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just me. my current interests and stories for the interwebs.
The nine-station La Jolla line will run 11 miles from Old Town to UCSD. SANDAG estimates the new line will attract 20,000 new transit riders a day.
I find it hard to see the 20,000 "new" transit riders a day within this locale. Maybe a brunt of it would be students going downtown but unless it actually stretches further North, I think this could easily be another 78 corridor ridership-less mode of transportation.
New data published Thursday shows that despite the higher sticker price, electric cars may actually save drivers money in the long-run.
To reach this conclusion, a team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology calculated both the carbon dioxide emissions and full lifetime cost — including purchase price, maintenance and fuel — for nearly every new car model on the market.
They found electric cars were easily more climate friendly than gas-burning ones. Over a lifetime, they were often cheaper, too.
I’m been trying to tell you this especially with the cost comparisons clearly lined out in Cleantechnica. It’s about time we start to see the main stream media take these studies into account instead of discounting an being naysayers in the accepting that the EV Revolution is here.
Take the Tesla Model 3, the most popular electric car in the United States. The M.I.T. team estimated the lifetime cost of the most basic model as comparable to a Nissan Altima that sells for $11,000 less upfront. (That’s even though Tesla’s federal tax incentive for electric vehicles has ended.)
EWG has assessed more than 700 currently available beach and sport sunscreens and found that only about a quarter of the products offer adequate protection and don’t contain concerning ingredients. The six chemicals studied by the FDA are found in about half the products reviewed by EWG, which advises consumers to choose sunscreens made with zinc oxide or titanium dioxide.
Zinc Oxide and Titanium Oxide only or other mineral based sunscreens and make sure to avoid sunscreens that contain these chemicals: avobenzone, oxybenzone, octocrylene, homosalate, octisalate, and octinoxate. Choose natural type brans and be on the lookout for the 25% of products that are “healthier” alternatives. Also, you could just go full Asian and wear a long sleeve shirt and light pants and cover-up.
Here is the direct link to the FDA study and a non-paywalled article from Consumer Affairs.
I have to admit that I watched the keynote in almost its entirety while I was at the airport waiting for a flight and even continued it while boarding the aircraft (as a passenger mind you) and was every bit tweeting and excited for what the future is going to bring. I mean, the most exciting for me are Home Screen Widgets for the iPhone but that Translate App is bonkers too; Sleep Tracking on the Apple Watch but I’m a little skeptical on the battery life and management but I’m sure Apple will have more on that with the Apple Watch 6 set to debut this fall; iPad’s continuing growth as a full fledge computing device and of course, Mac’s move to Apple Silicon. That’s huge! Still wondering why no benchmark’s were released but I’m interested in that Development Testing Kit Mac Mini at $500! The surprise was that all the demos of macOS 11 were that they were running on a Mac with Apple Silicon and most apps running natively.
If you didn’t get a chance to watch the Keynote, check out The Verge’s video with the highlights below! That wheelchair is pretty amazing. Almost seems like Apple invented that one.
WWDC 2020, Apple's online developer conference, was full of huge announcements. If you weren't watching live to see what's coming next for macOS, iOS 14, iPa...
The 23-campus California State University system plans to all but cancel in-person classes in the fall and instead will offer instruction primarily online, Chancellor Timothy White announced Tuesday.
The vast majority of classes across the Cal State system will be taught online, White said, with some limited exceptions that allow for in-person activity. The decision comes as schools throughout the country grapple with how long to keep campuses closed amid the coronavirus crisis.
We are in for a new normal. And with Los Angeles announcing a shelter-in-place order until the end of summer, it’s going to be a very different West Coast experience or lack-thereof. At least the beaches are open?
Hopefully everyone continues to keep their distance as we start mobilizing a bit more. I know I’m getting antsy. In today's news (Monday, May 11, 2020), California is looking worse than expected and one family gathering at Easter has resulted in a cluster of 5 cases including an individual who was coughing and joking about possibly having it. Do everyone a favor and protect yourself. Wear a mask not only for yourself but for others as well. We should know this already! Thanks to contract tracing, it hopefully has been isolated.
Researchers are now predicting that California could see more than 6,000 COVID-19 deaths by the end of August, up about 1,420 from projections they released last Monday. It’s the fifth-largest increase in projected death tolls among U.S. states, after Pennsylvania, Illinois, Arizona and Florida.
The upward revisions “are a result of a combination of updated daily death and case data, recent actions to ease previously implemented social distancing measures and steadily rising levels of mobility in many places,” the researchers said in notes released with the data.
This time, the new SE’s trade-offs seem trivial. No face scanner, shooting photos in the dark or humongous screen? Those are minor inconveniences when you are paying 40 percent less than for an iPhone 11.
Who doesn’t want to save 40% on a new iPhone that uses the fastest and more current mobile processor as well as having an excellent camera? The biggest point that agree with Brian X. Chen on his iPhone SE (2) assessment is exactly this. He goes on to mention that he is more inclined to spend the $999 on an iPhone, as am I, but on day 2, why spend any more money?
“The new iPhone SE’s lack of compromise is what makes it remarkable. Apple took all the best parts from its expensive iPhones — including a fast computing processor and an excellent camera — and squeezed them into the shell of an older iPhone with a home button and smaller screen. At the same time, it managed to include useful features that were previously exclusive to fancy new phones, like water resistance, wireless charging and so-called portrait photos.”
Peloton reported it’s earnings today and smashed it. Wall Street loved it sending its stock up 5% in after-hours. Take a look at this highlight below!
For starters, Peloton added an insane 1.1 million users to its digital fitness platform from March 16 to April 30, amid a free trial promotion. The thinking here is that Peloton could convert these free trials into paying memberships, and eventually into a bike or tread.
The fact that I have at least 5 friends who just recently purchase the bike in the last two weeks alone makes me think that Peloton can even go higher and maybe, just maybe, they’ll release their rumored rower or just buy Hydrow. I hoping for the latter as I already love my rower so much and I think that Peloton’s digital base and software will only make the Hydrow experience that much better; as long as they keep the current athletes.
Note: I have a small position in $PTON and am going to hold onto it for a few months.
Update: Wall Street is loving it and Peloton (use my referral code for $100 off: QZGJZA) is up 10% after hours and I think we’ll continue to see a more money flooding into Peloton with their respective less expensive at-home competitors rising as well. At the same time, I’m seeing publicly traded gyms / membership workout services continue to tumble.
I’m was “fortunate” to wait and wait for a newly designed MacBook Pro since I was going to spend an exorbitant amount and I am more than happy that I did. Consequently, I skipped the entire butterfly keyboard in its entirety and with it, much of it’s many defects and highly publicized issues! Apple debuted the 16” MacBook Pro last November and has since released the new Magic Keyboard along its entire lineup concluding today with the new 13” MacBook Pro. From 2020 on, you won’t be using that butterfly keyboard on any of Apple’s new devices including the new iPad Pro Magic Keyboard which debuted just two weeks ago! I’m contemplating buying it for my 11” iPad Pro but I’m still unsure and disappointed in the price.
Apple today updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the new Magic Keyboard for the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook and doubled the storage across all standard configurations, delivering even more value to the most popular MacBook Pro. The new lineup also offers 10th-generation processors for up to 80 percent faster graphics performance1 and makes 16GB of faster 3733MHz memory standard on select configurations. With powerful quad-core processors, the brilliant 13-inch Retina display, Touch Bar and Touch ID, immersive stereo speakers, all-day battery life, and the power of macOS, all in an incredibly portable design, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is available to order today, starting at $1,299, and $1,199 for education.
If you want to know which configuration of the 13” I would opt for, specifically, I’m surprised that Apple didn’t debut the long-rumored 14” bezel-less MacBook Pro. But I digress. Obviously, the first option, since you can’t upgrade most of these machines after the fact, is to max out the RAM. While the base model starts at $1,299, it only comes with 8GB RAM and I know that macOS Catalina along with Google Chrome or Apple’s Safari web browsers will eat it all up. While the $1,299 and $1,499 only max out at 16GB RAM, the higher model with the Intel 10th Generation CPU starts at 16GB 3733MHz LPDDR4X and can be maxed out at 32GB RAM which is also faster than 2133MHz LPDDR3 found in the lower two models.
So with that, I start at $1,799 base setup then upgrade the RAM, for $400, then upgrade the hard drive to 1TB for $200. If you have anything left over, going from the Intel i5 to the i7 for $200 is a logical upgrade too in my book. You can always add hard drive space with external drives or USB sticks but the RAM and CPU are nonupgradable components. So with all that added up, we’re back at $2,399 or $2,599 with the i7 CPU. Still an amazing little computer and also near the same price as the outgoing model.
The development of smart technologies paves the way for new diagnostic possibilities. In the case of the Apple watch, after the mobile application is installed, the records an ECG when a finger is placed on the watch’s digital crown. A 30-s tracing is stored in a PDF file that can be retrieved from the application.
Thus, the Apple watch may be used not only to detect atrial fibrillation or atrioventricular-conduction disturbances but also to detect myocardial ischaemia.
An apple a day may keep myocardial infarction away.
Obviously, one isn’t supposed to take this and make it an end-all for the Apple Watch in detecting all heart conditions, but it does serve as a great example that wearables, particularly the Apple Watch, is proving to be more than a wrist decoration but more of a valuable tool for those that wear one. Here is the direct link to the European Heart Journal’s PDF.
Mayor Dedina explained, “The river flow in the Tijuana River should be zero gallons a day during dry weather. Today, it is 60 million gallons a day.I That’s a minimum flow. The entire Tijuana sewage system has collapsed, and it appears there are absolutely no efforts underway in Mexico, or on the part of the U.S. Federal Government, the Trump administration, to actually move forward and ask for emergency repairs so we don’t endure an entire summer of polluted beaches.”
You read that right! 60 Million gallons a day!!! This is a complete disregard for safety and environmental responsibility. Since there is zero liability, how do you make a country or it’s border city responsible? Then of course, there’s the dedicating on our own sidewalks in San Francisco. What is going on in this world?
Google just announced that their very popular school meeting app will be made available for everyone with at least a gmail account which, in my opinion, is a very good move for them. I've been wanting to host my own Google Meet and even put in a request for this but didn't want to sign up for the whole G-Suite since it is a monthly membership program. But now, along with Zoom, Microsoft Teams and just about everyone else, including Facebook Messenger Rooms, will be in the business of virtual meetings.
Today, we’re making Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with availability rolling out over the coming weeks. We’ve invested years in making Meet a secure and reliable video conferencing solution that’s trusted by schools, governments and enterprises around the world, and in recent months we’ve accelerated the release of top-requested features to make it even more helpful. Starting in early May, anyone with an email address can sign up for Meet and enjoy many of the same features available to our business and education users, such as simple scheduling and screen sharing, real-time captions, and layouts that adapt to your preference, including an expanded tiled view.
The fine print detailing that it won't be available to everyone right away and as of this post, I unfortunately still don't have access.
Is all of that worth the cost? Sure, for a lot of people. Is any of it necessary? Other than low-light photography, there’s virtually nothing that I do on those $1,000 phones that I can’t do equally well on the iPhone SE. It is fast, capable, reliable, and familiar. I’d miss those advanced features and more expansive displays, but not as much as you might think.
If I were buying the iPhone SE, I’d seriously consider spending the extra $50 to upgrade the storage to 128GB, just in case I’d want it three or five years down the road. That timespan is the reason the iPhone SE is a big deal. No other phone that costs less than $500 can claim to be this good, nor last that long.
The iPhone SE is not just a good deal. It’s also a really good smartphone.
I'm really liking the videos that The Verges' Dieter Bohn has been putting out and the fact that I concur 100% with this write-up gives me even more confidence that I'll be "fine" for the next 6-8 months. Heck, it'll most likely make me even reconsider purchasing the iPhone 12 for $1149, maybe.1 I mean seriously, I spoke about this upgrade cycle at length a while back (6 years ago) but I'll break it down again.
The iPhone X 256GB Silver cost me $1149 + tax = $1250 - $320 for trade-in = $930 divided by 30 months = 913 days of constant and daily use is about $1 a day for a TOOL that we are accessing day in and day out. Whether that's a good thing or bad, at least we get to track it now and step back. But hell, I just even bought a new 16" MacBook Pro and am producing again! Priceless.
The fact that a $1000 straight out of pocket for a device is definitely absurd hence the reasoning why I was trying to make my iPhone X 256GB Silver last for 36 months!↩