http://www.governing.com/topics/transportation-infrastructure/gov-maglev-train-old-dominion-university.html

The car never traveled more than a short distance, at speeds far less than the promised 40 miles per hour. More test runs took place over the next few years — some of them paid for by selling most of the metal track as scrap.

Self-driving cars are coming. Tech giants such as Uber and Alphabet have bet on it, as have old-school car manufacturers such as Ford and General Motors. But even as Google’s sister company Waymo prepares to launch its self-driving-car service and automakers prototype vehicles with various levels of artificial intelligence, there are some who believe that the autonomous future has been oversold—that even if driverless cars are coming, it won’t be as fast, or as smooth, as we’ve been led to think. The skeptics come from different disciplines inside and out of the technology and automotive industries, and each has a different bear case against self-driving cars. Add them up and you have a guide to all the ways our autonomous future might not materialize.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2018/12/7-arguments-against-the-autonomous-vehicle-utopia/578638/?utm_source=feed

http://robertreich.org/post/181063714375

A viewpoint…

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2018/11/03/how-to-forecast-an-americans-vote

Interesting stuff! Of course, this is not a perfect predictor but they appear to have done a lot of homework through sampling.

The “…new equivalence test, published in October, flips the traditional null hypothesis framework on its head. Now, rather than assuming similarity, a researcher starts with the assumption that the two groups are different. The burden of proof now lies with evaluating the degree of similarity, rather than the degree of difference.”

https://theconversation.com/the-equivalence-test-a-new-way-for-scientists-to-tackle-so-called-negative-results-106041

http://theconversation.com/why-the-pilgrims-were-actually-able-to-survive-106990

Good stuff!

https://daily.jstor.org/building-colonies-for-wwi-veterans/

Interesting stuff!

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/11/dont-give-up-on-the-lecture/281624/

Seen through this lens of history, petroleum’s road to essentialness in human life begins neither in its ability to propel the Model T nor to give form to the burping plastic Tupperware bowl. The imperative to maintain petroleum supplies begins with its necessity for each nation’s defense. Although petroleum use eventually made consumers’ lives simpler in numerous ways, its use by the military fell into a different category entirely. If the supply was insufficient, the nation’s most basic protections would be compromised.

https://theconversation.com/how-world-war-i-ushered-in-the-century-of-oil-74585

http://theconversation.com/in-alaska-everyones-grappling-with-climate-change-105032

Coastal villages are washing into the Bering Sea, trees are sprouting in the tundra and shipping lanes are opening in an ocean that was once locked in ice. In Alaska, climate change isn’t a distant or abstract concern.