Bankrupt 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

NBC News is running an ongoing list of major retail bankruptcies since the coronavirus quarantine. 

Many were already struggling before they had to close down their venues. Some may sell off assets or re-organize financially in another way so they can keep part of their business going.

Some recognizable names from the list:

• Gold's Gym - they own and operate 700 gyms
• JCPenney - this century-old retailer plans to publish closing dates for its stores
• Hertz - car rentals
• GNC vitamin and supplements - operates almost 3,000 stores
• CEC which operates Chuck-E-Cheese

Bankrupt 1

Plague and disease have hit human civilizations before. 

The very worst, the Black Death in the mid-1300's, killed 75-200 million people over a few years - when the world only held about 475 million. Imagine if the U.S. lost a similar percentage, roughly 100 million people, today to Covid-19.

During pandemics of the past, governments did not force financial disaster on citizens. They would probably have starved to death if they had to abandon their work. But this time retail shops, restaurants & bars, laundromats, janitors, gyms, hair stylists, etc. were forced to give up their living.

Catastrophe has claimed some of them. Of course it did. How many weeks could they hang on with no income? By mid-May there were already 100,000 business failures in the U.S.

"Tearful, heartfelt announcements about small-business closures are popping up on websites and Facebook pages around the country. Analysts warn this is only the beginning of the worst wave of small-business bankruptcies and closures since the Great Depression."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Juneteenth 2

One hundred local churches in Kansas City, Missouri, came together on Juneteenth (06-19-20) to stand for goodness and against racism. They took this stand on Troost Avenue.

A 365-acre plantation to the east once dehumanized its slaves. Later, minorities were kept on the east side. Laws changed but Troost Avenue still symbolizes the city's segregation.

 Thousands of believers formed a human prayer chain that stretched for more than 10 miles. 

Juneteenth 1

Christianity professes that racism (race determines superiority or inferiority) violates the Biblical doctrine of "imago dei," which says that all humanity was created by God in His own image. It follows that all people are uniquely and inherently valuable.

So churches stand against the sin of racism. Atlanta churches came together earlier this month to do that. 

After a young black man was fatally shot by police in a Wendy's parking lot, the white female police chief of Atlanta resigned from her position. She was replaced by a black interim chief. 

Churches demonstrating in the streets of Atlanta stopped to pray for this man in his new position.

Tesla way up

Back in February of this year, you learned that Tesla stock was rising fast. The rise continued to the point that Tesla is now the most valuable car company, even beyond Toyota.

Mars 2020

If NASA's new off-world helicopter (last Friday's post) is going to land on Mars next February, when does it have to leave earth? 

The answer is that it will launch this summer. To get there by then, the mission must launch between July 17 and August 5, or it will have to wait two more years for the right timing. 

NASA made it one of their top priorities to keep the mission moving forward even through the coronavirus quarantine. Office space at Kennedy Space Center was set apart so the team could keep social distancing while working, and a special aircraft shuttled team members between California and Florida when necessary.

Mars rover "Perseverance" will look for evidence of past life on Mars, and will bring samples back to earth. There's much to do before we land humans on the moon (2024) and eventually Mars. They say:

"All that we build, all that we study, all that we do, prepares us to go."

A thirteen-year-old nerd (self-described) named the rover:

udy

Mars helicopter

An airman once told me that a helicopter flies by "beating the air into submission." It needs air, denser air than an airplane; that's why helicopters can't fly as high as airplanes where the air is less dense. 

But NASA has come up with a helicopter that can fly on Mars, where pressure on the surface of the planet is only about 1% of pressure on earth's surface.

Mimi Aung is NASA's lead engineer developing this helicopter (named "Ingenuity"). It will land on Mars next February with the rover and take three test flights - the first helicopter to fly on another world.

from Space

Repair

My laptop is being repaired! That's why you've seen no new posts for two days. Hopefully, that ends tomorrow. Thanks for being patient.

Tech & Caterpillar

Technology has been freeing people from routine factory jobs they don't want to do for a long time (ex: those big red robots building Teslas). We've come a lot further than that now. With vast amounts of data taken from cameras, vehicles can drive themselves.

A mining company has found a perfect use for that technology. Rio Pinto wants very much to mine copper over a mile below the earth's surface in Arizona. It's 175 degrees there and too dangerous to send human beings into that environment to work. 

But Caterpillar Inc. saw an opportunity. Loaders, excavators, other robotic gear have been loaded with thousands of sensors reporting a gazillion data points, and AI analyzes the data. They have a fleet of 275 autonomous mining vehicles that find the ore, get it out, and transport it to the surface - supervised by technicians hundreds of miles away.

Results: their autonomous fleet has hauled 1.9 billion tons for mining companies . . with zero human injuries. These things are big. A tire is twice the size of an SUV.

Tech & McD's

When you go to McDonald's, do you go inside or do you drive-thru? Apparently a lot of us don't want to get out of the car. Surprisingly, most -- a whopping 70% -- of McDonald's sales come from the drive-thru.

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So the drive-thru window is already McDonald's great strength. That segment of its business deserves the executives' attention, and they made a big move to make it even stronger. They bought Dynamic Yield, an "artificial intelligence powered personalization platform operator," to improve it.

AI technology now allows the drive-thru menu to change and adapt to the circumstances and the customer. Suggestions are made as the customer orders, like a combo meal or an oreo mcflurry on a hot day. AI can anticipate what would likely appeal.

Shorter lines, customer satisfaction, and more sales result.

Now and then

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own." 

There's no doubt that everyone has challenges that they're battling. But there are blessings to be thankful for, too, and some that might be overlooked are in this re-post from four years ago:

"The last  hundred years in America packed in huge change. Our lives are different in some interesting ways than lives were in 1915. The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled some of those ways:

• Life expectancy today 79 years, then 54 years
• A third of our population today is under 25 years, then half of the population
• 1% births are outside hospitals today, then 87%
• In today's dollars, the average full-time worker today makes $50k/year, then $16k
• Clothing today is just 3% of our budget, then 13%
• 85% of the population completes high school today, then 18%
• In 1915 the typical work week was 55+ hours

To sum up, we work less today but have much more than they did then. Why? Because the last century (overall) was full of innovation.  Wealth was created by capitalism. Today's culture is much wealthier and healthier - while working less.

HS grad thanks

Dennis Prager has some good ideas about lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 quarantine, especially as it applies to high school graduates. Gratitude is one of them. (In case you wonder whether this is going to be political, it isn't.)

Jobs news

After months of bad news about disease, the economy, racial strife, here's something real good as reported by CNN:

"The [U.S.] job market may be recovering well ahead of schedule."

In April, unemployment was over 14%. Economists worried that unemployment might climb to 20% (recession level) in May because of quarantine-induced business slowdown and failure. But the U.S. "unemployment rate surprisingly fell to 13.3% in May, as the economy gained 2.5 million jobs." 

Why were experts' predictions so far off? Because this economic downturn, unlike normal ones, was engineered on purpose by government. Economists had no experience with this kind, because it's the first to happen.

"There is no underselling it, this was a huge surprise," said one economist. 

Faith bond

In Nashville TN on Saturday night, a peaceful protestor and a policeman started talking. Turned out, they were both Christians. 

"In the midst of Sat's confrontation between protestors & officers at the Central Precinct, Officer Garren Hoskins and the protestor in front of him began talking about their shared Christian faith. Hoskins asked the man to join him in prayer. He put his sign down. They prayed."

Somebody snapped a picture and tweeted it.

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Still a thing 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Pittsburgh is over seven hours by car away from Chicago (467 miles). That's an all-day trip, which will cost you $26 - $51 just in gasoline. If you need to make that trip, would you pay  about $93 . . to be there in 75 minutes?

Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) sponsored a study to answer questions like that, to find out if it would be worthwhile to build a hyperloop system to connect these cities.

The study found that over 30 years a hyperloop route would result in the following:

• 1.9 billion autos shifted to hyperloop passengers
• 2.4 million tons of reduced CO2 emissions (over $126 million in emissions savings)
• 450 million commercial truck vehicle hours traveled will be eliminated
• $300 billion in overall economic benefits (nearly $19 billion of that in direct transportation benefits

The conclusion of this study? A hyperloop route between these cities will be successful. Ohio officials want to see it happen. They're a little closer to their vision now.

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Still a thing

 Hyperloop transportation was proposed by Elon Musk as a new form of transportation in 2012. He didn't want to do it himself (create a company to make it a reality) but others did take the idea and started creating it "from the ground up." Progress is slow, but hyperloop is still a thing.

Multiple layers of government have to be onboard to make this new concept happen. They want assurance of safety, economic viability, cooperation from their voter bases, etc. 

It's so appealing: to move passengers or cargo between big cities safely at near-air-speed, with no carbon emissions or exhaust, nearly noise-free, and at affordable cost. (Go to label "Hyperloop" for background.) Pods move through near-vacuum tubes using magnetic levitation.

A new study in the U.S. evaluates the feasibility of building a hyperloop to link Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Back in space

Note: some of our cities are in crisis and I don't plan to address it here. But . . Americans and our global friends, please pray for justice, for goodness, and for truth to be revealed.

Right in the middle of disease and disturbance, we have something to celebrate. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are safe at the International Space Station (ISS). NASA's SpaceX mission Demo-2 was a success.

Thousands of people worked for that outcome. Elon Musk called it a dream come true. NASA Chief Jim Bridenstine was praying (and so was I). 

Falcon 9 rocket lifted Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit on Saturday afternoon, it circled the earth once, and then it docked with the ISS Sunday morning (video of the docking).

Elon was ecstatic.

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