Some Good Things Getting My Attention Today

[dewline]

Re: the ideas for replacing Mississippi's old state flag:

https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/artists-design-mississippi-flag/index.html

MIT's work on making better masks for health-care personnel (and maybe lots of other people too):

http://news.mit.edu/2020/reusable-silicone-rubber-face-mask-0709

Are the Canadian feds holding cash you haven't claimed yet?

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/unclaimed-cash-cra-uncashed-cheques-1.5643827

The evolution of solar panels:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/what-on-earth-solar-panels-bifacial-dual-axis-1.5643798

Reuters' vaccine-development tracker:

https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS/yxmvjqywprz/index.html

Comments

[thewayne]

Apparently "In God We Trust" is going to replace the stars and bars. The Repubs gotta get in one last dig.

[dewline]

That's a bit of a pain, but a tolerable one. It can be adapted to multiple faiths and languages, after all.

[thewayne]

A vast majority of people don't realize that it replaced E Pluribus Unum, From Many, One, during the Red Scare, to "Make America a Christian, God-Fearing, Nation" to differentiate us from the "Godless Commies".  Personally I much prefer the Latin.

[dewline]

I have no complaints about "E Pluribus, Unum" either.

[armiphlage]

"In the world of solar energy, the main measure of success has always been panel efficiency."

Total BS. The main measure of success has been installed price per watt.

Photovoltaic cells are so cheap and reliable that it is almost impossible to develop trackers that cost less than just adding more panels to your array.

[dewline]

Noting that for future reference. Maybe I can talk the rest of the household into adding solar as a backup.

[armiphlage]

Note, I'm bitter about this as my company wasted a lot of resources on a solar panel design that increased efficiency, rather than decreasing installation costs.

We no longer build solar panels.

[dewline]

Sharing the sad+angry on this.