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Vaccine

The WHO has a dashboard which shows what is going on country by country. Globally, as of  October 28, there have been 245,373,039 confirmed cases of COVID-19, including 4,979,421 deaths, reported to WHO. A total of 6,838,727,352 vaccine doses have been administered. I continue to hear some people say they are waiting. I still cannot imagine what they are waiting for.

Videos

Tesla uses terabytes of real-world data from their huge customer fleet to test safety scenarios beyond industry standards. The video reveals how this data is shaping the way Tesla designs for safety, and how they can make changes in real time using over-the-air software updates. Neat clips from the Tesla Crash Lab.

3D Printing

I continue to learn new 3D printing skills. Printing pumpkins and gourds for Halloween. Won’t be long until I am printing Frosty the Snowman. Have also been printing trays and other shop items for the maobjects is partly a science but partly a trial by trial art. The support team at Dremel is great for solving problems. If interested, you can see the updated collection of 3D objects I have printed here. My botched objects are here.

Space

Hubble took pictures of the oldest galaxies it could – seen here – but the James Webb Space Telescope can go back much farther in time. (Image credit: NASA)

Some have called NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope the “telescope that ate astronomy.” It is the most powerful space telescope ever built and a complex piece of mechanical origami which has pushed the limits of engineering. On Dec. 18, 2021, after years of delays and billions of dollars in cost overruns, the telescope is scheduled to launch into orbit and usher in the next era of astronomy. See space.com

Wall Street

Stocks look really good. It is not because of anything in dysfunctional Washington, DC. I am planning to take some portion of some things off the table, but remain bullish. The market is warming up to EVs, with Amazon and Hertz each ordering 100,000 vehicles. It is not just Tesla. Rivian, Lucid, Frisker, etc. all rising. Rivian has gained $1.1 billion so far this year. Amazon revealed it owns 20% of Rivian. A planned IPO before yearend is projected to have a market cap of $80 billion. Tesla has now joined the $trillion club. Investors look at it as a tech/software company, not a car company. Continued pressure, suits, fines, testimony, etc. but Google and Facebook both rose today. 

Crypto

Crypto entrepreneurs are reinventing how things work to make it more attractive.  Ethereum is perceived to be the leader at that and it has risen to half a trillion market cap. I continue to believe Bitcoin will offer some positive tech surprises over the months ahead. For example, The Lightning Network sits as a second layer on top of the Bitcoin blockchain, enabling private payment channels to be established between each other which will allow transfers with no fees. Could that be why Jamie Dimon says Bitcoin is “worthless”? There are now 13,332 crypto currencies, mostly vaporous, but the total value of all crypto has risen to $2.7 trillion, 23.9% of the market cap of gold. Coinbase reflects the positive view of crypto. It is back above $300 at a $67 billion market cap.