Dyson developing battery-electric vehicle for 2020

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James Dyson, the British inventor and businessman behind Dyson, has announced the company famous for vacuums and hand dryers plans to develop a battery-electric vehicle. In a letter to employees, Dyson said the company would have the vehicle ready by 2020.

Another company to keep an eye on. I love the fact that we’re living through a transportation revolution.

Shirt Pocket Watch - Cheat Sheet

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We’re really happy to announce that SuperDuper! uses snapshots on APFS boot volumes when copying. Copies should be much more reliable and less error prone, and (as usual) the whole process happens completely transparently to you, the user.

SuperDuper! is one of the best Mac apps out there. Does it’s job and does it well. Having a system cone is one-third of a correct 3-2-1 backup strategy. Have three backups, two local (one Time Machine, and one system clone), and one remote, like BackBlaze. Set this up and forget about it, and if (when) something happens, you’ve got three chances to get back your precious data.

Overcast for iOS 11 coming soon

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In Hello Internet episode 4, CGP Grey introduced a metaphor for work-life balance as four light bulbs — work, friends, family, and health — between which one can allocate 100 watts, total. So it’s possible to shine brightly in one area at significant cost to the others, or to try to have a mediocre spread between all of them.

That’s an interesting way to think of it. I like it.

Climate Change Is Complex

Why do people deny the science of climate change?

Mostly because of ideology. Link

Nice summary of what we know about climate change. I’ve never understood the opposition to environmentalism. Who doesn’t want clean air, energy independence, and the jobs created by the renewable energy industry? Here in Iowa, we have factories that build windmills, that are major employers in fairly rural areas. It seems to me that most opposition to climate change science is rooted in loyalty to a party, which in turn is rooted in deep-seated cultural beliefs and animosity towards highly educated “elitists”.

I once had coffee with a climate skeptic who explained that he simply believed that the science was shoddy, but in the same conversation pointed me towards creation science as an example of science he believed in. I’m not sure if he caught on to the incongruity of the two claims. I’m a Christian, I believe that God created the universe, but how he did it is a mystery to me. I don’t believe Him to be a God of confusion, so I don’t understand why the Earth appears to be millions of years old if it is not. I do however believe that the process of science, the back and forth, proving and disproving, debating and digging and testing the world we live in, is a means by which we can discover the mechanics of God. The rules He set in place that govern our lives, like gravity, like the way light travels on a wave, like the way positive and negative attracts.

Proverbs 19:20 says “Listen to advice and accept instruction, that you may gain wisdom in the future.” It seems unwise to discard the advice of people who work in climate science about climate science, and instead claim to believe a politician with ties to the oil industry.

I’ve heard other arguments against climate change like “God is in control of the weather.” OK, true. But won’t God also allow us to experience the natural consequences of our actions? If I drop a brick on my head, it’s going to hurt! If we are poor stewards of God’s creation, I imagine He’s going to let us experience the consequences.

In Christianity, you must believe that Jesus is the son of God and that he died for your sins, and accept that as the only way to Heaven after death. The wonderful and terrible thing about science is that it doesn’t matter what you believe. You can believe in a flat Earth all day long, doesn’t make it true. You can claim that climate change is a hoax all you want, but the oceans are warming and rising, and the ice caps are melting, and the forests are on fire, and the weather is getting more extreme, and everything the environmentalists said was going to happen… is happening.

Elon Musk sets date for all-electric Tesla Semi reveal

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“This is something which today people do not think is possible,” said Musk. “To think the truck doesn’t have enough power or it doesn’t have enough range. With the Tesla Semi, we want to show that, no, an electric truck can out-torque any diesel semi, and if you had a tug-of-war competition, the Tesla semi will tug the diesel semi uphill.”

I’m afraid the days of long-haul trucking as a career field might be numbered.

I'm Done With Facebook

From Daring Fireball: Facebook Enabled Advertisers to Target ‘Jew Haters’

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Facebook has no conscience, it’s bad for mental health, and every time I’ve logged in lately I’m log out feeling worse. No more of that.

In an interesting, but not surprising note from John’s linked ProPublica article though:

Two: as David Simon noted, “I kind of love that ‘Jew hater’ aligns cleanly with the Second Amendment demographic. The algorithms don’t lie, do they.”

Why don't facts matter? (opinion) - CNN

Link

Why have human beings' brains evolved to discard perfectly valid information when it does not fit their preferred view? This seems like bad engineering, so why hasn’t this glitch been corrected?

Cognitive scientists have proposed an intriguing answer: our brain assesses new information in light of the knowledge it has already stored, because in most cases that is, in fact, the optimal approach. More likely than not, when you encounter a piece of data that contradicts what you believe with confidence, that piece of data is in fact wrong. For example, if I told you I had observed a pink elephant flying in the sky you would assume I was either lying or delusional, as you should. It is a reasonable strategy, but it also means that confidently-held opinions are difficult to change.

It’s incredibly difficult to change your mind about a topic once you’ve already bought into a preferred answer. Even more so when part of your cultural identity hinges on that belief. In the follow up article, Tali Sharot recommends finding common ground that works in the favor of both parties. Seems reasonable to me.