if we had stuck with Germanic a bit more thoroughly? (via)
I lost the page where I got this phrasing but the next big change might be the costs of custom manufacturing falling to meet the costs of bulk manufacturing. Like these custom ASICs for $100.
From the 'background-chyron-in-apocalyptic-movie' department:
AIs: detecting diabetes. Great, now when the robots take over it'll be to ban soda so they don't have to work as hard. Or mandate soda if we get the utility curve wrong I guess.
VAMPIRE DRONES. Ok, fine, blood can tolerate infinte G loads as long as the container doesn't break so it's a perfect candidate for cheap and easy air-dropping. I'm still calling them vampire drones though.
I'm sure there's more complexity here but when you're an information security professional and your two most recent jobs are Equifax and Panera, maybe you should rethink things?