Month: June 2016

Online Fealty

The ISIS Caliphate is using online fealty as a way to recruit jihadis around the world. It’s a powerful recasting of an ancient concept that goes well beyond modern expressions of loyalty. The way ISIS has constructed its brand of online fealty makes it globally scalable. The only barriers to entry are: conduct an attack and publicly pledge fealty. The most common platforms for a public pledge? Social media, 911, etc.

Artificial meteors

a satellite capable of generating artificial meteor showers will be in orbit sometime in the next 2 years. From 500 kilometers above Earth’s surface, the orbiter will shoot metal spheres the size of blueberries into the upper atmosphere. As these particles move across the sky at 28k kilometers an hour, the spheres will burn into brilliant crisps—painting the night with colorful streaks on demand.

Methane Reduction

we can now detect cow farts from space.

For the first time, an instrument onboard an orbiting spacecraft has measured the methane emissions from a single, specific leaking facility on Earth’s surface. The observation — by the Hyperion spectrometer on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) — is an important breakthrough in our ability to eventually measure and monitor emissions of this potent greenhouse gas from space.

2017-06-10: Methane-free cows

Scientists are also tweaking the cows themselves. The Genome Canada project identifies cows that produce fewer greenhouse gases, with the ultimate goal of distributing the responsible genes—conveniently transported in the form of bull semen—to areas that don’t have the resources to develop their own greener cows.

2020-04-02: Rice paddies produce a LOT of methane from the bacteria in the muck. Adding fish to the rice paddies could cut it by 90%
2023-09-08: Methanotrophs

A strain of bacteria called methylotuvimicrobium buryatense 5GB1C can remove methane efficiently even when it is present in lower amounts. If it became widespread, the technology has the potential to help slow global warming.

Typically, this group of bacteria thrive in environments with high levels of methane (5k – 10k ppm). The normal concentrations in our atmosphere have much lower levels of 2 ppm. But certain areas such as landfills, rice fields and oilwells emit higher concentrations of 500 ppm. To implement methane-eating bacteria on a mass scale, 1000s of high-functioning reactors will be needed.

The mob controls food carts

Today’s mobile food vending business is one of day laborers and shift workers who, despite hustling all week long, may not earn minimum wage.

Even for bosses like Sharif, financial autonomy is not guaranteed. Though Sharif owns the actual food cart—“I built it 3 years ago” —a portion of his earnings is sent to “a guy in New Jersey.” That guy is in all likelihood “Mr. Q.” While Sharif owns the food cart and his own vendor’s license, it’s Mr. Q who controls the mobile food vending permit—a tiny piece of adhesive plastic that makes this cart more than just a griddle on wheels. Without it, Sharif has no business. Sharif and Steve are just 2 of the 1000s of unwitting lawbreakers in a black market for cart permits that operates in plain sight of the city’s enforcement agencies. That black market is worth an estimated $15M to $20M a year, costing the city millions of $ in potential fees while making it harder for immigrant entrepreneurs to build equity and take the first step up the economic ladder.

how the food cart system in nyc works. still unexplained: why are the carts in midtown so terrible, giving tourists a completely wrong impression about what new yorkers eat?

Unban supersonic travel

In 1973, shortly after Boeing abandoned the 2707, its Mach 3 government-funded competitor to the British- and French-made Concorde, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a rule banning supersonic transport over the US

2023-03-23: A new proposal

If we’re lucky, we’ll have a sonic boom standard implemented in the United States by the late 2030s.

There is a better way. Congress could repeal the supersonic ban this year in the FAA reauthorization act. I have proposed text along these lines:

Until such time as the FAA creates standards that allow supersonic aircraft to operate over the United States, civil supersonic flight shall be allowed as long as mean cruise sonic boom directly beneath the flight track is less than 90 PLdB for daytime operations or 80 PLdB for nighttime operations.

I think this proposal is very clever, if I do say so myself. It would change nothing overnight, because no aircraft that can do a cruise boom less than 90 PLdB exists.

What it would do is signal to the aviation industry that America is open for business. It’s time to build new low-boom aircraft. Manufacturers would start working on new designs, knowing that when they are ready to be certified there won’t be any further obstacles.

Restaurants hate 1st dates

Your awkward first date can amuse restaurant staff. But other patrons may not be that delighted. And because every seat is a piece of money-making real estate, the 10s of dates you’ve gone on this year may also be affecting many businesses’ bottom line. Particularly when daters stare into their phones for 30 minutes without ordering, waiting for their match to turn up. And when they spend another 2 hours talking about their childhood and lactose intolerance while nursing a single, happy-hour-priced beer.