Day: February 10, 2025

Pres. Trump just ordered the Treasury Department to stop minting pennies because they now cost over 2 cents each to make, and already X is flooded with people whining that what will they do if something costs $10.01 and they don’t have a penny?

Trump didn’t say to take them all out of circulation, he said to stop making more. Pennies are going to be around for years yet, though in reality, stores will drop using cents soon and just round off at 5 cents, states will stop taxing to the cent, and people generally will start saving all the pennies they get in change, thinking that they’re going to become rare and valuable even though there’s billions of them in circulation, so it won’t be long from right now that pennies do disappear from circulation.

After awhile, people who have hoarded pennies will figure out that they’re just as worthless as they’ve been for decades and start spending them, and stores will find themselves stuck with piles of pennies they have to roll and take to their banks.

The future is so easy to predict sometimes.

Scientists Create a Material as Strong as Steel but Light as Styrofoam Using AI

“Researchers at the University of Toronto have created this stunning material by merging machine learning (AI) with nanoscale engineering. The breakthrough could transform industries from aerospace to automotive.”

In short, new work with nanoscale carbon lattices has produced a new building material that would greatly reduce the weight of anything made of it compared to the same object made of conventional materials, including plastics and aluminum.

Imagine one of Elon’s stainless steel starships made of this material instead. With the same rocket engines it could carry a much heavier payload into space much faster and arrive much sooner.

This technology can apply to just about anything. It can replace plastics, and as waste, is only carbon, which is abundant in nature and non-polluting. If this technology increases, more and more carbon will be pulled from our atmosphere, freeing up more and more oxygen.

AI is creating a quantum leap in our level of technology. The invention of the vacuum tube in 1908 opened up instant global communication, and once that happened, the technological advance of humanity exploded in all directions.

We’re making a great leap into a vast unknown. From the day to day outside world, it all looks much the same. But it’s not.