Daily Archives: November 10, 2020

TODAYS DARWIN AWARD WINNER

TODAYS DARWIN AWARD WINNER

Hunter dies after elephant falls on him

TODAYS DARWIN AWARD WINNER HUNTER KILLED

A South African big game hunter died on Friday in Zimbabwe after a fellow hunter fired his gun at an elephant causing it to collapse on him, according to multiple media reports.

According to News 24, Theunis Botha, 51, was leading a group of hunters when four elephants charged the group inside the Good Luck Farm preserve in Zimbabwe.

A female elephant lifted Botha with her trunk and another hunter shot her. The elephant collapsed and fell on Botha, killing him.

Simukai Nyasha, a spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, told news.com.au that Botha was on a 10-day licensed hunt when he “unknowingly got in the middle of a breeding herd of elephants with several calves and was trampled to death”.

Botha often worked with American and European hunters to take part in trophy hunting expeditions. According to his company’s website, Game Hounds Safaris, he “perfected leopard and lion hunting safaris with hounds in Africa.”

 

LGBT DON’T ASK DON’T TELL

LGBT DON’T ASK DON’T TELL

LGBT advocates: Letting athletes choose gender isn’t fair

LGBT DON’T ASK DON’T TELL

The Indiana High School Athletic Association has gone a step further than simply asking athlete applicants whether they are male or female, and the only complaint against the policy so far has come from the LGBT community.

According to IndyStar.com, students can now choose with which sex they identify. Some LGBTQ advocates, however, complain the question is invasive and biased against those who identify as transgendered.

Steve McConkey of 4 WINDS Christian Athletics finds that surprising.

“It used to be where they’d have a blank, and then you fill in male or female. But now they allow them to say what they think they are,” McConkey explains. “I can’t see what they’d be fighting about.”

Other than the grievance from some LGBTQ supporters, IHSAA spokesman Robert Faulkens says the change has not yet prompted any formal complaints. So McConkey believes parents are just skimming the issue.

“I think that parents are telling their kids [to] just fill it out, male or female,” he says. “And then the liberal parents are telling their kids, ‘You decide what you want to be.'”

Faulkens says the IHSAA is following the template provided by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Indiana State Medical Association.

DAWG SAYS: THEY STILL WANT TO COMPETE AGAINST OPPOSITE GENDER FOR THE ADVANTAGE. WHEN ARE WE GOING TO LET THEM HAVE THEIR OWN SPORTING EVENTS?

VIRGIN HYPERLOOP TESTS IN NEVADA

VIRGIN HYPERLOOP TESTS IN NEVADA

  • A hyperloop system has transported humans for the first time ever.
  • Virgin Hyperloop announced Sunday that it transported two staff members in a hyperloop pod along a 500 meter test track.
  • Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group, said it “will change the way people everywhere live, work, and travel in the years to come.”

1st human passengers travel safely in a Hyperloop

VIRGIN HYPERLOOP TESTS IN NEVADA SUCCESFULLY

November 9, 2020 Virgin Hyperloop successfully tested human travel in a hyperloop for the first time on Sunday. It’s a new form of transportation in which people travel inside a vacuum tube with very high speeds.

Virgin Hyperloop announced Sunday that humans have traveled in its superfast vacuum tube for the first time, albeit at limited speeds.

The futuristic mode of transport, which involves firing a pod through a low-pressure tunnel, was tested by the company’s Chief Technology Officer Josh Giegel and Sara Luchian, who is director of passenger experience.

On Sunday afternoon, they travelled 500 meters in 15 seconds on a test site outside Las Vegas, where the company has already completed over 400 unoccupied tests.

They reached around 100 miles per hour (160 kilometers per hour), which is some way off the 1,000-kmh-plus speeds the company hopes to achieve, but it still marks a significant step forward for hyperloop fans. By way of comparison, China has magnetic levitation trains that run at 268 mph between Shanghai and Pudong airport.

RICHARD BRANSON LEADING THE WAY

Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin group, said in a statement: “With today’s successful test, we have shown that this spirit of innovation will in fact change the way people everywhere live, work, and travel in the years to come.”

Hyperloop uses electric propulsion and electromagnetic levitation in near-vacuum conditions to transport pods from A to B.

In 2013, Tesla founder Elon Musk in 2013 said it would allow people to travel from Los Angeles to San Francisco in about 30 minutes. At the time, many said the idea would remain science fiction.

Other firms are also racing to develop the hyperloop concept, but Virgin Hyperloop is the only company to have successfully tested the technology with passengers.

“When we started in a garage over six years ago, the goal was simple – to transform the way people move,” said Giegel, who co-founded Virgin Hyperloop. “Today, we took one giant leap toward that ultimate dream, not only for me, but for all of us who are looking towards a moonshot right here on Earth.”

MANY MORE TESTS TO BE DONE

While the scaled-back test is a step towards making hyperloop a reality, it’s still not clear if the concept will be safe at full speed.

Virgin Hyperloop, which has raised over $400 million from investors including the Virgin Group, says the transportation method will be faster, safer, cheaper and more sustainable than current modes of transport.