Newsworthy but not its own thread worthy

[carolina73]

Originally Posted by LongTimeLu

Wind Turbine Blades Can’t Be Recycled, So They’re Piling Up in Landfills

http://bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-turbine-blades-can-t-be-recycled-so-they-re-piling-up-in-landfills

A wind turbine’s blades can be longer than a Boeing 747 wing, so at the end of their lifespan they can’t just be hauled away. First, you need to saw through the lissome fiberglass using a diamond-encrusted industrial saw to create three pieces small enough to be strapped to a tractor-trailer.

The municipal landfill in Casper, Wyoming, is the final resting place of 870 blades whose days making renewable energy have come to end. The severed fragments look like bleached whale bones nestled against one another.

“That’s the end of it for this winter,” said waste technician Michael Bratvold, watching a bulldozer bury them forever in sand. “We’ll get the rest when the weather breaks this spring.”

Tens of thousands of aging blades are coming down from steel towers around the world and most have nowhere to go but landfills. In the U.S. alone, about 8,000 will be removed in each of the next four years. Europe, which has been dealing with the problem longer, has about 3,800 coming down annually through at least 2022, according to BloombergNEF. It’s going to get worse: Most were built more than a decade ago, when installations were less than a fifth of what they are now.

Built to withstand hurricane-force winds, the blades can’t easily be crushed, recycled or repurposed. That’s created an urgent search for alternatives in places that lack wide-open prairies. In the U.S., they go to the handful of landfills that accept them, in Lake Mills, Iowa; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; and Casper, where they will be interred in stacks that reach 30 feet under.

“The wind turbine blade will be there, ultimately, forever,” said Bob Cappadona, chief operating officer for the North American unit of Paris-based Veolia Environnement SA, which is searching for better ways to deal with the massive waste. “Most landfills are considered a dry tomb.”

“The last thing we want to do is create even more environmental challenges.”

Wind power is carbon-free and about 85% of turbine components, including steel, copper wire, electronics and gearing can be recycled or reused. But the fiberglass blades remain difficult to dispose of. With some as long as a football field, big rigs can only carry one at a time, making transportation costs prohibitive for long-distance hauls. Scientists are trying to find better ways to separate resins from fibers or to give small chunks new life as pellets or boards.

In the European Union, which strictly regulates material that can go into landfills, some blades are burned in kilns that create cement or in power plants. But their energy content is weak and uneven and the burning fiberglass emits pollutants.

In a pilot project last year, Veolia tried grinding them to dust, looking for chemicals to extract. “We came up with some crazy ideas,” Cappadona said. “We want to make it a sustainable business. There’s a lot of interest in this.”

But the city gets $675,000 to house turbine blades indefinitely, which can help pay for playground improvements and other services. Landfill manager Cynthia Langston said the blades are much cleaner to store than discarded oil equipment and Casper is happy to take the thousand blades from three in-state wind farms owned by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s PacifiCorp. Warren Buffett’s utility has been replacing the original blades and turbines with larger, more powerful models after a decade of operation.

While acknowledging that burying blades in perpetuity isn’t ideal, Bratvold, the special waste technician, was surprised by some of the negative reactions when a photo of some early deliveries went viral last summer. On social media, posters derided the inability to recycle something advertised as good for the planet, and offered suggestions of reusing them as links in a border wall or roofing for a homeless shelter.

“The backlash was instant and uninformed,” Bratvold said. “Critics said they thought wind turbines were supposed to be good for the environment and how can it be sustainable if it ends up in a landfill?”

“I think we’re doing the right thing.”

In the meantime, Bratvold and his co-workers have set aside about a half dozen blades and in coming months, they’ll experiment with methods to squeeze them into smaller footprints. They’ve tried bunkers, berms and even crushing them with the bulldozer, but the tracks kept slipping off the smooth blades. There’s little time to waste. Spring is coming, and when it does, the inexorable march of blades will resume.

I have to imagine that these are going to deteriorate much faster in the sun and elements that they would submerged in the sand.

I can only imagine that in 2500 someone is going to discover these strange fields of glass fibers that they cannot explain and must be crashed alien spaceships.

[LongTimeLu]

http://seattletimes.com/business/local-business/microsoft-is-cutting-dozens-of-msn-news-production-workers-and-replacing-them-with-artificial-intelligence/

Microsoft is cutting dozens of MSN news production workers and replacing them with artificial intelligence

Microsoft won’t renew the contracts for dozens of news production contractors working at MSN and plans to use artificial intelligence to replace them, several people close to the situation confirmed on Friday.

The roughly 50 employees — contracted through staffing agencies Aquent, IFG and MAQ Consulting — were notified Wednesday that their services would no longer be needed beyond June 30.

“Like all companies, we evaluate our business on a regular basis,” a Microsoft spokesman said in a statement. “This can result in increased investment in some places and, from time to time, re-deployment in others. These decisions are not the result of the current pandemic.”

Full-time news producers employed by Microsoft will be retained by the company; they perform functions similar to those being let go. But all contracted news producer jobs have been eliminated.

Some employees, speaking on condition of anonymity, said MSN will use AI to replace the production work they’d been doing. That work includes using algorithms to identify trending news stories from dozens of publishing partners and to help optimize the content by rewriting headlines or adding better accompanying photographs or slide shows.

“It’s been semi-automated for a few months but now it’s full speed ahead,’’ one of the terminated contractors said. “It’s demoralizing to think machines can replace us but there you go.’’

[xlr8tx]

"One of the coldest places on the planet reaches 100.4°F"

http://axios.com/arctic-circle-temperatures-siberia-2effdad5-3b80-4454-8cfb-c167e96ca7e8.html

[alexora]

Farewell, Segway...

Segway, personal vehicle known for
high-profile crashes, ending production

Company will retire Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers, on 15 July



Segway, which boldly claimed its two-wheeled personal transporter would revolutionize the way people get around, is ending production of its namesake vehicle.

The Segway PT, popular with tourists and police officers but perhaps better known for its high-profile crashes, will be retired on 15 July, the company said in a statement.

“Within its first decade, the Segway PT became a staple in security and law enforcement, viewed as an effective and efficient personal vehicle,” said Judy Cai, the Segway president, in a statement, noting that in the past decade it gained popularity with vacationers in major cities in North America, Europe, Asia, South America and the Middle East.

But the Segway, which carries a standing passenger on a wide platform, accounted for less than 1.5% of the company’s revenue last year. The company said 21 employees will be laid off, another 12 employees will stay on for two months to a year and five will remain at the Bedford, New Hampshire, facility.

The transportation revolution that inventor Dean Kamen envisioned when he founded the company in 1999 never took off. The Segway’s original price tag of around $5,000 was a hurdle for many customers. It also was challenging to ride because the rider had to be balanced at a specific angle for the vehicle to move forward. If the rider’s weight shifted too much in any direction, it could easily spin out of control and throw the rider off. They were banned in some cities because users could easily lose control if they were not balanced properly.

“What did they think the market was when they built this, when they designed it?“ asked Maryann Keller, the principal at Maryann Keller & Associates. “My impression was they were talking about this as personal mobility. How could you think that something this large and expensive would be personal mobility?”

Ten months after buying the company in 2009, British self-made millionaire Jimi Heselden died after the Segway he was riding careened off a 30ft cliff not far from his country estate at Thorp Arch, West Yorkshire. He was 62.

In 2003, George W Bush avoided injury after tumbling off a Segway at his parents’ summer home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

A cameraman riding a Segway ran over Usain Bolt in 2015 as the Jamaican sprinter did a victory lap after winning a 200-meter race in Beijing. Bolt wasn’t injured and later joked about the incident.

In 2017, Segway got into the scooter business, just as the light, inexpensive and easy-to-ride two-wheelers took over urban streets. Segway’s foray into that industry may have been a sign that its original PT’s days were numbered.

“It was probably over-hyped before it was launched, and when it was launched, it was like, this is not going to work on city sidewalks,” Keller said.

Source:

http://theguardian.com/technology/2020/jun/23/segway-transporter-production-ends

[allworkboy]

They call the Segway a personal transporter. For who? The price tag is $5000. Only people like Bill Gates, one of the first person to buy one, can afford it. I have only seen the Segway one time. At a mall in California. A security guard was using it in the parking lot.

[alexora]

Originally Posted by allworkboy

They call the Segway a personal transporter. For who? The price tag is $5000. Only people like Bill Gates, one of the first person to buy one, can afford it. I have only seen the Segway one time. At a mall in California. A security guard was using it in the parking lot.

Also worth bearing in mind that now we have electric scooters that are easier to ride, much cheaper, and also easy to carry (try getting a Segway up a flight of stairs or into your looker at work.

This one costs €245:

You Tube

You Tube

These ones are pretty fast:

You Tube

You Tube

[alexora]

Farewell, Olympus cameras...

Olympus quits camera business after 84 years

Olympus, once one of the world's biggest camera brands, is selling off that part of its business after 84 years.

The firm said that despite its best efforts, the "extremely severe digital camera market" was no longer profitable.

The arrival of smartphones, which had shrunk the market for separate cameras, was one major factor, it said.

It had recorded losses for the last three years.

The Japanese company made its first camera in 1936 after years of microscope manufacture. The Semi-Olympus I featured an accordion-like fold-out camera bellows, and cost more than a month's wages in Japan.

The company continued to develop the camera business over the decades, becoming one of the top companies by market share.

"There's a huge amount of affection for Olympus, going right back," says Nigel Atherton, editor of Amateur Photographer magazine.

The 1970s was a high point, with their cameras advertised on television by celebrity photographers such as David Bailey and Lord Lichfield.

"Those cameras were revolutionary - they were very small, very light, they were beautifully designed, had really nice quality lenses," adds Atherton.

A cult following stayed with the firm, despite teething issues with new technologies such as autofocus, Atherton says. But the firm had a second wave with digital cameras, where they were early adopters.

But they targeted their later range of mirrorless cameras at a middle market - "people who weren't serious photographers - they wanted something better than a point-and-shoot camera, but they didn't want a DSLR camera".

"That market very very quickly got swallowed up by smartphones, and turned out not to exist."

The market for standalone cameras has fallen dramatically - by one estimate, it dropped by 84% between 2010 and 2018.

"Olympus I find a very frustrating company," Atherton says. "Continually over the last few years, they've constantly got it wrong, made wrong decisions, taken wrong turns, and gone down cul-de-sacs."

One example he cited was the lack of progress in video performance, where rivals have made strides.

The company also faced a major financial scandal involving senior executives in 2011.

Olympus is now seeking to strike a deal to carve off the camera part of its business so that its brands - such as Zuiko lenses - can be used in new products by another firm, Japan Industrial Partners.

In a statement, the Japanese company said that it was business as usual until then.

"We believe this is the right step to preserve the legacy of the brand," the statement said.

On social media, however, its UK team accepted that fans "may have many questions".

"We ask for your patience... Olympus sees this potential transfer as an opportunity to enable our imaging business to grow and delight both long-time and new photography enthusiasts," it said.

Olympus Corporation, however, will continue.

The company never stopped making microscopes, and has turned its optical technology to other scientific and medical equipment such as endoscopes.

Source:

http://bbc.co.uk/news/technology-53165293

[alexora]

Hot dog!

Competitive hotdog eaters nearing limit of human performance

A maximum of 84 hotdogs in 10 minutes is possible, says sports science study

The four-minute mile and the two-hour marathon were once believed impossible: now a new gauntlet has been thrown down for the world of elite competition. A scientific analysis suggests competitive eaters have come within nine hotdogs of the limits of human performance.

The theoretical ceiling has been set at 84 hotdogs in 10 minutes. The current world record, set by Joey “Jaws” Chestnut earlier this month, stands at 75.

James Smoliga, a sports medicine specialist at High Point University in North Carolina who authored the research, described 84 hotdogs as “the maximum possible limit for a Usain Bolt-type performance”.

The analysis is based on 39 years of historical data from Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Eating Contest, an annual spectacle of gluttony held on Coney Island, New York, combined with the latest sports science theory, which uses mathematical modelling to project trends in performance.

Hotdog composition and size have, reportedly, remained unchanged at Nathan’s Famous in the fast food company’s 104-year history, allowing for valid comparison between competitors across years.

Improvement curves in elite sports ranging from sprinting to pole vaulting tend to follow a so-called sigmoidal curve, featuring an initial slow and steady rise, followed by an era of rapid improvement and finally a levelling off. “Hotdog eating has definitely reached that second plateau,” said Smoliga.

The early years of the Nathan’s contest featured a motley assortment of winners – mostly “big obese guys” who chanced their luck on the day, according to Smoliga. In 1984, the contest was won by Birgit Felden, a 17-year-old, 130lb, West German judo team member, who managed nine-and-a-half hotdogs despite never having eaten one before the competition.

By the 1990s, the participation of Japanese extreme eaters changed the playing field. In 2001, Takeru Kobayashi downed 50 hotdogs, smashing the previous record of 25.125.

“It wasn’t just people with big appetites any more,” said Smoliga.

Elite eaters started to follow elaborate training regimes, with some ingesting vast volumes of liquid or gels to expand the stomach without having to process the calories. Chestnut, this year’s winner, claims to train for three months leading up to the competition, including weekly practice runs, a carefully controlled diet and yoga and breathing exercises to help with mental focus.

In the trade, being lean is generally viewed as an advantage because a thick layer of fat round the middle can constrict the stomach.

The 84 theoretical maximum comes from fitting a curve to the data and also factoring in the possibility of outliers whose performance lies within a certain error margin of the curve.

The prediction should hold true, Smoliga said, unless a “new kind of competitor” shows up – someone with gigantism or a metabolic condition that placed them well outside the normal parameters of human biology.

The limiting factor is likely to be chewing and swallowing rather than gastric capacity, based on the observation that at the end of the 10 minutes many competitors are still trying to gobble down more sausages and buns.

According to the research, published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, the achievements of human speed eaters are impressive even by comparison with other species. “Humans are able to eat faster than bears or coyotes,” said Smoliga. Wolves, which devour prey at incredible speed, could outdo even elite human eaters, however.

Source:

http://theguardian.com/food/2020/jul/15/competitive-hotdog-eaters-nearing-limit-of-human-performance

[alexora]

He is asking them to make his day...

Clint Eastwood sues over false cannabis endorsements

Hollywood actor Clint Eastwood is suing a host of cannabis companies that he says have falsely used his name to endorse their goods.

The 90-year-old accuses the firms of spreading fake articles and tagging their websites with his name to make it look like he had backed their products.

Nearly 20 firms are named in the suits, accused of trademark infringement and defamation among other violations.

One firm, Sera Labs, said it had stopped the fake ads "immediately".

All of the companies sell goods with CBD, an extract from the marijuana plant that does not have psychoactive properties. It is used in products such as creams, oils and food.

However lawyers for Mr Eastwood - who has starred in films such as Mystic River and Dirty Harry, as well as been a director - said he "does not have and never has had" any association with CBD.

'No association with CBD'

One of the fake articles was headlined "Big Pharma In Outrage Over Clint Eastwood's CBD" and quotes the actor saying he is stepping away from his acting career to promote a new line of CBD products, according to one of the two lawsuits, which were filed in a federal court in California.

But Mr Eastwood's lawyers say he never gave such an interview.

The other lawsuit concerns an "internet scam", in which the firms tagged their websites with Mr Eastwood's name, a move that made it look like he had backed the products, while also making it easier for people searching online to find their products.

"Like many of his most famous characters, Mr Eastwood is not afraid to confront wrongdoing and hold accountable those that try to illegally profit off his name," the court papers say.

'Stopped immediately'

The lawsuits say it is standard practice for Mr Eastwood to reject licensing deals and reserve his celebrity to advertise his films and other personal interests.

One of the CBD firms in the lawsuit, Sera Labs, said it had been unaware that its products were being falsely linked with the actor.

It said it had "worked for a limited time with a publisher and gave them specific advertisements they could use which follow our very strict guidelines".

It added that it "shut down the ads immediately after learning that they used Mr Eastwood's name and likeness".

Source:

http://bbc.co.uk/news/business-53516663

[alexora]

Never give up on your dreams.

James Baldwin: World's fastest gamer to real life racer

James Baldwin's journey to becoming a professional racing driver took off in a very unusual place.

Not on a circuit driving at more than 100mph (160km/h), or while travelling the world, or by getting to drive for a Formula 1 world champion. Although all that would come later.

Instead it all started during a look around PC World.

It's led to a career that not too many years ago would have been deemed impossible by motorsport experts.

A career that's seeing the 22-year-old from Buckinghamshire train his sights firmly on becoming one of the fastest racing drivers in the world.

The simulated second chance

Most professional racing drivers start in kart racing.

A world far away from traditional go-karting that you might do at a mate's birthday party, it's a serious, expensive business; and the first step on the road to Formula 1 for the likes of Lewis Hamilton.

James, who was captivated my motorsport from the age of four, was no different. He raced karts but dropped out of the sport aged 16 because of a lack of funds.

He thought his motorsport career was over before it had even properly begun.

"I went into engineering and had no racing of any kind in my life," James tells Radio 1 Newsbeat.

"But I think two years after I dropped out of racing, I was in PC World with my girlfriend.

"I remember it so vividly.

"We saw a simulator rig with a wheel and pedals on it on sale for about 250 quid and I was like, 'oh that's cool.' So I bought it.

"At the time racing esports hadn't really boomed at all so I didn't have a clue about it. It was more of a casual thing.

"That was kind of where it led on from."

'The dream was back on'

James spent about a year as a casual gamer until finishing in the top 10 of one event won him an all-expenses-paid trip to Austria to compete for a cash prize.

"I took my girlfriend and I was like 'what, this is crazy!'"

He finished second, winning £4,000.

"I was completely out of my comfort zone," James recalls.

"But it was cool. It felt like the dream of being a driver of some kind was back on which was quite a weird feeling."

Continued success led to more travel and an invitation to compete for one of the biggest trophies, and coolest titles, in esports. The World's Fastest Gamer.

"The competition was in West Coast California, and consisted of real driving, simulator driving, physical fitness tests, and media training, all over the space of two weeks.

"It came to a judge's decision where they announced the winner and the judges were pretty cool.

"Juan Pablo Montoya was one of them and Rubens Barrichello was a coach (both ex Formula 1 drivers and multiple race winners). It was a very unique and special competition."

World's Fastest Gamer is now in its third season and looking for new competitors.

It was hugely competitive, but James says the key to what's turned out to be a career-defining win, was remembering to have fun.

"It was very intense. Two weeks when you're on your own in America, it feels quite long. It was definitely a pressure cooker.

"But it was really enjoyable. I think a lot of the finalists forgot that they were out there to enjoy it at the same time.

"It was a once in a lifetime thing. They kind of got too fixated on doing well and I think they lost that enjoyment."

The one million dollar prize

The World's Fastest Gamer prize was a million dollar drive in a real life sports racer, known as GT car.

If that wasn't good enough, it was with the team owned by Jenson Button, 2009 Formula 1 champion and British racing legend.

But, like so many things across the world, that's on hold for now because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Instead James will be doing not one, but six races in the British GT Championship, starting this weekend, at iconic British tracks like Brands Hatch, Donnington Park and Silverstone.

The circuits are famous for a reason.

"If you go off, you're probably going to hit something, so it's quite risky," James says.

"And the GT is quite a big step up, so it's going to be insane."

Racing is far more physical than many realise. The drivers have to be super fit as their bodies are put under intense pressure and high G-forces.

"The brake pedal is the biggest difference. It requires a lot of force to get that down.

"If you crash, you've got financial implications and you could get injured. In esports you can push and if you crash, it's not going to matter.

"It's just the immersion in a real car. You can smell things that you probably don't smell in sim.

"The heat is really hot in a race, it takes you by surprise when you first get in the real car."

'If the goal isn't audacious then what's the point?'

The six British GT races represent a real chance for James to prove he has what it takes for a long career in real life racing.

James isn't consumed by nerves though, he's ready to show the world he's ready.

"I've been waiting for this for a very long time, the opportunity to race in a big scale event.

I didn't think it would come if I'm being brutally honest, so I'm not going to sit at home feeling scared.

"My ultimate ambition is to be one of the best racing drivers in the world.

"My goal is quite audacious, but I think if it's not audacious, then there's no point really doing it.

"I've always wanted to be a racing driver and I've got the opportunity to do that. So I'm going to make the most of it."

Source:

http://bbc.co.uk/news/newsbeat-53554245