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Accuweather estimates the damage and economic loss estimates in the Los Angeles wildfires at $250-$275 billion and still increasing. Losses are set to exceed Hurricane Katrina in 2005, even after adjusting for inflation. The LA fires will be costliest natural disaster in US history. In terms of number of burned buildings the Los Angeles fire ... Read more

The seventh flight test of Starship is preparing to launch Thursday, January 16. The 60-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT. A live webcast of the flight test will begin about 35 minutes before liftoff, which you can watch here and on X @SpaceX. You can also watch the webcast on the new ... Read more

Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket achieved orbit on its first launch Jan. 16, but they lost the booster. New Glenn lifted off at 2:03 a.m. Eastern from Launch Complex 36 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The booster uses seven BE-4 engines. The upper stage used two BE-3U engines and continued its ascent to orbit. ... Read more

A Google Deep Mind researcher and physics expert, Adam Brown, discusses what an AI Einstein would be like. Einstein coming up with General Relativity required coming up with new notation. Einstein’s discovery of general relativity was a complex and multi-faceted process that unfolded over several years, involving new mathematical notations, a revolutionary perspective on gravity, ... Read more

The seventh flight test of Starship is preparing to launch Wednesday, January 15. The 60-minute launch window will open at 4:00 p.m. CT. The upcoming flight test will launch a new generation ship with significant upgrades, attempt Starship’s first payload deployment test, fly multiple reentry experiments geared towards ship catch and reuse, and launch and ... Read more

In some legal matters, it makes sense to hire an expert witness. The expert witness can help you with a variety of tasks pertaining to your case, from evaluating the strength of your claim to gathering evidence and even representing you in court. But when exactly should you hire an expert witness? And how do ... Read more

SpaceX launched Firefly’s lunar lander. The lander will take 45 days to reach the moon. It will land near a volcanic feature called Mons Latreille within Mare Crisium, on the northeast quadrant of the Moon’s near side.

Nvidia’s improved GB300 GPU is powered by the B300 chip and will be available March 2025. It will give a 1.5x increase in FP4 performance. Its ultra-architecture also facilitates a substantial memory capacity upgrade from 192GB HBM2e (8 layers) to 288GB HBM3e (12 layers), enabling faster processing of massive datasets and improving overall performance. It ... Read more

The story of the battle for semiconductors was the battle between Liang Mong Song of SMIC /Samsung vs Morris Chang of TSMC and the future of AI. Dwarkesh Patel talked with Dylan Patel and Jon Y of Asianometry. Dylan Patel runs Semianalysis, the leading publication and research firm on AI hardware: https://www.semianalysis.com/ Jon Y runs ... Read more

2024 was another monster year for AI progress and spending on AI. In 2024, organizations worldwide spent an estimated $235 billion on AI, encompassing applications, infrastructure, and related services. The Future of AI is not certain but the huge spending is for the belief that we will transform the information industries with AGI-like or even ... Read more

A moon lander mission is launching tomorrow and will take about 45 days to get the moon and then spend 14 days or more operating on the surface. It will take improved radiation tolerant PCs and an electromagnetic dust shield. The Radiation Tolerant Computer (RadPC) is a technology demonstration of a radiation tolerant computer system. ... Read more

There was a report from Bloomberg that China was considering selling Tik Tok USA to Elon Musk X. This was later denied by Tik Tok. Kevin O’leary is part of group that has put up $20 billion to buy TikTok USA without the algorithm. There are about 110-130 million US users of Tik Tok USA. ... Read more

The exceptional drone or UFO sightings over New Jersey have had a high volume and there are officials who confirm various sightings. Law Enforcement and Local Officials: Various law enforcement agencies, including the Morris County Sheriff’s Office, have reported sightings. Sheriff James Gannon noted that there was no immediate danger to the public but confirmed ... Read more

Xpeng has a hybrid six wheel van. It has a gasoline and electric engine. It has automated deployment of a two passenger eVTOL. A vertical takeoff and landing two person vehicle. The van can hold five people and is about the size of a Cybertruck. The vehicles cost about $280,000. • Starting price: $280,000 • ... Read more

Blue Origin New Glenn rocket had a scrubbed first launch. Blue Origin will not try again for at least two days and weather will likely cause further days of delays. The rocket seems ready. The problem was icing on a vent. When New Glenn starts flying it will operate much like a larger SpaceX Falcon ... Read more

Copenhagen Atomics is a Danish molten salt technology company developing mass manufacturable molten-salt reactors. The reactor type invented by Copenhagen Atomics is a thorium molten salt breeder reactor, which fits inside a custom built 40 foot shipping container and can be mass manufactured on assembly lines with an expected output of minimum 1 reactor per ... Read more

Blue Origin New Glenn launch flight was scrubbed. [Blue Origin[ We’re standing down on today’s launch attempt to troubleshoot a vehicle subsystem issue that will take us beyond our launch window. We’re reviewing opportunities for our next launch attempt. It will carry the prototype DarkSky-1 Blue Ring Pathfinder, consisting of communications array, power systems, and ... Read more

Los Angeles could have to rebuild over 30% of the city. California has fires, earthquakes, high winds and other risks. Replacing hundreds of billions in residential and commercial buildings and roads is an opportunity to enable a shift to Ultra-high performance concrete and making key structures like hospitals, fire departments into UHPC concrete domes. The ... Read more

I, Brian Wang, talked with Randy Kirk about his idea for using tens of thousands of drones or other technology to fight large city and forest fires. Here is a solution that wasn't possible even a few years ago. 10,000 Drones specially built for dumping water or chemicals could provide overwhelming fire suppression fast and ... Read more

In Mid-2024, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued a construction permit yesterday to Abilene Christian University, giving ACU and its partners the go-ahead to build the Molten Salt Research Reactor (MSRR) facility on its Abilene, Texas, campus. The 1-MWt research reactor is the first molten salt–fueled reactor to get a construction permit from the NRC. After ... Read more

China’s outlined a buildout of nuclear power in the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021–2025), released in March 2021. China plans 150 new nuclear reactors over the ensuing 15 years to reach a production goal of 200 GW of nuclear energy by 2035. Analysts estimated that adding an additional 147 GW (to the 53 GW of nuclear ... Read more