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Apr 8, 2017

The Military is Prepping for Space Wars

Posted by in categories: alien life, military

Excellent idea! but we need to point the weapons away from earth to shoot down Asteroids / bad aliens and form The Earth Defense Directorate. (The Earth Defense Directorate is the ficticious unified military command of the planet Earth in the 25th century. (Buck Rogers) It encompasses both ground forces (who wear white uniforms and use traditional army ranks, such as Major and Colonel) and a naval force which operates Earth’s starships (such as the Searcher) and whose officers and crew wear blue uniforms and have naval ranks.)


The U.S. military is preparing for IRL Star Wars.

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Apr 8, 2017

Climate change to increase SEVERE plane turbulence

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

Reminds me of the 2004 film “The Day after Tomorrow” : in which Jack Hall, paleoclimatologist, must make a daring trek across America to reach his son, trapped in the cross-hairs of a sudden international storm which plunges the planet into a new Ice Age.


CLIMATE CHANGE will increase severe plane turbulence by 149 per cent, according to scientists.

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Apr 7, 2017

This Is the World’s First 3D-Printed “Supercar”

Posted by in categories: 3D printing, sustainability, transportation

Divergent 3D has shown off the Blade Supercar, the first-ever 3D-printed sports car capable of reaching 97 km (60 mph) in 2.2 seconds. The car is made from a more sustainable approach to materials that, if widely adopted, could help alleviate the carbon footprint of automakers.

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Apr 7, 2017

In Defense of Pet Causes — By Ian David Moss | Stanford Social Innovation Review

Posted by in category: innovation

“The effective altruism movement could be more effective if it encouraged adoption of its principles within causes and geographies, not just across them.”

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Apr 7, 2017

Britons expected to send 235m items of clothing to landfill this spring — By Rebecca Smithers | The Guardian

Posted by in category: environmental

“Study finds three-quarters of consumers throw away rather than recycle or donate unwanted garments”

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Apr 7, 2017

Arctic Ocean In Serious Danger As Sea Ice Melts, Needs Better Protection — By Juliana Rose Pignataro | International Business Times

Posted by in category: environmental

“Rapidly melting sea ice in the Arctic Ocean has opened up previously inaccessible areas to industrial fishing, oil exploration, shipping and other human activities.”

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Apr 7, 2017

Disaster Assistance Handbook | Third Edition, March 2017 | The American Institute of Architects (AIA)

Posted by in categories: architecture, engineering, environmental, governance

“This handbook will:

  • help architects better understand their role and how to prepare for and respond to disasters
  • prepare AIA Component staff to engage and coordinate their architect members and provide community discourse and assistance
  • explain how built environment professionals can work with architects and the community on disaster response and preparedness efforts
  • inform municipal governments of the unique ways architects assist the public and their clients in mitigating, responding to and recovering from disasters”

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Apr 7, 2017

In search of sustainable style — By Luke Leitch | 1843 Magazine

Posted by in categories: business, energy, environmental, sustainability

“The clothing industry is said to be the world’s second most polluting business, runner-up in grubbiness to oil.”

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Apr 7, 2017

Ride-hailing apps may help to curb drunk driving

Posted by in category: transportation

GUN violence in America gets plenty of attention, but cars kill more. Around 40,000 people a year die on American roads, more than all fatalities caused by firearms (of which two-thirds are suicides, not homicides). The death rate in America, around 12 people per 100,000, is more than twice that of western Europe. The grim toll of motor-vehicle deaths is widely seen as unavoidable, given that the United States is a large, sprawling country primarily designed around the automobile. However, around a third of these deaths involved drunk drivers, suggesting that there is, in fact, substantial room for improvement. And fortunately, it appears that the advent of ride-hailing apps like Uber and Lyft has had a welcome impact on road safety.

According to a working paper by Jessica Lynn Peck of the Graduate Centre at the City University of New York, the arrival of Uber to New York City may have helped reduce alcohol-related traffic accidents by 25–35%. Uber was first introduced in the city in May 2011, but did not spread through the rest of the state. The study uses this as a natural experiment. To control for factors unrelated to Uber’s launch such as adverse weather conditions, Ms Peck compares accident rates in each of New York’s five boroughs to those in the counties where Uber was not present, picking those that had the most similar population density and pre-2011 drunk-driving rate.

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Apr 7, 2017

Artificial intelligence beats humans in poker for first time

Posted by in categories: entertainment, robotics/AI

Libratus, an AI built by Carnegie Mellon University (CMU), racked up over $US1.7 million ($2.2 million) worth of chips against four of the top professional poker players in the world in a 20-day marathon poker tournament that ended in Philadelphia on Tuesday…

While machines have beaten humans over the last two decade in chess, checkers, and most recently in the ancient game of Go, Libratus’ victory is significant because poker is an imperfect information game — similar to the real world where not all problems are laid out.

The difficulty in figuring out human behaviour is one of the main reasons why poker was considered immune to machines.

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