Boys Scouts Will Allow Girls To Join
The Boys Scouts of America will begin admitting girls next year and allowing them to attain the rank of Eagle Scout, although boys and girls will still be separated into single-gender “dens.” What do you think?
“But making sure my son didn’t talk to girls until he was 20 was the whole reason I put him in Boy Scouts.”
Mary Bornstein • Sawdust Distributor
“As long as children are still being inculcated with the values of a vaguely nationalistic religious organization, I’m happy.”
John Stingl • Orange Juice Freezer
“Whatever gets more kids starting fires.”
Michael Krotz • Systems Analyst
Steve Case, J.D. Vance stop in Columbus during venture capital bus tour – VIDEO (Video)
America Online co-founder Steve Case said Central Ohio’s technology sector has momentum and needs to do more to tell its story and “boomerang” some of the talent that left for the coasts.
Columbus was the fourth of five stops Friday on a whirlwind “Rise of the Rest” bus tour led by Case and “Hillbilly Elegy” author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance. Case started the initiative in 2014 as an offshoot of his Washington, D.C., venture capital firm Revolution LLC as a way to highlight…
via Columbus Business News – Local Columbus News | Business First of Columbus
Steve Case, J.D. Vance stop in Columbus during venture capital bus tour – VIDEO (Video)
How Do You Even Pilot a 450 MPH RC Plane?
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We’ve seen remote control airplanes powered by tiny jet engines before. But what’s mind-blowing about this particular RC craft is that it weighs just 17 pounds but can blast through the skies at an astonishing 450 miles per hour, making you wonder how any human has the reflexes needed to keep this thing from crashing.
Launched by an elastic band catapult, the delta-wing RC plane needs to be moving at a certain speed before its stubby wings produce enough lift for it to fly. Now obviously fighter pilots manage to wrangle aircraft at speeds that exceed well over 1,000 mph, but it’s an easier feat when you’re actually sitting in the aircraft, or have a first-person view like drone pilots do.
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When you’re remotely flying a plane at 450 mph while looking up at it from the ground, just maintaining visibility seems almost impossible when the aircraft can race through your field of vision in just a few seconds. But somehow this pilot makes it look as easy as throwing a paper airplane.
[YouTube]
The Best GPS Trackers for Cats and Dogs
Photo: Nick Guy
If you’re concerned about your pet getting away and you want a tool to help you more easily find it, the best option is the Whistle 3 GPS Pet Tracker & Activity Monitor. This tracker is as accurate as any model we tested, quickly transmitting its GPS signal back to your phone. It lasts longer on a charge than any of the other contenders we tried, its hardware design is the best by a long shot, and its smartphone software is equally well thought out.
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Thirteen days into the test, and six days after the next-longest battery gave out, the Whistle 3’s battery was still at 69 percent.
The most important aspect of any of these trackers is the ability to find your pet’s location, and to do so quickly and repeatedly, since it might be on the move. While the Whistle 3 didn’t stand head and shoulders above the rest of the pack in this regard, it did tie for the best. Throughout our tests, we were able to get the tracker’s location within a matter of seconds, and that reported location was always close enough to the actual location that we’d be able to find our pet easily. But as with pulling up Maps on your phone, the accuracy can shift due to cell phone coverage, large buildings, and other factors outside of your control. We especially like that the Whistle 3’s smartphone app shows you not only where the tracker is but also where you are in relation to it, which is handy if you’re trying to find your pet in an unfamiliar area. The app also has a button to refresh the location manually, something other trackers’ apps lack.
Where the Whistle 3 most sets itself apart from other models is in battery life. When we left the Whistle 3 undisturbed inside a home Wi-Fi safe zone, it didn’t just last longer than any other tracker—it even surpassed the amount of time we had allotted for the test. Thirteen days into the test, and six days after the next-longest battery gave out, the Whistle 3’s battery was still at 69 percent.
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It won’t come off unless you hold down a spring-loaded button and twist a quarter turn.
In our bike-ride test, the Whistle 3 performed as well as the three other trackers in location reporting, but it again bested the competition in battery life. We removed all four from their charging stations at 8:21 a.m., and at 8:00 p.m. the Whistle 3 reported 78 percent of full charge, with the next-closest competitor (the Tractive) at 65 percent. Having a longer-lasting battery is important, because it means you have to charge the device less frequently and you have a longer window to find your pet if it gets lost. There’s also the combination of the two: Unlike with a smartphone, where you can wait to charge your handset until it’s almost dead, you have to recharge a tracker well before the battery is low so you have time to find your wandering pet.
The Whistle 3 also has the best physical design of any pet tracker we tested. It’s the lightest we tested at just under an ounce, which for a small cat could make a real difference in comfort. At 1.4 inches wide by 1.2 inches tall, it’s not too obtrusive. Whistle says the tracker is designed for pets heavier than 8 pounds, and while we don’t think small animals will have issues with the weight of the tracker, its bulk may prove more frustrating for a toy dog or a cat. The collar mount has a sturdy band that holds it securely—even on small collars—though Whistle recommends a collar at least 1 inch wide. (We had something of a hard time getting the band off to put the mount on the collar, but we’d rather have it be a little difficult to put on and take off if that means it’s less likely to fall off.) The Whistle 3 itself then securely snaps into the mount with a twist. It won’t come off unless you hold down a spring-loaded button and twist a quarter turn, an action your opposable-thumb-lacking companion is unlikely to take purposefully or accidentally. The Whistle 3 is also rated IP67, meaning it’s dust-tight and can survive being immersed in up to a meter of water. If your dog gets out and swims through a river, the Whistle 3 will still work.
The band that holds the Whistle 3’s mount to the collar is sturdy and not particularly easy to remove, which is a good thing. Photo: Michael Hession
The Whistle 3’s charging base uses the same attachment system to hold the tracker in place, save for the button to release it. We like this secure mount, especially compared with competing trackers that can easily dislodge from their chargers or be ambiguous about their charging state.
Attaching the Whistle 3 to its mount is quick and secure. Video: Michael Hession
Whistle’s app (for iOS and Android) is among the easiest to use. At the forefront is the most important thing: your pet’s location. A tray at the bottom of the screen displays the current battery life, the distance from home, and when the location last updated. When your pet is lost, the app offers an option to update the location manually right on the map, as well as a tracking mode that updates the location every 90 seconds. The app also has an activity panel that tracks how much exercise your pet has gotten, as well as a screen that lets you set up additional safe zones or alter the original zone.
Like most competing trackers, the Whistle 3 requires a 3G service plan. You can choose to pay $10 a month with no commitment, or save by paying for a year ($100) or even two ($170) in advance. That’s more expensive than the plans for some other trackers, which means that some pricier models are actually a bit less expensive to own over, say, two years, but considering the Whistle 3’s performance, we think it’s worth it.
Few sites review pet trackers, but the Whistle 3 is the recipient of PCMag’s Editors’ Choice designation for its “strong combination of performance and price,” with the publication citing long battery life and great hardware.
via Wirecutter: Reviews for the Real World
The Best GPS Trackers for Cats and Dogs
Watch: Orange Screw Ground Anchors
Watch: Orange Screw Ground Anchors
They look better than tent stakes and easier than spiral steel anchors.
We all need to tie something down sometime. Whether it’s a tent, a pet, a tarp, or a canoe, there are always times when a decent tie-down can come in handy. Depending on soil conditions, this can be tricky. The American-made, family-owned Orange Screw might be just the thing… especially in loose or soft soil.
It’s a simple-but-thoughtful product, which screws into the ground to provide an secure but easily-removable place to anchor a shelter or whatever. Made of recycled plastic, it’s pretty tough, as you will see in the video below when they bend it in a bench vise.
A transparent tube slips over the screw portion of the Orange Screw, which will help keep it from poking holes in your storage bag… and the tube doubles as a T-handle for screwing the anchor into the ground.
A recent trip to the beach reminded me of how lame wire tent stakes are… but some of these might have helped the folks whose shelter tried to go sailing away. And Florida has a lot of sand in the ground throughout the state, which means tent & tarp stakes are prone to come loose.
- American-made
- Family-owned business
- Made of recycled materials
- Available in two sizes
- Website claims same-day shipping on all orders
They look pretty useful; hopefully I’ll be able to put my hands on some to try out and see how well they hold up.
Right now, they are more expensive on Amazon, but if you have Prime the shipping is free. (Example: One Small Orange Screw is $9.95 including Prime shipping on Amazon, or $6.95+shipping on the OS site.)
Check ’em out and see what you think.
VIDEO
Here Are Five Major Performance Benefits Of An Electric Car
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Electric motors are coming whether we want them or not. So let’s not pout, but instead celebrate the ways in which electric vehicles actually outperform their conventional internal combustion engine-driven counterparts.
Coming at us again on this fine fall afternoon is Jason Fenske of Engineering Explained with a short and sweet video detailing the main performance benefits of an electric car over a conventional one.
His main points are actually fairly straightforward. The first is that EVs produce peak torque at zero RPM, meaning acceleration figures tend to be stellar. It’s because of that low end torque (and just generally high torque output across a large rev range), low inertia, and high redlines that electric motors tend to be mated to single-speed gearboxes instead of complex transmissions. This means less weight in the drivetrain, more reliability, and no drivability or acceleration sacrifices associated with shifts.
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His third point deals with throttle response. In particular, Jason talks about the physical limitations of center-pivoting round throttle plates, and the fact that rotating the throttle from five to 15 percent yields an increased opening area of three times, whereas rotating the plate from 95 percent to 100 percent yields only a change in opening area of just over 1 percent. With electric vehicles, though, calibrating the throttle with the power output is simply a matter of software, with Jason stating:
With an electric vehicle you can get exactly what you ask for with that throttle pedal because you can choose exactly how much power you want it to deliver at any given position, versus internal combustion engines which are more sensitive when you’re at low partial throttle.
The next point deals with the ability to use an electric motor to slow a vehicle down. By simply allowing the wheels to turn the motor (and use its inertia as drag), the forward motion of the car charges batteries instead of heating up brake rotors and pads. This means less fade and wear on the brakes, and even the ability to downsize calipers and rotors for less unsprung mass.
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The last point, and the one I find most interesting, deals with the ability to flexibly package battery packs. Batteries can be oriented flat on the ground to allow for a low center of gravity, and they can be thin and of strange shapes because they neither require a fuel pump (which takes up space), nor do they require liquid to flow “downhill” to that pump. Plus, it’s not strange to have multiple battery locations (with a gas tank, you’d need a transfer pump between the multiple tanks). Yes, batteries are heavy, but they can be packaged in a way that helps maximize interior volume, and minimize the effect of that mass, yielding better handling.
via Gizmodo
Here Are Five Major Performance Benefits Of An Electric Car
ELEY Partners with The Civilian Marksmanship Program to Offer Bulk Pak
USA -(Ammoland.com)- ELEY has partnered with the Civilian Marksmanship Program (CMP) to offer a bulk pak.
The CMP is, first and foremost, an organization dedicated to marksmanship education and safety. As a federally chartered 501(c)(3) corporation, the CMP uses its funds to encourage safe firearm practices through marksmanship courses and its local and national-level competitions held annually around the country.
The CMP also administers countless awards to exceptional competitors, along with donating over $100,000 each year in scholarships to junior athletes looking to continue their educations.
With their new exclusive electronic targets featured at all competitions and available for public purchase, the CMP is looking to expand the world of marksmanship by providing innovative opportunities for generations to come.
The CMP will offer the ELEY CMP standard bulk pak as an exclusive product to help continue to fund activities that encourage safe firearm practices and to offer competitions to beginners through experienced shooters.
ELEY CMP standard features an accurate 40-grain bullet with an average velocity of 1090 fps. This particular round has a paraffin wax coating to feed and cycle through all .22LR firearm platforms. The CMP will also offer the rest of the ELEY product line on their webstore.
Mike Corkish, ELEY Americas Director of Sales states, “ELEY is excited to partner with the CMP to offer an accurate, affordable ammunition for shooters in a true bulk package. With the CMP working to encourage youth shooting, ELEY finds this partnership a perfect fit.
As shooters continue to improve they have the opportunity to purchase other grades of ELEY ammunition through the CMP. This will continue to help the CMP grow competition shooting and encourage safe firearm practices.”
The ELEY CMP standard bulk pak will be offered through the CMP webstore and can be purchased here.
ELEY Ltd., Inc. based in Birmingham, England is the foremost global leader in .22LR ammunition. ELEY provides the most innovative products and services through knowledge and technology to improve performance and enhance the enjoyment of target shooting, thereby ensuring our customers fulfill their competitive sporting ambitions and win at every level of the sport. ELEY is accuracy defined.
About ELEY Ammunition:
ELEY ammunition is a British management owned company that has been producing ammunition since 1828. ELEY has been the choice .22LR ammunition for more Olympic medalists than all other .22LR manufacturers combined, making ELEY recognized as the manufacturer of the most consistently accurate .22LR ammunition in the world. Innovation and continuous product development separate ELEY from its competitors. ELEY have always been at the forefront of the ammunition industry, pushing technological boundaries which have resulted in patented new methodologies and techniques.
About The Civilian Marksmanship Program:
The Civilian Marksmanship Program is a federally chartered 501 (c) (3) non-profit corporation. It is dedicated to firearm safety and marksmanship training and to the promotion of marksmanship competition for citizens of the United States.
For more information about the CMP and its programs, log onto their website.
This post ELEY Partners with The Civilian Marksmanship Program to Offer Bulk Pak appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .
via AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News
ELEY Partners with The Civilian Marksmanship Program to Offer Bulk Pak
ROSS Intelligence lands $8.7M Series A to speed up legal research with AI
Armed with an understanding of machine learning, Ross Intelligence is going after LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters for ownership of legal research. The startup, founded in 2015 by Andrew Arruda, Jimoh Ovbiagele and Pargles Dall’Oglio at the University of Toronto, is announcing an $8.7 million Series A today led by iNovia Capital with participation from Comcast Ventures Catalyst Fund, Y Combinator Continuity Fund, Real Ventures, Dentons’ NextLaw Labs and angels.
At its core, Ross is a platform that helps legal teams sort through case law to find details relevant to new cases. This process takes days and even weeks with standard keyword search so Ross is augmenting keyword search with machine learning to simultaneously speed up the research process and improve relevancy of items found.
“Bluehill benchmarks Lexus’s tech and they are finding 30% more relevant info with Ross in less time,” Andrew Arruda, co-founder and CEO of Ross, explained to me in an interview.
Ross is using a combination of off the shelf and proprietary deep learning algorithms for its AI stack. The startup is using IBM Watson for at least some of its natural language processing capabilities but the team shied away from elaborating.
Building a complete machine learning stack is expensive so it makes sense for startups to lean on off the shelf tech early on so long as decisions are being made that ensure the scaleability of the business. Much of the value wrapped up in Ross is related to its corpus of training data. The startup is working with 20 law firms to simulate workflow examples and test results with human feedback.
“We really spent time looking at the value Ross was delivering back to law firms,” noted Kai Bond, an investor in Ross through Comcast Ventures. “What took a week now takes two to four hours.”
The company’s initial plan to get to market was to sell software designed for a specific domains of law to large firms like Latham & Watkins and Sidley Austin. Today Ross offers products in both bankruptcy and intellectual property law. It is looking to expand into other types of law like labor and employment, simultaneously moving down to serve smaller firms.
LexisNexis and Thomson Reuters are frequently on the butt end of claims made by machine learning-powered data analytics startups emerging in a potpourri of industries. A strategy favored by many of these businesses is pushing products to interns and college students for free so that they, in turn, push their advanced tools into the arms of future employers.
“The work Ross is doing with law schools and law students is interesting,” Karam Nijjar, a partner at iNovia Capital and investor in Ross, asserted. “As these students enter the workforce, you’re taking someone using an iPhone and handing them a Blackberry their first day on the job.”
Prior to today’s Series A, Ross had secured a $4.3 million seed round also led by iNovia Capital. As Ross moves to scale it will be navigating a heavy field of mergers and acquisitions and attempts by legacy players to ensure legal tech services remain consolidated.
via TechCrunch
ROSS Intelligence lands $8.7M Series A to speed up legal research with AI
Wolf Vs Moose: Stunning Wildlife Battle Caught On Drone Video
Moose vs. wolf, who wins? The classic battle of nature plays out in this drone video.
Dan Nystedt from Form Productions captured a rarity when recording in Northern Ontario. Watch more than six minutes of aerial view in this very real example of survival of the fittest.
The post Wolf Vs Moose: Stunning Wildlife Battle Caught On Drone Video appeared first on GearJunkie.
via GearJunkie
Wolf Vs Moose: Stunning Wildlife Battle Caught On Drone Video