We love electric and hybrid vehicles. They have great fuel economy, are excellent for the environment, and up until now have mostly been cars and SUVs. The Nikola One plans to change that. Nikola Motor Company has announced a $375,000 electric semi truck named Nikola One. 2,000 horsepower, 3,700 ft. lbs. torque and it has a 1,200 mile range on a single charge. All this sounds sweet enough, but the driver also enjoys 30% more cabin space thanks to the lack of a traditional engine. Moving forward with electric cars goes a long way in helping the environment. Moving away from traditional engine semi trucks will surely be a great help as well.
Over the past decade few things have spiraled uncontrollably into all facets of pop culture quite as quickly or abruptly as the "selfie" has. It's been added to the dictionary, demonstrated on the red carpet and now it's even caused the demise of a 126-year-old Portuguese statue. A man climbed onto the statue's pedestal to take a selfie and rather than resulting in a duck-faced profile pic, it ended with the statue of Portuguese King, Dom Sebastiao, shattered on the ground. Authorities were able to arrest the culprit after he tried to flee the scene. He may not have gotten his selfie, but authorities helped him to a nice mug shot.
A text message, FaceTime, blog post, video, any number of things will keep your head buried in your phone. We don’t even think about it as we do it. The truth of the matter is that not paying attention to where you are going can have serious consequences. Besides potentially bumping into others, you run the risk of stepping out into traffic. A city in Germany has started a program to try and aid the ever looking down. The town has installed a row of LEDs in the sidewalk that will flash red when it’s not safe to cross the road. Hopefully allowing those with their heads down to still be alerted to potential danger.
It wasn’t too long ago that the NERC turned to the Internet looking for help naming a $300 million British research ship. You may have heard the story by now, but if not, the voted upon name for the ship ended up being Boaty McBoatFace. Yup, that’s right, Boaty McBoatFace. And the name has taken off. Although it has not been decided if the ship will in fact take the name, others have found it amusing. Australian racehorse owners named their horse Horsey McHorseFace, and on social media photos of a London train who’s digital signage had been changed to Trainy McTrainFace has even popped up.
A UK based power plant is partnering with a local creamery to help produce renewable energy. The plant will take the waste and whey from the local creamery and turn it into about 5MW of thermal energy. That’s enough energy to power around 4,000 homes! A portion of the energy produced will go to run the creamery where the waste and whey come from, but the rest will be up for grabs by private customers and businesses. It may be a cheesy way to go green, but it certainly seems like an effective one!
