It has taken over and corrupted professional engineering and science societies.
Category Archives: Business
Sexbots
The technology continues to improve:
Realbotix has recently fitted its Harmony models with a new “vaginal sensor”. This enables the machine to respond to tempo and pressure before producing its own response. Brick previously told us: “Now they have developed a vaginal sensor for inserts they put in to the doll, the robotic body, and now as you thrust into the sensor when you’re having sex the sensor is a reactive strip, that sends the stimuli to the brain, to tell it how deep you’re going, how hard you’re going and how hard you’re thrusting. “Now you have all of that information coming into the AI and it’s calculating and responding appropriately.”
What could possibly go wrong with that?
Drivers’ Licenses
Should they even be issued by the states? I’d prefer they not, but they are a convenient form of ID.
Aging Brain Decline
Thwarting a protein reverses it in aged mice:
The team used two techniques to block VCAM1: One of them genetically deleted the protein from the mice’s brains. Another injected an antibody that binds to it to stop anything else attaching. Both methods prevented signs of brain aging in young mice infused with old plasma and reversed existing markers in elderly mice brains. The researchers then gave the mice learning and memory tests. In one, which involves remembering which of several holes is safe to drop through, treated elderly mice performed as well as youngsters once fully trained. “The aged mice looked like they were young again in terms of their ability to learn and remember,” Dubal says. “It’s remarkable.”
Faster, please.
Homeschoolers
Probably. It’s not hard in today’s society, given the competition.
A New Space-Business Newsletter
Tim Fernholz is going to start a weekly one. Sign up here if you want it.
Fake News
Funny thing; it turns out to be a bad business strategy.
But if CNN goes out of business, what will we be forced to watch at airports?
Advanced Nuclear Reactors
Will they be here sooner than many think?
I hope so. Faster, please.
Back To The Moon, This Time To Stay
My op-ed on one-way trips to the Moon is up at Space News.
[Update a few minutes later]
Related: Can Trump put people on the moon by 2024? It seems unlikely under current political circumstances.
Design Regulations
How they ruined American cars:
Car homogenization has become something of an Internet meme. It turns out that all new cars more or less look alike. I had begun to notice this over the years and I thought I was just imagining things. But people playing with Photoshop have found that you can mix and match car grills and make a BMW look just like a Kia and a Hyundai look just like a Honda. It’s all one car. Truly, this cries out for explanation. So I was happy to see a video made by CNET that gives five reasons: mandates for big fronts to protect pedestrians, mandates that require low tops for fuel economy, a big rear to balance out the big fronts, tiny windows resulting from safety regulations that end up actually making the car less safe, and high belt lines due to the other regs. In other words, single-minded concern for testable “safety” and the environment has wrecked the entire car aesthetic. And that’s only the beginning. Car and Driver puts this as plainly as can be: “In our hyperregulated modern world, the government dictates nearly every aspect of car design, from the size and color of the exterior lighting elements to how sharp the creases stamped into sheetmetal can be.” You are welcome to read an engineer’s account of what it is like to design an American car. Nothing you think, much less dream, really matters. The regulations drive the whole process. He explains that the Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards with hundreds of regulations – really a massive central plan – dictate every detail and have utterly ruined the look and feel of American cars. There is no way out, so long as the regulatory state is in charge.
Gee, someone should write a book about this sort of thing.