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Nearly three million Texans are enduring extreme cold and are without power in their homes. The embattled ERCOT, which manages the state’s power grid, said power is restored for 600000 households.


Nearly 3 million Texans are enduring extreme cold and are without power in their homes. The embattled ERCOT, which manages the state’s power grid, said power has been restored for 600000 households.

This bolt-on system creates a drone that can fly straight out of your fabricator.


It’s been very cool to watch 3D printers and laser cutters evolve into fairly common tools over the last decade-ish, finding useful niches across research, industry, and even with hobbyists at home. Capable as these fabricators are, they tend to be good at just one specific thing: making shapes out of polymer. Which is great! But we have all kinds of other techniques for making things that are even more useful, like by adding computers and actuators and stuff like that. You just can’t do that with your 3D printer or laser cutter, because it just does its one thing—which is too bad.

“Figures published in 2011 suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in: at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein more environmental damage, and a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat. How is this possible? Agriculture to produce wheat, rice and pulses requires clear-felling native vegetation. That act alone results in the deaths of thousands of Australian animals and plants per hectare. Since Europeans arrived on this continent we have lost more than half of Australia’s unique native vegetation, mostly to increase production of monocultures of introduced species for human consumption. Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required). Most cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture. This is usually rangelands, which constitute about 70 per cent of the continent.”


Going vegetarian, or even vegan, to minimise animal suffering and promote sustainable agriculture, actually kills more sentient animals living in vegetable crops that livestock farmed in paddocks.