Home Prices, Farm Profits, Cheese Surplus
The San Jose area was once again the most expensive place in the U.S. to buy a home in 2017, with a median price of $1.27 million. MarketWatch, February 13, 2018
The terrorist group al-Shabab, the Somalia-based militant Islamic group that has massacred thousands of civilians, has announced a ban on single-use plastic bags, citing the “serious threat” they pose to the “well-being of both humans and animals.” Business Insider, July 5, 2018
Total U.S. farm profits are projected to be less than $60 billion this year, their lowest level since 2006. Bloomberg, July 17, 2018
The U.S. has amassed its largest stockpile of cheese in the 100 years since regulators began keeping tabs, the result of booming domestic production of milk and consumers’ waning interest in the dairy beverage. The 1.39 billion-pound stockpile represents a 6% increase over this time last year and a 16% increase since an earlier surplus prompted a federal cheese-buy-up in 2016. The Washington Post, June 28, 2018
“Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people.” Eleanor Roosevelt
In 2010, the US Department of Defense took parts from 1,760 PlayStation 3’s to build the DoD’s faster-ever supercomputer. The so-called “Condor Cluster” is capable of performing 500 trillion floating point operations per second (TFLOPS). The project began when PlayStation consoles cost about $400 each. At the same time, comparable technology would have cost about $10,000 per unit. Physics.org, December 2, 2010
The remains, of what appears to be three people, along with a high-powered rifle, an axe, wire-cutters and some shoes, were discovered in a South Africa animal reserve. The poachers, equipped to kill rhinos for their horns, wandered into a lion enclosure instead. “We’re not sure how many there were – there’s not much left of them” said reserve owner Nick Fox. BBC News, July 5, 2018
