Author: Mark Schumacher

Yahoo News

It’s anyone’s guess where “Mad” Mike Hughes gets his nickname, but you may have heard it before. In November of 2017, Hughes announced a plan to ride his home-made rocket into the sky with the ultimate goal of proving that the Earth is flat. His first launch never got off the ground due to government regulations, but on Friday, he announced that he’s going to try again, sometime around February 3.

Hughes does not believe that the Earth is the shape of a sphere, according to a video released on Friday on his Facebook page. He has said that he doesn’t believe in science and that public schools are “programming centers.” He claims that he doesn’t like the word “flat earther,” but his rocket is painted with the words “flat earth.”  Continue reading “Man Who Hopes to Prove the Earth Is Flat in His Homemade Rocket Has a New Launch Date”

Daily Mail

The rise of the machines could leave a third of the population out of work.

That’s according to Dr Subhash Kak, a computing expert at Oklahoma University, who claims AI and self-driving cars will lead to mass unemployment.

He also warns that as robots take control of the world, humans will slip into a life of ‘meaningless’ misery.   Continue reading “Self-driving cars and AI will leave a ‘THIRD of the population unemployed’”

National Post

This winter, Calgary has expanded its use of beet juice as a de-icing alternative to road salt. While slightly more expensive than salt, the mixture is more efficient, less toxic and less corrosive.

Nevertheless, despite a galaxy of relatively benign de-icing agents such as beet juice, this year cities across Canada will stubbornly continue to coat their roads with literal mountains of salt. Although salt remains the single cheapest way to keep snow and ice at bay, the economics make much less sense when considering the awesome scale of the damage wrought every year by the salt truck.   Continue reading “How Canada’s addiction to road salt is ruining everything”

Daily Mail

Artificially cooling Earth to counter global warming could destroy our planet if the process is abruptly stopped, according to new research.

Some scientists have suggested firing aerosols into the atmosphere to help combat global warming by imitating a natural side-effect of volcanic eruptions.

The aerosols, one of many ‘geoengineering’ techniques proposed as a way to deal with climate change, would cool Earth by blocking incoming solar radiation.   Continue reading “Artificially cooling the planet is a ‘risky strategy’”

The Guardian – by Kathleen McLaughlin

The Diamond Bar X is a postcard-perfect slice of Montana solitude. A former cattle ranch that’s been parceled up into sprawling home sites, it sits not far outside Augusta, a cowboy town beneath Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front, where the Great Plains crash into majestic snow-peaked mountains to dramatic effect.

The area is prime habitat for elk and grizzlies, people are few, and its residents have easy access to countless miles of trails and streams on the adjacent public lands.   Continue reading “Class war in the American west: the rich landowners blocking access to public lands”

Newsweek

In the past month, parts of Reno, Nevada, have experienced a total of 274 known earthquakes. But if you’re surprised you haven’t heard about them by now, consider that the vast majority of those have been truly tiny tremors—just five of those quakes have been stronger than a magnitude 2.0, which means they’ve mostly been too gentle to feel. Some have even been so tiny that seismological networks haven’t even alerted scientists there has been a quake. Instead, they’ve pored through data to identify the small quivers.  Continue reading “Earthquake Swarm In U.S. City Has Lasted 7 Days Straight—What’s Going On?”

Yahoo News

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s official news agency said in a commentary on Sunday that the shutdown of the U.S. government exposed “chronic flaws” in the U.S. political system.

Funding for federal agencies ran out at midnight on Friday in Washington after lawmakers failed to agree on a stopgap funding bill.

“What’s so ironic is that it came on the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s presidency on Saturday, a slap in the face for the leadership in Washington,” China’s Xinhua News Agency said in a commentary by Xinhua writer Liu Chang.   Continue reading “Chinese state media: US government shutdown exposes ‘chronic flaws’”

Tech Crunch – by Danny Crichton

Storied Sequoia investor Mike Moritz threw fire into the tech Twitter gumbo with his observations of hard-working Chinese workers and slothful Silicon Valley engineers. Moritz, a billionaire, clearly needs page views to fund his retirement.

The major money quote about Silicon Valley is this: “In recent months, there have been complaints about the political sensibilities of speakers invited to address a corporate audience; debates over the appropriate length of paternity leave or work-life balances; and grumbling about the need for a space for musical jam sessions. These seem like the concerns of a society that is becoming unhinged.”   Continue reading “Mike Moritz and the declining America worker”

The Oregonian – by Lynn Terry

When people in central Oregon’s Madras, Culver and Metolius turn on their taps, untreated spring water flows forth. It costs them less than a penny per gallon.

A company in California buys that same water and sells it in big glass jugs for up to $8.60 a gallon around Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The jugs are flying off the shelves.    Continue reading “California ‘raw’ water fans pay $9 a gallon for Oregon tap water”

CNN

These are the images that show what will soon be known as the world’s next tallest building rising from the desert. When the 3,280-feet-tall (1,000-meter-tall) Jeddah Tower, in Saudi Arabia, opens in 2020, it will knock Dubai’s iconic Burj Khalifa off its throne as the tallest skyscraper in the world by 236 feet (72 meters). Construction of the landmark is estimated to cost $1.4 billion.

When CNN visited the site at the end of 2017, the tower was 252 meters (826 feet) high and already had expansive views of the kingdom.   Continue reading “Jeddah Tower: What does the world’s next tallest skyscraper look like now?”

Daily Mail

A student who has spent the last six years preparing for the apocalypse has detailed his meticulous planning, which includes taking a bag of emergency supplies with him wherever he goes.

Alex Mason, 17, who is a doomsday prepper – someone who is actively preparing for a global catastrophe – stockpiles food such as rice and canned goods, has taught himself impressive survival skills and even set up an Instagram account with his friend Myles Allen, 17, to spread the word.   Continue reading “‘Doomsday prepper’ teen prepares for apocalypse”

Daily Mail

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has boasted that he had the backing of President Donald Trump for his November ‘coup,’ a source in the country has told DailyMail.com.

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, now the de facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, told his close aides that Trump had given his explicit support for a power grab, which involved the arrests of 11 princes and hundreds of officials and businessmen in midnight raids across the kingdom.   Continue reading “Saudi Arabia crown prince boasts he has Trump’s backing”

Daily Mail

A mother-of-three marathon runner died of flu just 48 hours after falling ill.

Katie Oxley Thomas, 40, of San Jose, California, was a yoga enthusiast and runner before she died earlier this month.

Her family told ABC 7 she was taken to the emergency room at Good Samaritan Hospital and her condition declined so quickly that she was moved to intensive care, placed on life support and died that same day – all in the span of 15 hours.     Continue reading “California marathon runner dies from flu”

Yahoo News

Why should women get to wear all the pretty dresses? Why can’t men also flounce about in the feathers, lace or fine embroidery if they fancy? These are the questions being posed by the daring young Spanish label, Palomo Spain, whose flamboyant show kicked off the Paris men’s fashion week late Tuesday.

Designer Alejandro Gomez Palomo told AFP he wants nothing less than to “liberate” men from the straitjacket of convention.   Continue reading “Pretty dresses are no longer just for women”

Daily Mail

An attempt to oust President Donald Trump’s hotel business from managing a luxury hotel in Panama has turned bitter, with accusations of financial misconduct.

Trump Hotels is contesting its firing, and its staff ran off a team of Marriott executives invited last month to visit the property during a search for a new hotel operator, according to two people familiar with the matter.  Continue reading “Majority owners in Panama hotel want Trump’s company out”