Handwritten Einstein letter containing famous E=mc2 equation sells for $1.2 million | Live Science

May 27, 2021May 26, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A “lost” letter written by Albert Einstein to a rival physicist recently sold to an anonymous collector for $1.2 million at auction. The handwritten letter includes Einstein’s famous E=mc2 equation and is one of just four known examples of the equation in the physicist’s own handwriting, according to archivists from the Einstein Papers Project at Caltech and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

The one-page letter, written in German on paper with Einstein’s blind-stamped personal Princeton letterhead, was sent to Polish American physicist Ludwik Silberstein, a well-known critic of some of Einstein’s theories at the time. The document is signed “A. Einstein” and is dated Oct. 26, 1946.

Why Lumber And Plywood Prices Are So High—And When They Will Come Down

May 24, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Lumber and plywood prices have jumped through the roof in the U.S. Building materials prices will retreat in 2022, returning to pre-pandemic levels by 2023. They reflect housing-specific issues, not general inflation. (The general inflation is coming, I have argued, but lumber is not an early sign.)

Wood products prices typically fluctuate more than most goods, because homebuilding can move up or down much faster than sawmill capacity can. Wood products have other uses that are more stable, such as non-residential construction, crates and pallets, but new housing is the largest usage, followed by home repairs and remodeling, and both of those activities are highly cyclical.

Naomi Campbell: Supermodel becomes mother to baby girl | BBC News

May 19, 2021May 18, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Supermodel Naomi Campbell has become the mother of a baby girl.

The 50-year-old announced the news on Instagram as she shared a picture of her hand holding the baby’s feet.

“A beautiful little blessing has chosen me to be her mother, so honoured to have this gentle soul in my life,” she posted on the social media website.

California Gov. Newsom proposes $3.2B in EV investment as part of economic recovery package | TechCrunch

May 18, 2021May 16, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

California Governor Gavin Newsom, a vocal proponent of electric vehicles, on Friday debuted a new proposal that would earmark $3.2 billion to boost EV infrastructure and adoption in the state.

“This is a big deal,” Newsom said at a press conference Friday. “The Biden administration’s been talking a lot about this, they’re hoping to do something with the Senate, but we’re doing it. We’re not waiting around.”

Home prices are still going up almost everywhere | CNN

May 12, 2021May 11, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The beginning of 2021 has seen home prices continue to climb to new record-breaking heights, with prices rising in almost every major metro area.

While that has boosted value for many homeowners, it has made buying a home ridiculously hard for buyers.

In 99% of metro areas tracked by the he National Association of Realtors, prices in the first quarter of 2021 increased over the same period last year, according to a NAR report. Nationally, the median sale price for existing homes climbed 16% from the first quarter of 2020 to $319,200, both record highs since NAR began tracking city data quarterly in 1989.

Woman gets 6 doses of COVID-19 vaccine at once | Live Science

May 12, 2021May 11, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A woman in Italy accidentally received six doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine all at once, according to news reports.

The 23-year-old woman did not experience any serious side effects from the vaccine overdose, CBS News reported.

The accident happened Sunday (May 9) at the Noa Hospital in Tuscany, Italy, according to CBS News. The nurse administering the vaccine mistakenly injected the woman with an entire vial of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, which contains six doses.

Cyber Attack Shuts Down Vital Fuel Pipeline To Northeast U.S. | Forbes

May 10, 2021May 9, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

One of America’s energy jugulars, the 5,500-mile, 100 million gallon-per day Colonial pipeline network, was shut down Friday night because of what the company refers to as a “cybersecurity attack.”

The incident is ongoing, the company says, and is already under investigation by private cyber forces and federal agencies.

The alleged attack disrupts the nation’s largest gasoline and diesel fuel pipeline system, which supplies 45% of fuel supplies to the East Coast, including New York harbor and airports.

Why can’t Google get a grip on rip-off ads? | BBC News

May 4, 2021May 3, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google has failed to stop “shyster” websites advertising on its search engine, despite promising to fix the problem, the BBC has found.

Adverts for unofficial services selling government documents such as travel permits and driving licences are against Google’s own rules.

But the BBC found adverts for expensive third-party sellers every time it searched during a 12-month period.

In a statement Google said it had taken down billions of rule-breaking adverts.

Data was the new oil, until the oil caught fire | TechCrunch

May 3, 2021May 2, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

We’ve been hearing how “data is the new oil” for more than a decade now, and in certain sectors, it’s a maxim that has more than panned out. From marketing and logistics to finance and product, decision-making is now dominated by data at all levels of most big private orgs (and if it isn’t, I’d be getting a résumé put together, stat).

So it might be a something of a surprise to learn that data, which could transform how we respond to the increasingly deadly disasters that regularly plague us, has been all but absent from much of emergency response this past decade. Far from being a geyser of digital oil, disaster response agencies and private organizations alike have for years tried to swell the scope and scale of the data being inputted into disaster response, with relatively meager results.