Wirecutter has a new review of the latest in robot vacuums. You can spend a lot on a fancy one, but the good news is you can get a very functional one for around $200.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-robot-vacuum/
There is something weird about this post, and try as I might I can’t figure out what it is.
here are a couple internet startups of note in the shared parking and household/business cleaning arenas. Certainly these have all been done before, but there is room for improved reliability and payment options.
https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/parking-network-airgarage-wins-phoenix-smart-city-hack/508031/
https://www.axios.com/cleaning-is-a-profitable-business-for-these-two-startups-2502432673.html
Wired has an article on the status of new supersonic travel projects.
Boom Technology, based in Denver, Colorado, is building a jet that could fly around 50 people at Mach 2.2, or 1,452 mph, more than twice the speed of sound. Nevada’s Aerion Corporation is making a pointy-nosed business jet, good for Mach 1.5. Both want to make their first deliveries by 2023.
NASA and Lockheed Martin are working on a Low Boom Flight Demonstrator to show that the thundering sound that shadowed the Concorde—and prevented flights over land—can be minimized. That plane may one day get an X designation, labeling it as the latest in a long line of experimental aircraft. It’s a fitting callback to the very first X plane.
This Intercept article talks about an anti-monopoly message some Democrats are trying out. I like the idea in principle. Productivity growth has been stuck in second gear for close to 50 years now, and yet we hear about record corporate profits and stock market returns. These things happen at the same time only if big business is able to make unfair profits by rigging the system unfairly in its favor. That way their profits can grow while wages and innovation both stagnate. This is not a recipe for long-term growth for the economy as a whole.
Big business has been able to hijack the “free market” message for a long time now. Of course, a truly free market is about a truly level playing field for businesses of all sizes, and one where innovators can compete with established big businesses. I would argue that it is also about an economy where entrepreneurs and small business owners can take chances and innovate against a backdrop of health care, childcare and retirement security. But maybe that should not be the focus – one appeal of an anti-monopoly message could be to give the devisive social issues a rest for awhile and focus on inclusive economic growth.
The author gives several examples of monopoly power hurting both rural and urban interests:
FRERICK TALKS ABOUT running a Teddy Roosevelt-style campaign. In rural towns in southwest Iowa, he has challenged the merger between Monsanto and Bayer, which would give two companies (the other is Dow/DuPont) control of 75 percent of the U.S. corn seed supply. Add the company created by the merger of ChemChina and Syngenta, and three companies would sell 80 percent of all seeds. Farmers have no ability to bargain for corn seed, which has doubled in price over the last decade, even while crop prices have dropped…
But Frerick has a broader case to make on monopolies. In urban areas of Des Moines with less connection to farm life, he’s talked about cable companies who take hours to answer customer service calls, or shrinking local newspapers due to Facebook and Google’s capturing of prized eyeballs for advertisers. In older communities, he’s condemned pharmaceutical companies that funnel patients to expensive drugs with little or no competition. A separate 2016 paper Frerick wrote while at Treasury explained how drug companies use corporate charity as a profit center, by paying discounts for individuals so insurers and government plans have to pay exorbitant rates for medications…
Most hospitals buy supplies in bulk through group purchasing organizations (GPOs) which carry a “90/10” requirement. Hospitals must continue to purchase at least 90 percent of their supplies from inside the GPO to qualify for discounts and avoid millions of dollars in penalties. This contractual obligation fortified BD’s monopoly, despite selling a more dangerous, more expensive product.
Most frightening stories:
Most hopeful stories:
Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:
Most frightening stories:
Most hopeful stories:
Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:
As I am writing these words on Labor Day, the news is about a North Korean nuclear test. In a strange coincidence, I happened to see both the USS New Jersey, which was involved in the Korean War, and the Korean War Memorial here in Philadelphia yesterday while waiting for a bus (which never came). That war caused a lot of pain and suffering on all sides. It would be a tragedy to let it flair up again, and an even bigger tragedy if nuclear weapons were to be involved.
The OECD publishes a Science, Technology and Innovation Outlook every two years. They name “ten key emerging technology trends”:
This report has a little bit of everything. They talk about the “water-food-energy” nexus and how it is likely to interact with new technologies, climate change, the drop in public research funding and increasing importance of non-state actors, and cities as engines of innovation.
The last part of the report talks about the future of research, research funding, private vs. public research, and research policies. One term that was new to me was Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) which attempts to manage risks and ethical concerns of new technologies.
This article from Engineering News Record tries to answer the question of what the tech revolution means for the engineering, architecture, and construction industry.
As the world around us becomes more technology-driven and sophisticated, what will that mean for A/E/C? It’s been well-documented that the construction industry productivity gains in the past 40 years have been paltry, and that’s perhaps stating it lightly. So how can we go to IBM’s Watson for legal advice (yup, Watson will put a lot of lawyers out of business), get advanced health screening on our smartphones, obtain a master’s degree on our tablet computer, and then turn around and tolerate 20th century design and construction approaches? How can we allow technology companies to create massively personalized customer experiences, and then deal with a lack of communication and transparency on our construction projects, or dumb models (even worse, 2-D printed drawings!) with meaningless data?
We can’t. Our clients won’t. We need to embrace technology, get comfy with data, and revolutionize the client experience.
I figured the article would elaborate on the three suggestions above, but it doesn’t, really. I think our industry lags behind for a few reasons. First, we design and build things that last a long time, like highways, sewer pipes, buildings, etc. Even if the level of knowledge and technology relating to these things is increasing, they don’t get replaced very often. When individual little pieces of our transportation and water systems break, we replace them with similar or incrementally improved pieces, because it doesn’t seem to make sense to replace the whole system with something radically different all at once, even if that could be the right long-term answer. University curricula, professional groups, labor groups, institutions such as utilities and authorities, licensing and credentialing programs, and their associated lobbyists arise to resist change and perpetuate the status quo. Engineers and architects aren’t really trained in long-term planning or system thinking. There is a planning field that sort of is, but we constantly beat them down and encourage them to conform to short-term thinking so they can remain employed in our industry. In private consulting we talk about serving our clients all day long, but there is really a revolving door between private industry and public clients and not a whole lot of room for new and revolutionary thinking to enter the mix. Truly disruptive technology like self-driving cars leading to drastically reduced demand for private vehicle ownership, and drastically reduced demand for paved surfaces, could eventually push out some of the old thinking. It’s hard to imagine the water or environmental equivalent, but maybe a truly revolutionary toilet that doesn’t require a sewer system at all could be an example. Truly revolutionary building materials like cheap carbon fiber could be another.
I love the idea of charging my phone and other small devices with solar power. So, here is a Wirecutter article on doing that. One thing I learned is that you generally want to pair your solar panel with a battery so you can charge the battery during the day, then charge your phone all night. Otherwise you would have to leave your phone sitting near the charger for several hours during the day, which is probably exactly when you want to be using your phone for other things.
Most frightening stories:
Most hopeful stories:
Most interesting stories, that were not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps were a mixture of both:
Some combination of the Trump news, the things I see every day on the streets of Philadelphia, and events affecting friends and family led me to question this month whether the United States is really a society in decline. Actually, I don’t question that, I think the answer is yes. But the more important question is whether it is a temporary or permanent decline, and what it means for the rest of the globe. I am leaning slightly toward permanent, but maybe I will feel better next month, we’ll see. Maybe I need to get out of this country for a little while. Last time I did that I felt that the social glue holding Americans together is actually pretty strong compared to most other places, even if our government and its approach to other governments have become largely dysfunctional. We need to get through the next couple years without a nuclear detonation, hope the current vacuum of leadership leads some quality leaders to emerge, and hope things have nowhere to go but up. There, I talked myself off the ledge!