Nuclear Reactors to Save Humanity

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New York - CNN — AI hasn’t quite delivered the job-killing, cancer-curing utopia that the technology’s evangelists are peddling. So far, artificial intelligence has proven more capable of generating stock market enthusiasm than, like, tangibly great things for humanity. Unless you count Shrimp Jesus.

But that’s all going to change, the AI bulls tell us. Because the only thing standing in the way of an AI-powered idyll is heaps upon heaps of computing power to train and operate these nascent AI models. And don’t worry, fellow members of the public who never asked for any of this — that power won’t come from fossil fuels. I mean, imagine the PR headaches.

No, the tech that’s going to save humanity will be powered by the tech that very nearly destroyed it.          READ MORE...

Young Professionals Leaving California and New York

Young professionals who make more than $100,000 have started to flee California and New York, and the prices that go with them.

Instead, they’re going home, according to a study done by SmartAsset. In fact, analysis by the Census Bureau and Harvard University earlier this year found that 80% of young adults now live less than 100 miles from where they grew up.

Looking at adults under 35 who earn $100,000-plus per year, SmartAsset examined the inflow and outflow of wealthy young professionals from state to state between 2019 and 2020: 

Where did they leave? 

And where did they go?

It’s time to cue up the map app and take a closer look.

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Texas
In 2019-2020, Texas ranked the most popular destination. Roughly 15,000 came into the state and only about 11,200 left for a net inflow of about 3,800, according to SmartAsset.  READ MORE...

Floating Cities of the Future

The world’s first prototype floating city that adapts to sea level rise has just been unveiled at UN headquarters in New York.

OCEANIX Busan, in South Korea, aims to provide breakthrough technology for coastal cities facing land shortages and the threat of climate change.

When built, the three interconnected platforms, totalling 15.5 acres, will provide homes for a community of 12,000 people.

It’s one of many solutions being found to the growing issue of rising sea levels.

Housing the growing global population is one of the key challenges facing policymakers today - and one made even more challenging by climate change.

Without curbing emissions, it’s predicted more than 800 million people, living in 570 cities around the world, could be at risk from sea level rise by 2050, according to the C40 network of global cities addressing climate change.

The network estimates the cost of rising sea levels and inland flooding could reach $1 trillion by mid-century.

But it’s hoped that this sustainable floating city prototype could go some way to solving the problem of providing safe homes for vulnerable coastal communities.

‘Solutions to global challenges’
OCEANIX Busan, based in the waters off South Korea’s second-largest city, was recently unveiled at the UN headquarters in New York. It’s a collaboration between UN-Habitat, the Busan Metropolitan City, and OCEANIX, a blue tech company based in New York.

“We cannot solve today’s problems with yesterday’s tools. We need to innovate solutions to global challenges. But in this drive for innovation, let’s be inclusive and equitable and ensure we leave no one and no place behind,” Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Maimunah Mohd Sharif said at the launch.

The floating city is designed as three interconnected platforms, totalling 15.5 acres, that will initially provide homes for a community of 12,000 people, potentially rising to 100,000, with construction due to start in 2023.

Each of the platforms has a specific purpose - living, research, and lodging - while the link-span bridges that connect them to the land create a sheltered lagoon, providing space for recreation on the water.  READ MORE...

Book Sank on the Titanic

Only black-and-white images exist of the first "Great Omar" but a digital colourisation 

was created in 2001

One of the most lavishly decorated books the world has seen was despatched from London to New York in April 1912. The jewel-encrusted edition of the Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám was taken aboard the RMS Titanic and sank to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, exactly 110 years ago.

A replacement was finished at great expense by the late 1930s but it was promptly incinerated by German bombers as the British capital was ravaged during the Blitz.

The young man behind this extravagant presentation of the polymath Khayyám's poetry would soon drown in an English seaside resort.

Would anyone dare to commission a third "Great Omar"?

'The greater the price the more I shall be pleased'

In 1911, Francis Sangorski finished work on a binding he had been labouring over at his Holborn workshop for two years.  READ MORE...

Snowflake

NEW YORK, March 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Snowflake’s (SNOW.N) melting market capitalization reflects investors’ overly lofty expectations. Its share price fell by nearly a fifth on Thursday even though the $65 billion data warehouse firm said fourth-quarter revenue doubled. 

A solid business, with cash from operations easily covering capital expenditures, means slight missteps present a valuation conundrum, not an existential threat.

Fast growing firms are hard to value, but the market’s ardor read more is cooling. Snowflake thinks revenue will rise by two-thirds next year, to $1.9 billion. 

Now assume sales grow 50% annually for five years and the company will enjoy a net margin of 35%, like Microsoft (MSFT.O). On the same earnings multiple, the company would eventually be worth around $140 billion. 

That’s exuberant, but Snowflake was worth about this much in December. If growth is 20%, it will eventually be worth only a third as much on the same multiples.

Snowflake will continue to thrive. The same might not be true of other highfliers, such as electric-car makers like Lucid (LCID.O), which are burning cash. Without highly valued stock to issue, missteps could prove deadlier. (By Robert Cyran)

New York's Finger Lakes

One glance at a map shows how New York’s Finger Lakes got their collective name. The 11 long, slender lakes, extending roughly north-to-south, look like outstretched fingers.

On the mystical side, Iroquois tribes believed the lakes were formed by the Great Spirit, reaching down to bless the land and leaving impressions of fingerprints that were filled with clear, fresh water. According to geologists, however, the gorges of water that form the present-day Finger Lakes were carved by moving, melting glaciers two million years ago.

Science and lore aside, there is no arguing the allure of this upstate region rich in history (and herstory) thanks to American roots that run even deeper than those of the Finger Lakes’s bounteous vineyards. Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Mark Twain, Clara Barton, Joseph Smith, and many other heroes and luminaries dwelled in the Finger Lakes region, leaving their own deep imprints on U.S. culture.


Seneca Lake Pier in Watkins Glen Alamy

There’s much to explore: Comprising 14 counties across more than 9,000 square miles, the expansive Finger Lakes region is almost as large as the state of Massachusetts. It’s dotted with charming small towns, each with a unique character that has beguiled travelers for two centuries. Many of them began as villages that grew steadily once the Erie Canal opened in 1825. Today, their legacies endure for visitors seeking everything from abundant nature and recreation to great wine and gastronomy, renowned art, and historic landmarks.

When (and how) to go
All four seasons in the Finger Lakes offer something by way of natural delights. Warmer months invite outdoor activities like hiking, biking, and water sports, particularly in some of the great state parks where you’ll find waterfalls, picturesque trails, and natural swimming holes. 

Winter brings its holiday and lights festivals and snow sports, plus a greater appreciation for cozy spa sessions, and abundant opportunities for tastings—whether you’re thirsty for craft beer, cider, spirits, or wine. The region is especially glorious come autumn, when harvest season brings apples, pumpkins, and grapes, overlapping with mesmerizing fall foliage to make any scenic drive, from Owasco to Canandaigua Lake, ultra colorful.  READ MORE...

Americans Quit Jobs

New York (CNN Business)A record 4.4 million Americans quit their jobs in September as the sheer volume of available jobs is empowering workers to have their pick.

Workers are quitting in search for better pay or better jobs, representing a fundamental shift in America's labor market.

"Labor now has the initiative, and the era of paying individuals less than a livable wage has ended," said Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at RSM US.

"This strongly suggests that rising wages are going to be part and parcel of the economic landscape going forward."

The nation had 10.4 million open jobs that month as the worker shortage crisis continues, data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed Friday. It was a modest decrease from the 10.6 million open jobs in August.

Jobs particularly increased in the health care and sector and in state and local government. "The Delta variant is still visible in the September JOLTS report," said Nick Bunker, director of economic research at the Indeed Hiring Lab, in emailed comments.

But he noted "we do know from the October jobs report that the labor market did get on more stable ground."The slowing demand for workers in the leisure and hospitality industry was the cause of the modest decline in available jobs in September. READ MORE...

Tuesday 1

Supersonic flight is arriving—in a hurry. In the last 18 months, Boom has successfully tested its XB-1 demonstrator aircraft and pre-sold 15 of its still-in-development 30-seat Overture models to United Airlines. Virgin Galactic and Rolls Royce rolled out a partnership to develop a 19-seater. Even the Russian Federation revealed plans to build a supersonic jet for commercial use.

Then there’s the Hermeus Quarterhorse. Think supersonic or Mach 1—the speed of sound—multiply by five and you have the hypersonic Quarterhorse.

Last week, the Atlanta-based company announced a $60 million award from the US Air Force to finance testing of the aircraft. Like the Greek god Hermes, this Hermeus is designed to travel seamlessly between worlds, with a projected top speed of Mach 5.5—or 4,219 mph. That makes it the fastest reusable aircraft on the planet, so a New York-to-London flight will take less than an hour.  READ MORE

Being Sexually Fluid

The way we think about sexuality is changing. Where there was once a single, well-known rainbow pride flag, today, a wide array of colourful flags fly to showcase the diversity of orientations. People seem increasingly open to discussing their sexuality, and more unconventional, even formerly “invisible”, identities have become part of an increasingly mainstream discourse. With the open dialogue, sexual identities are becoming less rigid and more fluid.

But new data show that this shift is more prevalent in one group: in many countries, women are embracing sexual fluidity now at much higher rates than they have in the past, and more significantly than men are overall.

So, what accounts for this discrepancy? Experts believe there are many factors that feed into this progression, especially changes in social climate that have let women break out of conventional gender roles and identities. With these new insights, however, the question remains: what does this mean for sexual fluidity in the future for all genders?

A notable shift
Sean Massey and his colleagues at the Binghamton Human Sexualities Research Lab in New York have been studying sexual behaviours for about a decade. In each of their studies, they asked participants to report their sexual orientation and gender. They’d never before looked at how that data changed over time – until Massey and colleagues recently realised they were sitting on a treasure trove of information about sexual attraction.

“We thought, gosh, we've collected this data for 10 years,” says Massey, an ssociate professor of women’s, gender and sexuality studies at Binghamton University. “Why don't we go back and look and see if there's been any trends?”

They found that between 2011 and 2019, college-age women had increasingly moved away from exclusive heterosexuality. In 2019, 65% of women reported only being attracted to men, a notable decrease from 77% in 2011. The number of women exclusively having sex with men also dropped between those years. Meanwhile, men’s attraction and sexual behaviour stayed mostly static in the same time frame: about 85% reported sexual attraction to women only, and close to 90% reported engaging in sex exclusively with women.  

Black Market Grass

Noxon, whose name has been changed, started selling weed about eight years ago in Dutchess County.

His legitimate job barely paid rent and bought food, but the discretionary income from selling weed and concentrated cannabis, including THC vape cartridges, which he said are diverted from the legal market in California, gave him what he called “a quality-of-life cushion.”

He has no plans to stop.

People don’t like paying taxes, Noxon said of the prospect of competing against legal adult-use cannabis in New York, especially when they already have an established black-market connection.

Noxon, and the black market as a whole, is one of the many wild cards in determining how many cannabis consumers in the state begin to purchase marijuana legally once dispensaries open. But a low tax rate on cannabis could shift consumers to the legal market more successfully than states like California.

After years of starts and stops, legislation legalizing adult recreational marijuana was signed into law by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on March 31. The Marihuana Regulation and Taxation Act [MRTA] was intended to make up for a $15 billion budget shortfall, nearly all of which will be filled by the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, though the law is still on the books.  READ MORE