China’s first privately funded rocket maker, LandSpace, failed to put a microsatellite in orbit on Saturday during its inaugural flight.
The solid-fueled, three-stage Zhuque 1 rocket launched from the Jiuquan space center in the Gobi Desert at 4 a.m. EDT on Oct. 27. It soared successfully through its first two lower stages, but the third stage failed as it attempted to accelerate into low-Earth orbit.
The rocket was carrying the Weilai 1 microsatellite, which was meant to collect image
“Aha, I know the first car in the world,” you think, but you are wrong. You are thinking of the 1886 Benz Patent Motorwagen, and while that was the first car to feature an internal combustion engine, it was not the first car ever made. The first car ever built was this hulking, steaming, smoking monster, and it’s from 1769.
The fardier à vapeur (which translates to “steam dray”) is more like a truck, in the modern sense, than a car. Or it’s more like a tricycle than a car. Or more like an explosion in a bathtub than a car.
What I’m saying is, it was barely a car, but it still counts. It used the fires of Prometheus to move under its own wheeled power and transport a person, and that is pretty much the most basic definition of a car right there. Cugnot also probably invented terminal understeer, but we’ll get to that.
Cugnot’s curious invention was designed to solve a very specific problem, even though it never quite worked properly. Killing people with the utmost efficiency was, as it is today, the primary goal of war. And, like it is today, one of the most efficient ways to do so is with a great big cannon. And, like they are today, great big cannons are very heavy.
Getting great big cannons from one place to another isn’t so tough today. Just tow them around on a trailer, or fly them in an airplane, or put them on a boat. Easy peasy. But back in 1769, everyone had to make do with horses. If you were really lucky, you had a wagon attached to the horses, and you would strap a cannon barrel to the wagon, and you’d lug it along until you got to the site of the battle.
That was clearly terrible, but if Cugnot wanted a better solution, he’d basically have to come up with the entire idea of the car, all on his own.
So he did. Almost. “Better” really is the operative word here. Because none of this really sounds better at the end of the day than a horse.
Cugnot’s steam dray has two wheels in the back and one wheel in the front, and hanging in front of that was a huge boiler used to generate the steam to get the whole thing going. That was not the most ideal, as Autoweek noted back in 2001:
The drive mechanism, a ratchet affair operating alternately from each of the twin steam cylinders, works directly on the front wheel, which is fitted with horizontally grooved tread segments. The metal connecting rods, ratchets and the cylinders themselves appear to be of modern fabrication, but the boiler, frame and wheels are certainly original, the former not only wearing a patina but also bearing scars of age and fragility. The “fuel tank,” a wicker basket for holding wood billets burned in the firebox, hangs beneath the seat. Seating is for one only, and the vehicle is steered with a two-handed tiller design, which operates a rack-and-pinion arrangement on the power package, all of which turns with the front wheel. A long rod allows the driver to regulate steam exiting the boiler, thereby controlling the carriage’s speed.
The tiller “steering,” such as it is, seems to be completely ineffectual on the replica. Here’s a guy desperately trying to get it to turn….. somewhere (?), but clearly having a hard time of it as he turns and turns and turns the tiller, and nothing seems to happen:
Just to even get the thing going was more of a task than hooking a feedbag up to a horse’s ears and going off on your merry way, towing a cannon behind you. Hemmings did a great piece on the building of the fardier à vapeur replica back in 2014, and the contraption sounds like a headache and a half just to get it to go anywhere:
Fed a supply of oak, it’ll take about 45 minutes to build up enough steam to reach the 30 to 35 PSI working pressure necessary for about 3 to 4 MPH. “It only needs one person to drive,” Susan Cerf said. “But it’s pretty slow and cumbersome. It’ll go about 100 yards before it needs to be recharged, and the steam and smoke all blow back in the driver’s face.”
Between the incomprehensible steering and the thick cloud of smoke and fog surrounding the person who was actually, you know, trying to drive the thing, it’s a bit unsurprising that Cugnot’s invention was also at the center of the world’s very first car crash. In 1771, Cugnot built a second example, and that one may have driven straight into a wall, according to The Encyclopedia of the Industrial Revolution in World History, by Kenneth E. Hendrickson III:
The main problem with the vehicle was that there was a very bad weight distribution, with the two back wheels taking much of the weight, and if the load should move, such as cannon barrels rolling, there would be even more problems. Movement of the load was more likely on rough terrain, which would make the fardier à vapeur even harder to use.
It’s here where it should probably be pointed out that back in 1771 there weren’t exactly endless stretches of super-smooth autobahn lying around Europe. Even the best roads were quite lumpy. And then there’s the fardier à vapeur’s intended purpose, which was to get cannons over to where the wars were happening. And wars tend not to happen on smooth, modern autobahns, either. They’re in the fields and forests. It was a bad recipe all around. But back to the crash:
Modifying his designs, in 1771 Cugnot made a second full-size vehicle. According to an account from 1801, this second vehicle went out of control and hit the Arsenal wall, destroying it. If this took place – and this is not mentioned in contemporary literature – this would have been the first automobile accident.
Someone even went to the trouble of filming a dramatic re-enactment of the crash:
But the real brilliance of the fardier à vapeur wasn’t that the basic concept, of using heat energy to drive a piston to drive some wheels to propel a vehicle, didn’t work. That basic concept is still, obviously, very much in use today. And the problems that it did have were the sort of things that vex engineers working on cars today as well – suspension, weight distribution, steering, handling. Okay, so the fardier à vapeur’s suspension, weight distribution, steering, and handling problems were many orders of magnitude worse than something like a Toyota Camry, but the brilliance of it is apparent.
Here was somebody that likely had never even heard of a car, and yet they put the two already-existing inventions of the low-pressure steam engine and the wagon together, and it revolutionized the world.
Well, it revolutionized the world, eventually. But Wilbur and Orville Wright didn’t invent the Boeing 747, so cut Cugnot some slack. These things take time.
One of the really neat things about the first car ever built, however, wasn’t that it was a real pain and that it crashed into things. It’s that it still exists.
No, really, Cugnot’s actual machine, the one built in 1769, still exists. And not the replica, either.
The French government held onto Cugnot’s invention until 1800, when it handed it over to the Conservatoire national des arts et métiers (or in English, the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts), a university focused on engineering. That school set up a museum, the Musée des Arts et Métiers, where Nicholas-Josef Cugnot’s fardier à vapeur is still on display to this day.
Yep, the first car in the world, just sitting on display in a museum in Paris.
Swiss robotics company ABB has revealed that it’s spending $150 million to build an advanced robotics factory in Shanghai — one that will use robots to build robots. The company will rely on its YuMi single-arm robots, which it once used to conduct an orchestra, for small parts assembly. It also plans to make extensive use”of its SafeMove2 software in the facility, which it says will allow its YuMi models and other automated machines to safely work in close proximity with human employees.
ABB says its goal is to make the Shanghai facility the most advanced robotics factory in the world. It will even feature a Research and Development center to accelerate the firm’s work in artificial intelligence. In addition, it will widen the types and variants of robots the company can build for Chinese companies, including automakers and electronics manufacturers. China is ABB’s second biggest market after the United States, and the new factory could greatly expand its presence in the market. The company expects to open the 75,000-square-foot facility by late 2020.
If you’re Blue Apron and you see Amazon encroaching on your turf with its own meal kits and key online partnerships, what do you do? Make your kits more widely available, that’s what. In a reflection of its retail promises from earlier in the year, Blue Apron kits are now on sale through Jet.com’s City Grocery service — the first time they’ve been available through an online retailer. Should you live in the New York City area (including Hoboken and Jersey City), you can order from a selection of quick-to-prepare two-serving kits that will reach your door either the same day or the next.
There are just four early choices ranging from a $17 Italian farro bowl to $23 seared steaks. Don’t worry about settling into a routine, as the kit options will rotate every six weeks. There’s a $6 “scheduling fee’ on top of each order.
It may seem odd for Blue Apron to partner with Jet when the store’s parent, Walmart, has been making kits for months. There’s a concern Walmart could muscle in and hurt Blue Apron’s business. However, both have a mutual enemy in Amazon. While there’s a degree of competition between the two, they could be stronger together than they are standing on their own.
Streaming services like Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu put a vast library of movies and television shows at your fingertips. But the sheer size of the repository makes it easier than ever for youngsters to stumble across inappropriate content.
So the companies that provide all this digital media have integrated a number of parental controls into their platforms. However, you may not know how to find all the settings. Here’s how to establish protections for younger eyes and ears.
When you decide to control what your kids watch on Netflix, you have two options: Create a new, limited user profile, or set up password protections for mature content.
First, you can set up a dedicated user profile for your children. This has the added benefit of keeping their viewing separate from your own, preventing your recommendations from filling up with children’s shows and cartoons. However, it’s not perfect: This method relies on kids to stick to their own profiles, but they can easily switch from their account to yours.
To take this step, visit the Netflix web interface, hover over your account avatar on the top right, and click Manage Profiles. Click Add Profile, give the new account a name, tick the Child box, and hit Continue. Then select the profile and choose an option from the Allowed TV shows and movies list. You can choose between a few categories. For Little Kids only limits viewers to content rated G, TV-Y, or TV-G; For Older Kids and below allows them to watch those little-kids videos as well as those rated PG, TV-Y7, TV-Y7-FV, or TV-PG; and For Teens and below expands to encompass anything rated PG-13 or TV-14. Finally, click Save to confirm your choice. This will add your new child profile, with the appropriate content blocks built in.
Your second option is to require that users enter a 4-digit PIN in order to view mature content. This applies across all the profiles, so your kids can’t side-step it by switching to your account.
To set up your PIN, log into the Netflix website, hover over your account avatar on the top right, and click Account > Parental controls > Create PIN. Once you’ve saved a number, you have to decide what to hide behind it. You can block shows and films of a certain maturity level, individual titles, or both.
If you’d prefer to set up these controls from your phone, you can access the same two options via the mobile apps (for Android and iOS). If you tap More in the bottom-right corner, you can either create one of those new child-friendly profiles or access the Account menu option, which redirects you to the web interface to establish your PIN.
Before you set up restrictions on your YouTube account, think about how you and your kids use it. Do you primarily watch through your web browser? In that case, click your avatar on the top right and select Restricted Mode > Activate Restricted Mode. This setting blocks all videos “with potentially mature content”…but it only works in the current browser account, which means your kid can avoid it by opening an incognito window. So this mode acts as a quick and easy fix, but it’s not the most long-term or reliable option.
If you prefer to watch on your phone or tablet, then you can still find the same Restricted Mode option. Open the YouTube app (for Android and iOS), tap your avatar on the top right, and choose Settings. Again, these restrictions only apply to the one device—and if your kids have enough chutzpah, they can just disable the mode when you’re not looking.
Luckily, your phone offers a more effective option: Install the YouTube Kids app (for Android and iOS) on the devices your kids use to watch videos. This version of the streaming app will only play videos suitable for younger people, and you can exert full control over what your youngsters get to see.
Once you download the app and open it, it will ask you which restrictions you want to put in place. For example, you can set the age of all the children who will access the app, so it can tailor the allowed material accordingly. You can also choose whether or not to block the search function. If you decide to change these options at a later date, simply tap the lock button on the bottom right and hit Settings. From this screen, you can also enable Approved content only, which limits viewers to only specific videos and channels that you’ve approved in advance. The lock-button menu also includes a Timer option, which gives your children a limited window in which they can use the app. When the timer runs out, they won’t be able to access the app until you reset it again.
For the iTunes app, your parental-control options include not only videos, but music and books as well. The steps will again vary depending on whether you’re watching on a computer or a more portable device.
On a PC or a Mac, launch the Edit menu (on Windows) or the iTunes menu (on macOS), click Preferences, and switch to the Restrictions tab. Here, you can limit music, films, TV shows, and books by maturity rating, or completely switch off components of the app, like the iTunes Store and podcasts. Once you’ve set your limits, click the lock icon to prevent future changes. Now anyone trying to tinker with the settings will have to enter the password associated with your Windows or macOS account.
Although you can’t put iTunes on an Android device, you can adjust the parental controls on iPhones and iPads. To block access based on age ratings, open the iOS settings and tap General > Screen Time > Content & Privacy Restrictions. Turn the Content & Privacy Restrictions toggle switch to On, and then tap Content Restrictions. Now you can set age limits for all content on the device, including music, podcasts, movies, TV shows, books, apps, and websites. On the previous menu page, you can set even bigger restrictions: Hit iTunes & App Store Purchases to prevent the installation of new apps and block in-app purchases, or tap the Allowed Apps option to completely turn off access apps like Safari and the iTunes Store.
These parental controls make up part of a broader suite of Screen Time controls. In addition to content restriction, you can set time limits on specific apps (in Settings > Screen Time > App Limits), or create a schedule when certain apps won’t open (from the previous menu, hit Downtime). To prevent little hands from changing these options without your permission, tap Use Screen Time Passcode and set a PIN.
To control what your family watches on Google Play, you need to put a block on your Android devices. Even if you share a device with your kids, you should set up those restrictions—you can always override them when you want to watch something geared toward adult viewers.
Open the Play Store app, tap the Menu button (three lines) on the top left, and choose Settings > Parental controls. Toggle the top switch to On, set a PIN, and go into the different content categories to set some age limits. If you need to lift the limitations, enter that PIN to turn parental controls off again.
Another way to manage your family’s screen time is to download Google’s Family Link app (for Android and iOS). It acts as a hub that lets parents monitor and control a child’s Google account. From the opening screen, tap your child’s name and hit Manage settings > Controls on Google Play. Then go through the categories setting age restrictions on each one.
However, app restrictions won’t stop your kids from accessing Google Play on the web and installing apps or viewing movies from there. So if your youngsters use your computer as well, you’ll have to establish restrictions there as needed. Plus, the same Google account can use YouTube to access any videos it has purchased on Google Play Movies & TV. To avoid this workaround, use the earlier instructions to put parental controls on Youtube as well.
Like the other streaming services, Hulu let you set parental controls on your account. The main way to do this is similar to Netflix’s solution: Create individual profiles for your kids. Again, this requires that you make sure your children won’t log out of their profiles and into yours. But if they play by the rules, they won’t be able to accidentally stumble across movies and TV shows they shouldn’t see.
To add a new profile, open the Hulu website, head to your account page , and click Profiles. Enter a name for the new account and turn on the Kids toggle switch. Then enter a birth date to establish your child’s age, preventing him or her from viewing content rated inappropriate for that age level.
You can also configure a kid’s profile through the Hulu apps (for Android and iOS). Tap the Account tab (the image of a person), choose the current profile, and tap New Profile. Then specify a name and birth date, and mark this as a child’s profile, to set up the appropriate restrictions.
via Popular Science – New Technology, Science News, The Future Now https://ift.tt/2k2uJQn
There are many, many jobs that are much worse than working at Netflix. But based on an extensive profile of the company’s culture, the streaming company certainly seems to have built a unique version of corporate hell.
Citing interviews with more than 70 current and former employees (some on the record, some off), the Wall Street Journal has published an inside account of Netflix workplace culture. It details a philosophy cobbled together from bits and pieces of self-help lit, business school puffery, Silicon Valley disruption, and new-agey commitments to radical transparency. More than anything, it just seems bizarre.
The profile’s sources described the “Netflix way” as a structure founded on brutal honesty, ritual humiliation, insider lingo, and constant fear. It’s a mix of elements that a lot of people in corporate culture might recognize but according to many employees, it’s been a chaotic process that is difficult to scale as the company carries out its plans of world domination.
Above all, the “Netflix way” is about firing anyone who might not qualify as the best of the best. Supervisors are required to apply the “Keeper Test,” an exercise in which they ask themselves if they would fight to keep an employee on staff. Those who don’t take the test seriously and fail to cull the weakest from the herd can find themselves on the chopping block. A former marketing vice president described to the Journal how she was working over the weekend to promote the second season of Orange Is the New Black in New York City, and received word that her boss wanted to have an early meeting on Monday. When she arrived to the meeting, she was told that she was fired because she wasn’t a “cultural fit.” Chief Talent Officer Tawni Nazario-Cranz later told the former executive that she should have fired one of the people she supervised faster. She had failed the “Keeper Test.” Nazario-Cranz was subsequently fired last year. Several managers said they feel they have to make sure to fire people or they’ll look soft.
Firings can be abrupt but Netflix maintains that its radically transparent culture should give everyone a good idea of where they stand. Executives regularly hold roundtables in which they criticize each other and all employees are encouraged to give each other no-holds-barred feedback. When a person screws up they are expected to pay public penance and explain to others what they did wrong in a process called “sunshining.” When someone is fired, an email is sent to employees explaining in detail why they were fired. Often times the details of firings are outlined at length in-person at all-hands meetings.
CEO Reed Hastings is described as a dedicated adherent to the culture and several former employees said he is “unencumbered by emotion”—in a good way. One example of his excellent inability to feel was when he fired former product manager Neil Hunt for failing the “Keeper Test.” Hunt was at Netflix from the beginning and a close friend of Hastings. But last year, Hastings came to Hunt and explained that the company’s various expansions made Greg Peters a better fit and that he would take over. Hunt was out. He said that we wouldn’t have chosen that time to leave but he wasn’t bitter.
Netflix told the Journal that while most companies make personal decisions based on an 80/20 split between skills and cultural fit, the streaming service prefers to weigh things 50/50. Asked for comment on the story, a Netflix spokesperson sent Gizmodo the following statement:
We believe strongly in maintaining a high performance culture and giving people the freedom to do their best work. Fewer controls and greater accountability enable our employees to thrive, making smarter, more creative decisions, which means even better entertainment for our members. While we believe parts of this piece do not reflect how most employees experience Netflix, we’re constantly working to learn and improve.
Kill or be killed seems to be accepted as a mode of operation. One employee expressed the feeling that they live in fear of being fired every day at an executive meeting. A vice president named Karen Barragan was said to have responded: “Good, because fear drives you.” Barragan disputed the account.
The fact is most of the employees interviewed by the Journal didn’t have particularly harsh words for Netflix even if they didn’t agree with the way it works or felt its approach was cruel. Paying employees ungodly sums of money helps take the edge off. But many sources said that things like the “Keeper Test” were just a fancy cover for standard workplace politics, and transparency efforts were just embarrassing and awkward. Some said that the public airing of dismissals simply fueled gossip.
It’s also led to culture shock as the company rapidly expands, takes on bigger loads of debt, and faces stiff competition. Employees in Singapore were shocked when they first experienced the culture of rapid termination and laws in countries like the Netherlands prevent Netflix from operating in its true Darwinian form.
Double-standards on transparency create confusion. One executive said he was fired because he did not inform others about another employee’s medical condition out of respect for their privacy. Netflix saw this as not being “forthright with us around a major employee issue.” But Jonathan Friedland, former chief communications officer was a little too forthright and open when transparently talking out issues. He was fired this summer after he used the n-word in separate meetings explaining language that can make some people uncomfortable.
Hastings waffled for months on firing Friedland and subsequently “sunshined” his failure in judgment at a retreat. According to the Journal, he apologized on stage and sliced a lemon in half. He squeezed it into a glass and drank it. “When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” he wisely explained. That’s not how you make lemonade. It’s just lemon juice and if you drink too much you’ll probably vomit.
Dyllon Randall and graduate students Vukheta Mukhari and Suzanne Lambert with pee bricks.Photo: University of Cape Town
Pee contains some pretty amazing stuff. Scientists have known for nearly a decade that it’s possible to produce bricks from bacteria, sand, and urea—a chemical found in urine. Researchers have gone ahead and produced those bricks, now for the first time with human pee.
South African engineer Dyllon Randall from the University of Cape Town, who refers to urine as “the liquid gold of wastewater” due to its chemical contents, has been studying various uses for pee and its components. A graduate student in his lab, Suzanne Lambert, has now unveiled bricks about as strong as clay bricks, produced with human pee through a process called “microbial carbonate precipitation.” Basically, they begin with sand containing bacteria that produce an enzyme called urease. Urease eats the urea in the pee and produces calcium carbonate, gluing the sand in place.
But why pee bricks? According to the University of Cape Town press release, they’re better for the environment because they can be formed at room temperature. By contrast, kiln-fired bricks must be heated to 1,400 degrees Celsius and produce lots of carbon dioxide. Plus, it’s surely a better use for your pee than whatever you’re currently doing with it.
We chatted with Lambert about what it’s like to make pee bricks.
The brick-making setupPhoto: University of Cape Town
Gizmodo: Where did you get this idea?
Suzanne Lambert: My supervisor came up with it while he was researching how to make fertilizers out of urine… But he found that the urea was not hydrolizing [breaking down with the help of water]. He was researching what to do with the urea and found a company that uses synthetic urea to produce bricks. So why not use the urea in urine to do the same thing?
G: How do you collect the urine?
SL: There’s a boys’ bathroom opposite the lab. We have a makeshift urinal—a can with a urinal attachment on top. You can detach the urinal to store the urine. I just asked the boys at the university to please donate to me.
G: And what’s the texture of the bricks like? Are they as strong as normal bricks?
SL: The texture is similar to normal bricks. They’re kind of grey. And they’re as strong as bricks. The last test I did, I brought them to 2.5 megapascals. There’s an undergraduate who’s been doing tests and he got one up to 5 megapascals. a clay brick can withstand around 3 megapascals. It’s pretty good. [Author’s note: A military submarine would need to withstand 5 megapascals at 500-meter depths.]
The pee bricksPhoto: University of Cape Town
G: How does it get so solid?
SL: The idea is mimicking something that happens in nature. Let’s take the way coral is formed. Coral has bacteria on it. The bacteria produce an enzyme that makes a reaction to produce calcium carbonate. I grow bacteria and put it in a sand mixture then the bacteria colonizes within it when you pump the urine through. The bacteria produces an enzyme that converts the urea into carbonate and ammonia.
G: Do people think this is weird?
SL: Some people do. Mostly people are just interested. You can change people’s concept of waste and how we reuse our waste that would otherwise get incinerated in a wastewater treatment plant. It’s pretty great.
G: Do you think people will buy into this? How do you plan on changing their perceptions?
SL: First, these kind of things require putting an idea into people’s brains, and showing them that the bricks don’t smell. It’s an interesting process, and there are so many other applications of these bacteria. It could be cheaper than most methods today. Hopefully the need will supply the change. It may be a little while until it’s something that can be applied in our real world, but it’s not that far away. Maybe it can absorb some of the market. I’m not sure. You can only hope.
