Topic: Amazing Science/Technological achievements

[oohhboy]

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41207827

"Cassini is dead, long live Cassini!".

It flew through Saturn's rings, landed the furtherest probe from earth yet on a distant moon, tasted a foreign ocean by flying through a massive plume, found a place that might have a form of life as we know it, tested Einstein's theories again confirming it with even greater accuracy than before, sent back stunning pictures, 600+GB of data to be studied for decades to come, advanced earthly technology with cutting edge research and inspired countless to pursue the sciences.

With the destruction of Cassini it is a good time as any to promote other scientific marvels that might have missed the mainstream news especially in these seemingly dark times.

[Khushrenada]

It's reusable toilet paper that cleans itself!

[oohhboy]

If you want to read about more space tech brought back to earth go here: https://spinoff.nasa.gov/

Every year they publish a magazine report as to what developments have made it into commercial space which are either developed directly by NASA and shared with it's technology transfer program or an outside company tasked to solve a problem NASA had.

It's reusable toilet paper that cleans itself!

You should check out the wet wipes in the toilet thread.

[Khushrenada]

Yeah, that's where I meant to post that. I didn't realize until just now that I posted in the wrong thread. Whoopsy-daisy.

[BlackNMild2k1]

Elon Musk is gonna rebuild the Puerto Rican power grid with Tesla/Solar City tech.

This is a HUGE proof of concept opportunity for renewable energy on a large scale under the global eye. It's not the first island Elon would have converted, but certainly the largest.

The question is, how far do you think he'll take this opportunity?
simply install solar tiles and hook them into a grid attached to a giant battery?
~or~
set up PR to be a solar tech playground and future proof it for upcoming projects. Basically make it Tesla Rico.
It could be a huge win for both Elon and Puerto Rico, especially if this brings PR some high paying tech jobs to maintain it's new tech and increase tourism just to experience the new Green PR.

So how far do you think Elon will take this opportunity showcase the Tesla tech?

[oohhboy]

PR has to pay for it and doesn't have the money. Under more ideal circumstances this could be a thing but trying to build now in a middle of a humanitarian crisis is a bad idea. The logistics cross the island is fucked and even if they built the solar plants over night the power grid is still out with an estimated service to a quarter of the island in December.

Elon would have to completely decentralise the generation and fix parts of the grid locally all the same.

If he offered it up for free or near to it sure as they would have to bring in people and equipment to fix the grid before converting the island to solar.

PR just doesn't have the money and the mainland isn't going to give a cent. They are barely getting anything financially now. Instead PR is getting badmouthed with no talk of addition funding. The island is not only crippled they are getting sabotaged.

If it's free sure, otherwise it isn't happening.

[ShyGuy]

Offering free solar to all the houses would be great, but batteries are still the huge challenge. Even if you have a working battery for everyone, it needs to be replaced in a decade and the dead one is probably toxic waste.

[BlackNMild2k1]

I'm sure they'll work out some form of payback. Probably partially through branding/advertising, probably building done sort of plant with tremendous tax breaks, abs with ask that potential free solar power, Tesla could build a solar water desalination plant and sell bottled Tesla water to make all sort of money back.

::zooming out to the BIG picture::

If Elon was willing to invest, and PR was basically willing to sell its soul, PR could become the real life tomorrowland resort community.

I'm dive into the high fantasy thought later. But this could be a win/win assuming both sides are willing to play ball.

[oohhboy]

PR got double turbo fucked when their "sabotage Relief" was just another loan and the contract went out to a 2 man company that is/was committing open fraud.

If PR is forced to spend that kind of money it doesn't have Musk 100% would have delivered or at least have a fair and proper contract.

[ThePerm]

Well there's a lot more people living in Florida now that used to live in PR. So Karma.

Speaking of high tech resorts. Bill gates bought 39 milesĀ²(62kmĀ²) of land in my state of Arizona. He plans to create a Smart City named Belmont.

https://www.techspot.com/news/71849-belmont-arizona-smart-city-funded-bill-gates.html

I might have to move there. Or start the movie industry there.

[oohhboy]

Add hostage taking to the list of crimes against PR as Whitefish stops electrical work while they are investigated.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42061357

[BranDonk Kong]

I read about that "smart city" - apparently Bill Gates has essentially nothing to do with it.

[ThePerm]

I'd say spending 80 million on it is quite a bit. It's hard to say how hands on he will be, or who he installs to manage the place.

The news is someone wants to make a smart city in my state. I've been thinking for years about how really the most effective way to move forward is to find a totally empty piece of desert land and create something totally new. One of the hugest problem with today's cities is existing infrastructure. It was all built a century ago and that's creates all sorts of problems. Building a city around upcoming technologies seems to be a good way to go. Smart Cars, Vending, Robots, broadband, self service, automation, etc. McDonalds shouldn't be the most high tech place around.

Of course a city like this if successful will displace a lot of people from other surrounding cities. However, that should leave allow other cities to reconfigure.

Also, Saudi Arabia wants to do the same thing with more money.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/10/24/news/economy/saudi-arabia-mega-city-neom/index.html?iid=EL

[WrongCastle]

Add hostage taking to the list of crimes against PR as Whitefish stops electrical work while they are investigated.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42061357

Isn't Whitefish essentially a fake company? As in, no one knows what they are doing and they have no records of doing things in their sector?

[BlackNMild2k1]

Add hostage taking to the list of crimes against PR as Whitefish stops electrical work while they are investigated.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-42061357

Isn't Whitefish essentially a fake company? As in, no one knows what they are doing and they have no records of doing things in their sector?

I believe the company was founded by the brother(-in law?) of the politician that awarded the company the contract. At the time of getting the contract, the company only had 4 employees.

Nothing fishy here, said the butcher standing in the fish market.

[oohhboy]

They are some sort of 2 man operation out in the middle of nowhere so they didn't quite spring from the ether. They got chosen because the tender process was as corrupt as you could get as it was given to connected "Friends". The same process gave them the absurdly bad contract.

Whitefish basically spammed contractors on to the island without much of a plan at astronomical inflated prices along with fraud on everything they touched to pocket even more money on top of the large margin they were already taking for not doing much. There was no way they could have completed the job with the all of money they siphoned out.

They would have multiple "cost overruns" and prolong the crisis to scam even more money. The only worse result would be setting the money on fire.

[oohhboy]

Musk's company managed to do it. The world's biggest battery is live and it only took 60 of the 100 day deadline. This is pretty unheard of as companies always screw over the client in some way or another in some questionably legal ways.

Massive kudos for Tesla for going above and beyond the minimum contractual obligations I do wonder if there is a hook somewhere and Australia's record temperatures are going to be a serious concern.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-42190358