Christopher Mims, Technology Columnist - Wall Street Journal
Stephan:
Several readers wrote to ask me, as one put it, “Don’t you see any good news, any positive trends?” The truth is I haven’t seen a lot of good news trends, even when I search sites like EcoWatch, which always try to report good news. But in my search, I did find this fascinating story about Benjamin Franklin’s genius and a breakthrough it is causing today. Franklin was a lifelong meditator and, in my view, the only “conscious” Founder. As but one of many examples of this, he created philanthropy in the United States and children to this day are being educated by his funding. So this is my lede today.
Franklin’s original model—which he first demonstrated to the public in 1749 as a rotisserie to cook a turkey—is an illustrative of his genius. Reproduction of an electrostatic motor designed by Benjamin Franklin at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. Credit: Richard W. Strauss / National Museum of American History Smithsonian Institution
A technology pioneered by Benjamin Franklin is being revived to build more efficient electric motors, an effort in its nascent stage that has the potential to be massive.
A handful of scientists and engineers—armed with materials and techniques unimaginable in the 1700s—are creating modern versions of Franklin’s “electrostatic motor,” that are on the cusp of commercialization. It’s reminiscent of the early 1990s, when Sony began to produce and sell the first rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, a breakthrough that’s now ubiquitous.
Franklin’s “electrostatic motor” uses alternating positive and negative charges—the same kind that make your socks stick together after they come out of the dryer—to spin an axle, and doesn’t rely on a flow of current like conventional electric motors. Every few years, an eager Ph.D. student […]
This is how stupid the MAGAt Republican Party is. And yet the voters of Tennessee’s 2nd District are expected to vote this moron back into the House for another term. The problem with America, as I have said several times, is Americans.
MAGAt Republican Representative of Tennessee’s 2nd District, one of the stupidest men in Congress. Credit: Wikipedia.
A Tennessee Republican congressman on Friday told a conservative podcaster that the first thing he wants to do when he returns to Washington D.C. is advocate to reorganize FEMA – and “shut it down.”
“When I get back to Washington that’s the first thing, we’re gonna — we need a reorganization of FEMA. That is completely – I mean it’s like the Department of Education – shut it down, send that money to the states where they know best for how to do it,” Rep. Tim Burchett, of Tennessee’s 2nd Congressional District, said on The Benny Show podcast.
During a wide-ranging, nearly two-hour conversation Friday that included a discussion about recent hurricanes that struck the United States, Burchett told host Benny Johnson that FEMA officials “don’t have a clue.”
“All they know how to do is steal our dadgum money,” said Burchett, who is in an ultra-safe district.
“And then they’ll tell you, ‘Oh, we didn’t send that money to the illegals.’ The hell they didn’t,” he said.
Yet another example of how maximizing profit through price gouging is the only corporate priority in America, and how the legalized bribery of Congress results in the failure to effectively deal with climate change.
Credit: Adobe
As millions sought to evacuate Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton, reports surged from consumers and industry watchdogs that airfares on flights out of the state were spiking, with tickets that might typically cost a few hundred dollars suddenly going for much higher.
New Yorker Cerina McQuillan told the Associated Press that, as she sought to buy a ticket for her 17-year-old daughter to evacuate, the airline’s website crashed. “All of a sudden it went back on again, and the flights quadrupled in price. It went up to like $750 within a matter of seconds,” she said.
Airline watchdogs reported similar findings. “Yesterday and this morning, fare searches were producing quite a few four-figure airfares,” William J. McGee, the American Economic Liberties Project’s senior fellow for aviation and travel posted on X on Oct. 8, the day before Milton made landfall. The National Weather Service warned that day was the final day to evacuate Florida ahead of Milton, a Category 5 storm […]
American politicians always talk about the United States being the world leader, and most Americans believe that to be true. It is not. The only thing we lead in is the military, and we spend multiple times more than any other nation in the world. It is a huge profit business. I have done many stories about our poor position in healthcare, eeducation, literacy, and even how our lives are shorter than the lives of people in other developed nations. Here is a technical example. Read this report on high speed rail in Japan and other nations, bearing in mind the typical long distance Amtrak trains like Empire Builder or California Zephyr run about 50 to 55 mph average, and hit max about 90 on some better maintained zone or tracks. We would be a better country if our leaders told the truth about the country.
Jappan’s high-speed rail. Credit: Alfa-X
Sixty years ago, early in the morning of October 1, 1964, a sleek blue and white train slid effortlessly across the urban sprawl of Tokyo, its elevated tracks carrying it south toward the city of Osaka and a place in the history books.
This was the dawn of Japan’s “bullet train” era, widely regarded as the defining symbol of the country’s astonishing recovery from the trauma of World War II. In tandem with the 1964 Tokyo Olympic Games, this technological marvel of the 1960s marked the country’s return to the top table of the international community.
In the six decades since that first train, the word Shinkansen – meaning “new trunk line” – has become an internationally recognized byword for speed, travel efficiency and modernity.
Japan remains a world leader in rail technology. Mighty conglomerates such as Hitachi and Toshiba export billions of dollars worth of trains and equipment all over the world every year.
The Shinkansen network has expanded steadily since the 320-mile Tokaido line, linking Tokyo and Shin-Osaka was completed in 1964. Trains run at up to 200 mph (about 322 […]
When I first read about traitor Trump talking about the size of Arnold Palmer’s penis at a campaign rally I thought it could not be true. But it turns out it is true. This is the Republican candidate for President. How is it possible that this dishonest, dishonorable, vulgar scumbag is a candidate for the Presidency and once was President? What kind of country have we become?
Donald Trump rambled his way through the first 15 minutes of his Saturday rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, with a story about the size of golf legend Arnold Palmer’s manhood.
The GOP presidential nominee was in Latrobe, where Palmer was born, as part of a last-minute push to win votes in the battleground state before Election Day. However, the former president said he first “had to say” something about Palmer’s… putter.
“Arnold Palmer was all man,” said Trump, going off script to the delight of his crowd of MAGA fans. “And I say that in all due respect to women, and I love women, but this guy… This is a guy that was all man.”
Teeing up his next comments, Trump took several swings at paying Palmer a compliment.
“This man was strong and tough. And I refused to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros. They came out of there, they said, ‘Oh my God. That’s unbelievable.’ I had to say it.”
He added, “We have women that are highly sophisticated here, but they used to look at Arnold as a […]
Now the MAGAt Trumpers are openly buying votes, paid for by Trumper oligarch Musk. The Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro thinks law enforcement “should look into” this. I don’t see how anyone can have any question that this is grossly illegal, but the rich in America seem to live under a different legal system. We will see.
Oligarch Elon Musk Credit: Politico
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro said that law enforcement should look into a one million dollar giveaway Elon Musk is doing for Pennsylvanians who sign his super PAC’s petition.
“I think there are real questions with how he is spending money in this race, how the dark money is flowing, not just into Pennsylvania, but apparently now into the pockets of Pennsylvanians,” Shapiro said in an interview with NBC’s Kristen Welker on “Meet the Press.” “That is deeply concerning.”
He later added, “I think it’s something that law enforcement could take a look at. I’m not the attorney general anymore of Pennsylvania. I’m the governor, but it does raise some serious questions.”
Musk, the billionaire Tesla CEO who is a strong supporter of Donald Trump, announced Saturday night that anyone who signs onto his super PAC’s “Petition in Favor of Free Speech and the Right to Bear Arms” would be entered in a chance to win one million dollars.
Musk has recently joined Trump at some of his rallies, including a recent revisit to Butler, Pennsylvania. Last week, […]
