Figures & Facts

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Official: Tesla 'autopilot' car hits Phoenix police motorcycle
A Phoenix police motorcycle was struck by a Tesla Model X reportedly operating on autopilot last week, police said.

The incident came days before a crash in Tempe involving an automated Uber vehicle in Tempe.
The collision prompted Uber to temporarily ground the program as it investigated the incident, but a company representative said Monday that the fleet will be redeployed.

In the southwestern dusk, an accident involving one of Uber’s autonomous Volvo XC90 test fleet cars happened

The iPhone of cars? Apple enters self-driving car race
Ending years of speculation, Apple's late entry into a crowded field was made official Friday with the disclosure that the California Department of Motor Vehicles had awarded a permit for the company to start testing its self-driving car technology on public roads in the state.

Apple will be vying against 29 other companies that already have California permits to test self-driving cars. The list includes major automakers, including Ford, General Motors, BMW, Volkswagen and Tesla, as well as one of its biggest rivals in technology, Google, whose testing of self-driving cars has been spun off into an affiliate called Waymo.

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Witness Saw Truck Driver Texting Bef?re Texas Crash That Killed 13
A witness to a deadly Texas wreck involving a church minibus says the driver of a pickup truck that crossed the center line repeatedly apologized and acknowledged he had been texting while driving.

Jody Kuchler told The Associated Press on Friday that he was driving behind the truck and had seen it being driven erratically prior to the collision on a rural two-lane road about 75 west of San Antonio.

Kuchler says he spoke with the driver as he was pinned in his truck Wednesday moments after the collision with the bus carrying senior adults with First Baptist Church of New Braunfels, Texas.

Kuchler says he told the driver, "Son, do you know what you just did?" He says the driver responded by repeatedly apologizing. The Texas Department of Public Safety has identified the driver as 20-year-old Jack Dillon Young.

Thirteen people on the bus were killed and the lone survivor remained hospitalized Friday.

Spike in US Pedestrian Deaths Linked to Cell Phone Distractions
The Governors Highway Safety Association reported nearly 6,000 pedestrian deaths for 2016, the highest figure in more than 20 years.

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Image courtesy newscame.com

Partnering with Nature is a time-honored tradition, Dutch police training golden eagles to catch drones

Prince Williams has flown for the Air Ambulance Service since 2015; a lethal drone comes within HALF A SECOND of Prince William's air ambulance.

A golden eagle grabs a flying drone during a military training exercise at Mont-de-Marsan French Air Force base, Southwestern France.

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February 8, 2016  read more »

Instead Of building another costly Berlin Wall
(which has been pulled down anyway),
"Let’s Build a Border Of Solar Panels"!
(What a brilliant idea, so constructive in every measure!!)
It would attract investment, create jobs and neighborly neighbors
(How wise, and no waste – imagine a gigantic smile on Earth!).

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Dec 19, 2016
Instead of another Berlin Wall, Instead Of Trump’s Wall, Let’s Build A Border Of Solar Panels President-elect Donald Trump has repeatedly called for Mexico to build a wall between our countries. There is indeed a way that Mexico could create a barrier between the U.S. and Mexico, one constructed exclusively on the Mexican side, with substantial benefits for both countries and the planet: a solar border.

Sunlight in the northern deserts of Mexico is more intense than in the U.S. Southwest because of the lower latitude and more favorable cloud patterns. And construction and maintenance costs for solar plants in Mexico are substantially lower. Thus, building a long series of such plants all along the Mexican side of the border could power cities on both sides faster and more cheaply than similar arrays built north of the border.  read more »

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Thomas Alva Edison (11 February 1847 – 18 October 1931) was an American inventor and businessman

In 1931, not long before he died, the inventor told his friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone: I’d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.

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Image courtesy deviantart.com and Wikipedia

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Albert Einstein: 14 March 1879 - 18 April 1955

? is commonly defined as the ratio of a circle's circumference C to its diameter d : pi = C/d
The number ? is a mathematical constant, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, commonly approximated as 3.14159. It has been represented by the Greek letter "?" since the mid-18th century, though it is also sometimes spelled out as "pi" .

The ratio C/d is constant, regardless of the circle's size. For example, if a circle has twice the diameter of another circle it will also have twice the circumference, preserving the ratio C/d. This definition of p implicitly makes use of flat (Euclidean) geometry; although the notion of a circle can be extended to any curved (non-Euclidean) geometry, these new circles will no longer satisfy the formula p = C/d.

What are the digits for Pi? 3.14 or 3.1415926535897932384626433832795028... (ad infinitum). As of October 11, 2011, the record for the computerized listing of the numbers of Pi is some 10 Trillion...

1,241,100,000,000 digits1.2411 trillion digits (1,241,100,000,000) digits of pi have been discovered.

Who discovered Pi?
Greek mathematician Euclid (born 325 BC) Euclidean geometry, attributed by Greek mathematician Euclid (born 325 BC) was the first recorded system used to show Pi as a mathematical constant.
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09 March 2017
Once again, our ships are all that stands between the whales and the Japanese whaling fleet.
Whale rescue ships at sea for 93 days (Ocean Warrior) and 90 days (the Steve Irwin)
Keeping Japanese whale butcher fleet (in the name of "research") on the move - whenever we got near the harpoon vessels or found discarded whale blubber in the sea that indicated we were close to where recent kills occurred (and therefore near the fleet), the factory ship simply took off full speed in the opposite direction. The Steve Irwin was shadowed by the Yushin Maru 3, thus taking one of the harpoon vessels out of action for 36 days. This year has taught us that we need to do more if we’re going to stop the whale poachers next season. We are a grassroots NGO fighting a war against the Japanese-government funded whaling fleet.

We rely on donations and volunteers, while they spend millions to sustain this slaughter for the non-existent demand for whale meat over a decade.

Antarctic waters, Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary -
On December 3rd Sea Shepherd embarked on its 11th Antarctic whale defense campaign.
Once again, our ships are all that stands between the whales and the Japanese whaling fleet. Ocean mammals need help to be defended.

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Photo courtesy Sea Shepherd Global / Simon Ager , Glenn Lockitch