We’ve studiously avoided any mention of our latest interstellar visitor, 3I/Atlas, on these pages, mainly because of all the hoopla in the popular press about how Avi Loeb thinks it’s aliens, because of course he does. And we’re not saying it’s aliens either, mainly because we’d never be lucky enough to be alive during an actual alien invasion — life just hasn’t historically been that kind to us. So chances are overwhelming that 3I/Atlas is just a comet, but man, it’s doing its level best to look like it’s not, which means it’s time to brave the slings and arrows and wade into this subject.
The number of oddities surrounding 3I/Atlas just keeps growing, from its weird Sun-directed particle stream to its extreme speed, not to mention a trajectory through the solar system that puts it just a fraction of an astronomical unit from two of the three planets within the “Goldilocks Zone” of our star — ignore the fact that at an estimated seven billion years old, 3I/Atlas likely would have started its interstellar journey well before our solar system had even started forming. Still, it’s the trajectory that intrigues us, especially the fact that it’s coming in at a very shallow along to the ecliptic, and seems like it will cross that imaginary plane almost exactly when it makes its closest approach to the Sun on October 29, which just coincidentally happens to be at the very moment Earth is exactly on the opposite side of our star. We’ll be as far as possible from the action on that date, with the comet conveniently lost in the glare of the Sun. Yes, there’s talk of re-tasking some of our spacecraft around Mars or in the Jovian system to take a peek when 3I/Atlas passes through their neighborhoods, but those are complicated affairs that show no sign of bearing fruit in the short time left before the comet heads back out into the Deep Dark. Too bad; we’d really love an up-close and personal look at this thing.
Starbucks campers, beware — the company would really prefer you don’t set up a full office in their stores. At least in South Korea, that is, where patrons have taken things to extremes by bringing full-sized desktop computers and even printers to the cozy confines of their local Starbucks. The company is fighting back against the practice in the most generic way possible, implementing a policy that bans patrons from bringing “bulky items” with them when the caffeine urge strikes. Mind you, we’ve done plenty of work out in the wild. Nearly the whole first year of Hackaday articles from this particular author were written on a humble Chromebook inside either a Starbucks or a Dunkin’ — with heavy emphasis on the latter because of their vastly superior hot cocoa. So we get the new rule, but it almost seems like Starbucks is missing an opportunity here. Why don’t they just lean into it and install a metered printer in each store?
This story gave us a bit of pause when we first read it, and we’re not sure if this is a case of technical ignorance on the part of the UK government, or us. Guidance published this week by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs asks UK citizens to delete old emails and images from cloud-based services due to the current “nationally significant” drought conditions. Apparently, this will save water somehow, presumably by reducing the cooling load on the data centers that house these files. If you’re confused by this, we are too; do the policy wonks think that the hard drives that store these files are water-cooled? Or perhaps that keeping those pictures from 2013 requires some CPU cycles, therefore generating heat that has to be removed? We suppose that’s possible, and that removing the temptation to gaze at photos from Aunt Winifred’s 99th birthday party would spare a few drops of water, but then again, it was our impression that data centers aren’t just running cold water from the taps through their cooling units, but rather running closed-loop systems that consume as little fresh water as possible. We’re willing to be proven wrong, of course — data center cooling actually sounds like great fodder for an article — but on the face of it, this sounds like a government agency throwing something against the wall and seeing if it sticks.
We can’t say why for sure, but the idea of continental divides is unreasonably cool to us. Here in the US, we’ve got a couple of these imaginary geographic lines, the main one being the Atlantic-Pacific divide that roughly transects the continent north to south along the ridges and peaks of the Rocky Mountains. East of the line, water eventually flows into the Atlantic basin, while west of the line, rivers all flow into the Pacific. It’s a fascinating concept, one that’s captured beautifully by River Runner Global, an interactive GIS application that lets you trace the path of a virtual drop of water on its journey to the sea. It charts the rivers and streams of your drop’s journey, and the best part is the flyover of the terrain as it courses to the sea. Fair warning, it’s pretty resource hungry; it locked up our machine once while playing. But it’s worth the risk, in our opinion.
And finally, it’s factory tour time again here at Hackaday Links, and this time we’ve got a real treat: a full tour of Toyota Motors Manufacturing Texas, the San Antonio mega-plant that makes Tundra pickups and Sequoia SUVs. The factory produces one new vehicle every 67 seconds, starting from raw steel coil stock. The enormity of the presses used to stamp out body panels alone is worth the price of admission, as is the part where the entire body goes for a deep soak in a galvanizing tank to protect the metal. The level of automation is astounding, but it was surprising to see just how many people are still critical to the process. And extra points for the sneak-peek at the new Tundra color near the end. We’re not a fan, but it certainly does make a statement. Enjoy!