Daily Archives: November 9, 2021

Summit gathers top minds in science and tech – Chinadaily USA

Posted: November 9, 2021 at 2:49 pm

Tencent's We Summit, an annual gathering where luminaries share advanced ideas on science and technology, was held on Saturday. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Top scientists in mathematical physics, astrophysics, brain-computer interfaces and intelligent robotics shared their insights on cutting-edge global science and technology innovations at the ninth We Summit held by Chinese tech behemoth Tencent on Saturday.

Nobel prize winners British mathematical physicist Sir Roger Penrose and German astrophysicist Reinhard Genzel along with four leading scientists John A Rogers, Krishna V Shenoy, Wang Chaoyang and Xplorer Prize winner Li Tiefeng attended the summit this year.

"By 2021, it became clear that our practices had to change. We could improve our quality of life, leveraging our new technologies and escaping the traditional constraints of nature while maintaining a new balance with natural forces on earth," said David Wallerstein, chief exploration officer and senior executive vice-president at Tencent.

Roger Penrose, emeritus professor at the University of Oxford, discussed the evolution of thinking around black holes, singularity and cyclic cosmology, and his experience spending decades alongside great minds such as Stephen Hawking.

He and his peers have been leveraging mathematics toward solving large and fundamental questions around the formation of black holes, as well as establishing the foundational mathematical structure that defines modern cosmology.

Reinhard Genzel, professor at the University of Munich and emeritus professor at the University of California Berkeley, provided an overview of his 40 years of work in proving the existence of black holes through observational methods, and obtaining definitive evidence that led to the creation of a new field of research on supermassive celestial bodies.

Pennsylvania State University Professor Wang Chaoyang, whose research has led to the development of all-climate battery technology used by the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to power electric vehicles during the Games, shared some of his latest research achievements regarding 10-minute fast-charging batteries, and how the technology represents an important step in the development of truly futuristic advancements such as the commercialization of flying cars with fast-charging battery technology.

Founded in 2013, Tencent's We Summit has shared the voices and insights of nearly 80 world-leading scientists to over 80 million people. In 2020, a record 25 million people watched the summit's livestream.

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This Restaurant Robot Fries Your Food to Perfection With No Human Help – Singularity Hub

Posted: at 2:49 pm

Four and a half years ago, a robot named Flippy made its burger-cooking debut at a fast food restaurant called CaliBurger. The bot consisted of a cart on wheels with an extending arm, complete with a pneumatic pump that let the machine swap between tools: tongs, scrapers, and spatulas. Flippys main jobs were pulling raw patties from a stack and placing them on the grill, tracking each burgers cook time and temperature, and transferring cooked burgers to a plate.

This initial iteration of the fast-food robotor robotic kitchen assistant, as its creators called itwas so successful that a commercial version launched last year. Its maker Miso Robotics put Flippy on the market for $30,000, and the bot was no longer limited to just flipping burgers; the new and improved Flippy could cook 19 different foods, including chicken wings, onion rings, french fries, and the Impossible Burger. It got sleeker, too: rather than sitting on a wheeled cart, the new Flippy was a robot on a rail, with the rail located along the hood of restaurant stoves.

This week, Miso Robotics announced an even newer, more improved Flippy robot called Flippy 2 (hey, theyre consistent). Most of the updates and improvements on the new bot are based on feedback the company received from restaurant chain White Castle, the first big restaurant chain to go all-in on the original Flippy.

So how is Flippy 2 different? The new robot can do the work of an entire fry station without any human assistance, and can do more than double the number of food preparation tasks its older sibling could do, including filling, emptying, and returning fry baskets.

These capabilities have made the robot more independent, eliminating the need for a human employee to step in at the beginning or end of the cooking process. When foods are placed in fry bins, the robots AI vision identifies the food, picks it up, and cooks it in a fry basket designated for that food specifically (i.e., onion rings wont be cooked in the same basket as fish sticks). When cooking is complete, Flippy 2 moves the ready-to-go items to a hot-holding area.

Miso Robotics says the new robots throughput is 30 percent higher than that of its predecessor, which adds up to around 60 baskets of fried food per hour. So much fried food. Luckily, Americans cant get enough fried food, in general and especially as the pandemic drags on. Even more importantly, the current labor shortages were seeing mean restaurant chains cant hire enough people to cook fried food, making automated tools like Flippy not only helpful, but necessary.

Since Flippys inception, our goal has always been to provide a customizable solution that can function harmoniously with any kitchen and without disruption, said Mike Bell, CEO of Miso Robotics. Flippy 2 has more than 120 configurations built into its technology and is the only robotic fry station currently being produced at scale.

At the beginning of the pandemic, many foresaw that Covid-19 would push us into quicker adoption of many technologies that were already on the horizon, with automation of repetitive tasks being high on the list. They were right, and weve been lucky to have tools like Zoom to keep us collaborating and Flippy to keep us eating fast food (to whatever extent you consider eating fast food an essential activity; I mean, you cant cook every day). Now if only there was a tech fix for inflation and housing shortages

Seeing as how thereve been three different versions of Flippy rolled out in the last four and a half years, there are doubtless more iterations coming, each with new skills and improved technology. But the burger robot is just one of many new developments in automation of food preparation and delivery. Take this pizzeria in Paris: there are no humans involved in the cooking, ordering, or pick-up process at all. And just this week, IBM and McDonalds announced a collaboration to create drive-through lanes run by AI.

So it may not be long before you can order a meal from one computer, have that meal cooked by another computer, then have it delivered to your home or waiting vehicle by a thirdyou guessed itcomputer.

Image Credit: Miso Robotics

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Democratic Moderates Aren’t the Answer to Right-Wing Republicanism; They’re the Cause, by Ted Rall – Creators Syndicate

Posted: at 2:49 pm

Another election, another shellacking. Democrats are returning to the political reality that predated the quantum singularity of Biden's anti-Trump coalition: adrift, ideologically divided and, as always, arguing over whether to chase swing voters or work hard to energize their progressive left base.

At the root of the Democrats' problem is rightward drift. The 50-yard line of American politics has moved so far right that Richard Nixon would be considered a liberal Democrat today. How did we get here? In part it's due to the moderates who control the party leadership not just because they don't fight for liberal values hard enough (though that's true) but because of an intended consequence few people focus upon: Their campaigning reinforces the right.

Washington Post columnist Megan McArdle wrote an essay a few weeks ago that's still rattling around in my brain. It's about a topic that students of politics often wonder about: What's the smartest way forward for Democrats?

In general terms, McArdle takes up the mantle of the dominant moderates who argue that the party can't push for progressive policies, or push for anything at all, unless it holds the reins of power. Win first, improve people's lives later.

It's an old position. I've countered the wait-for-progress folks by pointing out that later rarely seems to come. When Democrats win, as Barack Obama did in 2009 he won the House and the Senate and even briefly achieved a filibuster-proof 60-vote supermajority they choose not to go big or push hard for purported liberal goals such as increasing the minimum wage, federally legalizing abortion or socializing health care. I agree with progressive strategist Anat Shenker-Osorio's answer to the attentistes: "The job of a good message isn't to say what is popular. The job of a good message is to make popular what we need said."

In other words, use the bully pulpit. Lead.

Still, I've never read or heard the mainstream position articulated quite as clearly as McArdle does. She quotes self-described progressive election analyst David Shor. "To me, Shor's vision sort your ideas by popularity, then 'Start at the top, and work your way down to find something that excites people' sounds less inspiring but more likely to help Democrats get and hold power," McArdle summarizes. "It doesn't require Democrats to persuade voters that, say, an Asian American assistant professor has exactly the same interests as a rural, White call-center worker or a Hispanic plumber and that only a conspiracy of the very rich prevents them from realizing it. Democrats merely have to learn what voters already want."

She attacks "the young idealists who staff campaigns and newsrooms" who "sustain a rarefied bubble where divisive slogans such as 'defund the police' can be questioned only with great delicacy, while significantly more popular propositions like 'use the military to help police quell riots' cannot be defended at all." Pointing out that only a third of American voters have a bachelor's degree, she concludes: "Democrats cannot afford to cater only to that hyper-educated class (of young, urban, educated idealists)."

Leftists can easily agree that ignoring less-educated voters is a prescription for electoral defeat. More importantly, everyone deserves representation for the left, "everyone" especially includes the poor and working-class, who are less likely to be highly educated. But her assumption that (for lack of a better word) the underclasses are inherently reactionary, cannot be organized behind a slate of progressive policy goals, and that this state of affairs must be accepted is fundamentally flawed and ideologically self-sabotaging.

We are thinking of pre-election campaigning, the election and post-election governing as discrete phases. Actually, they're highly intertwined. For example, political campaigning is itself a self-reinforcing mechanism that affects not merely a race's outcome but the ideological reality under which the winner must govern.

Democrats, McArdle says, must win first before they can improve things. But what's the point of winning if you go to make things worse?

The above presents a classic example of single-mindedly seeking Pyrrhic victory at the polls. If Democrats abandon "defund the police" in favor of "use the military to help police quell riots" as per McArdle's counsel, they might win more elections. But to what end? Victorious law-and-order Democrats will further militarize policing, increase shootings and beatings of civilians and hasten creeping authoritarianism. "Defund the police" is a tone-deaf slogan, but the idea of shifting resources away from violence-based law enforcement into programs that reduce crime by strengthening communities is a good one. We need a better slogan, not adding armed goons to city streets.

Bill Clinton won twice, but his signature legislation welfare reform, NAFTA-GATT and the crime bill included right-wing wish list items that could have just as easily been signed into law by George W. Bush. With Democrats like that, who needs Republicans?

You can win with a political bait-and-switch. Joe Biden did. He ran as Not Donald Trump, the ultimate centrist compromiser who bragged that he was friends with every Republican senator, even the racist ones. But you can't govern after you pull one off. Biden's attempt to pass infrastructure and social spending bills are being shredded by centrists who point out that he didn't run on policies inspired by Bernie Sanders. I love those policies. But where's the electoral mandate for these changes?

More subtly, but I think more importantly, running right is a lose-lose proposition. If you win, you can't pass the progressive agenda you claim to really want. If you lose, you've validated and endorsed hard-line Republicans. Win or lose, polls should provide prompts for smarter messaging and framing, not selling out. A party that claims to represent the left has to run to the left.

Ted Rall (Twitter: @tedrall), the political cartoonist, columnist and graphic novelist, is the author of a new graphic novel about a journalist gone bad, "The Stringer." Order one today. You can support Ted's hard-hitting political cartoons and columns and see his work first by sponsoring his work on Patreon.

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Democratic Moderates Aren't the Answer to Right-Wing Republicanism; They're the Cause, by Ted Rall - Creators Syndicate

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Masks to be worn at NFR in Las Vegas as proof of COVID-19 vaccination not required – FOX5 Las Vegas

Posted: at 2:48 pm

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Masks to be worn at NFR in Las Vegas as proof of COVID-19 vaccination not required - FOX5 Las Vegas

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Las Vegas soccer star invited to train internationally – FOX5 Las Vegas

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Looking forward: Future of transportation in Las Vegas already in motion – KTNV Las Vegas

Posted: at 2:48 pm

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) Here in Las Vegas, transportation is looking toward the future.

We're moving away from more conventional modes of travel to more innovative ways to get around, like the Vegas Loop, making transportation safer and helping connect people from all around the valley.

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Commissioner Michael Naft says transportation has become somewhat of a passion project for him as the state of Nevada continues to grow.

"I think this is an incredible time here for Southern Nevada. If you are involved in innovative transportation, this is the place to be, Clark County," said Commissioner Naft.

With population growth, comes infrastructure, and with Las Vegas serving as one of the fastest-growing cities, officials in Southern Nevada were tasked with how they can move people faster, safer, and more efficiently.

"You've got everything from autonomous testing going on with Halo and autonomous rental cars. You've got the Vegas Loop project that we just approved recently, moving thousands and thousands of people underground in an efficient way and in a safe way," Naft said.

In a time when it seemed like the entire world shut down, Las Vegas continued to work on its growing infrastructure.

I think one of the most important things that Governor Sisolak did during the worst days of the pandemic, was to make sure that our construction crews were able to continue working in a safe way. Because of that, we have a brand new NFL stadium that we otherwise wouldn't have had, we have The Boring Company able to successfully complete three stations at the Las Vegas Convention Center. We have so many more projects. Frankly, some of which would have been killed, had they had to stop dead in their tracks and restart later," Naft said.

The traffic woes on some of our major arteries like Interstate 15, which is part of the freight system, alerted state officials to bottlenecks like the one at the Nevada/California state line. Thiscan impact our access to our goods, which is vital to our state economy.

To get to the routes of the rest of the country, it has to pass through I-15 [interstate 15] and Southern Nevada, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman said, in a previous interview with 13 Action News about the struggling supply chain.

Reducing those freight chokepoints is top of mind for officials like Kristina Swallow, the director of the Nevada Department of Transportation.

"We're currently updating our freight plan, and that freight plan is going to look at where the bottlenecks are on our corridors. So, what do we need to do to address those? Within the limits of the state, are there things that we can do? We're also going to look at things like truck parking."

The road to innovation in the Las Vegas valley has been a long one, just take a look around at the construction.

Currently, there are more than 400 statewide construction projects in Nevada with more than a hundred of those focused right here in Las Vegas.

Americas population is expected to grow substantially by 2045, especially here in the West, and transportation officials fear that the existing infrastructure may not be able to accommodate the growth.

"It's. (population growth) the reason why so much of what we've talked about for decades and decades is now finally coming to fruition," Naft said.

"They actually anticipate between now and 2030, an increase in population here in Southern Nevada - 400,000 people bringing us to over 2.6 million people in Clark County. So we're very aware of those estimations and we're working with them to figure out what that looks like on our transportation system. I think what's key here though, is we as a community and as a state need to really pivot on how we meet those growth needs," Swallow said.

So, how do we move forward, faster, safer, and more efficiently?

"It takes so many great partnerships and entities throughout the valley, like NDOT, the RTC, and then private enterprises, like The Boring Company to all come together and help to put a solution in place.

Lori Nelson, with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, says Vegas is currently at the forefront of transportation technology.

To combat congestion, experts are looking below ground where we are already seeing a growing network of underground transportation with the LVCVA Convention Center Loop.

"We will be the first in the country to be able to have transportation solutions underground that are express and direct point-to-point systems. Nowhere else, only Vegas has that," Nelson said.

What started as a big idea, has branched into something even bigger than we could even imagine for Southern Nevada.

The LVCVA says the Convention Center Loop was a precursor to the future of transportation, with the Vegas Loop.

During the SEMA conference, The LVCVA was able to transport more passengers than ever before --- 57,000 people.

There is no stop-and-go, there is no picking up passengers and dropping them off, and we believe this is the future of transportation in Southern Nevada," Nelson said.

As the population grows, Clark County is looking at ways to cut down on emissions by having fewer cars on the road and encouraging more people to take other means of transportation.

The end result is clear: Cleaner air and safer streets.

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JobFest planned Dec. 7 in Las Vegas to help job seekers find the right fit – KLAS – 8 News Now

Posted: at 2:48 pm

LAS VEGAS (KLAS) A JobFest planned for Tuesday, Dec. 7, in Las Vegas will feature more than 100 employers trying to fill thousands of jobs.

A news release Monday from Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolaks office promotes the event, which will include resources and support services for job seekers including skills training and childcare.

The event will run from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Las Vegas Convention Center North Hall, 3150 Paradise Road.

The Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation reports that Nevada is No.1 in the United States for hiring and there are thousands of jobs open in Southern Nevada.

Dust off your resume and dress to impress as many will be hiring on the spot, according to the news release.

Many people who have been out of the job market for months may need to brush up on their skills. Nevada JobConnect staff and other agencies will be on hand with resources and services to get you the skills you need to stand out and step into the right job.

There is no priority more important than Nevadas recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, and all of our state agencies are focused on creating high-paying job opportunities and connecting Nevadans to the skills and resources they need for these jobs, said Gov. Sisolak. As we move into 2022, its more important than ever to help Nevadans secure gainful employment or start sharpening their skills for a new opportunity.

Jobseeker preregistration is encouraged but not mandatory https://www.nvcareercenter.org/jobfest-2021/Employers and businesses who would like to participate can email Nevada JobConnect Business Services Office at BusinessServices2@detr.nv.gov or call (702) 486-0129.

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Experts warn of projected nursing shortage in Las Vegas – KTNV Las Vegas

Posted: at 2:48 pm

LAS VEGAS (KTNV) More growing pains in Las Vegas: Experts are predicting a nursing shortage in Southern Nevada in the next couple of years.

UNLV School of Nursing Dean Angela Amar says nurses need to be a big part of the conversation when we talk about the future of health care in Las Vegas because they play such an important role in our hospitals.

Amar adds they have plenty of qualified nursing school applicants, but theyre limited on how many they can take because they dont have enough faculty or nurses in practice to train them. This will create a problem as the population in Clark County continues to grow.

RELATED: There's an acute nursing shortage

She says pandemic burnout and retirements will only make this problem worse.

The burnout in the hospital means they dont have all they need, so they certainly cant assist us with the teaching needs or training needs of our students. So the projections lead to within the next now all the way three to five years we really, will see a nursing shortage, Amar added.

By law, the school has to put nursing students in clinical groups of eight with a faculty member per person. They're also assigned to a hospital unit to get training from nurses in practice.

What can we do to mitigate the problem? Amar suggests the state needs to take a look at where it is willing to make investments in the healthcare industry so that the pipeline of students who have dreams of becoming a nurse can make that a reality in Las Vegas.

Another big problem is a doctor shortage in Southern Nevada.

Our state is ranked one of the worst in the country for physicians per capita.

13 Action News will break down how hospitals and universities are trying to change the trajectory in our Meadows to Metropolis contained coverage Tuesday evening.

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Experts warn of projected nursing shortage in Las Vegas - KTNV Las Vegas

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Southern Nevada’s affordable housing problem commands imaginative solutions – Las Vegas Sun

Posted: at 2:48 pm

Christopher DeVargas

Todd Stratton, president at Kavison Homes, stands at the future site of an affordable single-family home development in Mountains Edge, Thursday, Oct. 28,2021.

Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021 | 2 a.m.

Faced with an urgent need for more affordable housing in Southern Nevada, leaders in the public and private sectors are stepping up.

A recent example, reported by Sun staff writer Bryan Horwath, involves a partnership between Clark County and local homebuilder Kavison Homes to construct 150 houses in the southwestern valley.

Sited on a 15-acre tract along Cactus Avenue east of Buffalo Drive, the homes would be made available to households making up to 80% of the areas median income and would be priced at $208,000 to $240,000. As Horwath pointed out, houses in the nearby Mountains Edge neighborhood are marketed at $450,000.

The public-private venture isnt a done deal, as it involves a prospective transfer of land from the U.S. Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to Clark County.

But the land transfer is in the works after a unanimous vote by the Clark County Commission to approve the project.

This is a creative solution that will provide working families with an opportunity to own a home, Commissioner Justin Jones told Horwath. Were already looking at other opportunities like this. We wanted to get this one rolling first to see how the process works and what the interest level is.

Bravo to the commission and to Kavison Homes owner Todd Stratton for bringing this innovative project to the table.

Recognition of the need for affordable housing is growing in the valley, and with good reason in a community where the median home price of resold homes seems to set a record every month. That was the case in October, when the price hit $410,000 eclipsing the previous record set in September and skyrocketing 20.5% from just a year prior.

These escalating prices put homeownership out of the reach of many working-class families, which is a problem for everyone in our community. For Las Vegas to continue growing and prospering, its a fundamental need to provide affordable housing to the individuals who form the backbone of our economy resort workers, construction workers, etc.

Right now, were a long way from meeting that need. According to the National Low Income Housing Coalition, the region is short of affordable homes for extremely low-income residents by nearly 85,000.

But were seeing progress. Local governments are getting more creative and are working with developers to make construction of affordable housing pencil out for them financially. Here are a couple of cases in point:

The Showboat Park Apartments, which opened this year on the site of the old Showboat resort grounds. The 344-unit complex was made possible through cooperation with local developer Amador Chi Chi Bengochea, the city of Las Vegas and other governmental organizations. Those included the Southern Nevada Water Authority, which gave Bengochea offsets on its fees based on differences in water usage between the old resort and the apartment complex. Thanks in part to those offsets, Bengochea was able to build a complex with upscale amenities but with rental prices at below market value.

The Cine Apartments, a 270-unit affordable housing development being planned for the complex anchored by Maya Cinemas in North Las Vegas. Developers of the $64 million project say 80% of its units will be designated for residents earning no more than 60% of median family income, with rents starting at $730 per month for a one-bedroom unit. According to Zillow, the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Las Vegas is $1,043. The city of North Las Vegas has worked closely with the owner of the Maya property, Moctezuma Esparza, a Southern California film industry executive and social activist, in developing the complex.

These are positive steps forward. We applaud the government leaders, developers and affordable-housing advocates who are doing this pioneering work.

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Tell the Oakland As what you think of their Las Vegas relocation idea – Athletics Nation

Posted: at 2:47 pm

Oakland As fans woke up Friday morning to an email in our inboxes from the team. It was a survey asking what we think about them moving to a new ballpark in Las Vegas.

I cant speak for all fans, but I assume the general response would be ... no thanks?

Third-party market research can sometimes come off as cold and insensitive, and this survey might make the Hall of Fame in that regard. Would I have positive or negative feelings about my team moving 500 miles away? Gosh, if I had to choose, Id say negative. Would I attend games at a new Las Vegas ballpark? Gee whiz, I dont think so. Why not? Golly, probably because its 500 miles away, and I would not roll that far.

***

How did we get here? Quick refresher.

With their Howard Terminal project trudging through a painfully slow process, earlier this year the As began threatening to move to Las Vegas if a deal doesnt get done soon in Oakland. Maybe its just a negotiating ploy to gain leverage over local government or maybe they have genuine interest in relocating, but either way theyve followed through on the talk with early action by visiting sites in the desert.

Perhaps its working. When the team first made their threat in May, they wanted an Oakland City Council vote in July and ultimately got it. Then when they needed approval from Alameda County in October, some new quotes were floated about Vegas and a couple weeks later they got their vote from the county. While we cant assume direct causality, its not a stretch to think the hardball tactics might have helped reach these elusive milestones.

However, the gambit does come with a cost. The pawns in this corporate chess match are we the fans, who have to listen to constant talk about our team leaving. Even if you believe its all a ruse to spur government action and that their true intention is to stay here, it still sucks to see our hearts so cavalierly tossed around. When they make a straight-faced threat to move, they have to make it to us too, not long after they adamantly pledged to be Rooted In Oakland.

***

That brings us to Friday morning. The email reads:

As fan,

As you may know, in addition to pursuing a new Oakland waterfront ballpark, the Oakland As are in the preliminary stages of assessing the potential to move the team to Las Vegas. As part of the planning process, the As have engaged a third party company to conduct a market study to determine demand for a new ballpark in Las Vegas.

Your participation in this survey is a very important part of this process. The survey will gauge your thoughts and opinions regarding the team, interest in attending games, and important stadium design elements for a Las Vegas ballpark.

Please click the button below to access this 10-minute survey.

Your continued interest and support of the As is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your participation.

The survey asked for some demographic info, then went on to measure opinions about moving to Vegas. A similar survey went out to Vegas residents earlier in the week, and that makes sense before you consider putting a sports franchise somewhere, check to make sure the residents would want to become customers.

But to ask these questions of the current fans, who would be losing their team? It felt truly bizarre, somewhere in the region between waste of time and slap in the face.

Overall, what is your attitude toward the potential relocation of the Athletics to Las Vegas and the construction of a new state-of-the-art ballpark?

I chose Very Negative. When asked to explain why, I was stopped in my tracks for a few minutes. How would you explain to a robot that you dont like being sad? Because being sad makes me feel sad? Heres what I wrote:

Why would I feel negatively about my favorite sports team moving away to a different state? Ive spent nearly four decades rooting for them, and a teams geographic location is an essential part of its identity. It would be an incredible betrayal for the As to abandon us, and being betrayed and abandoned gives me negative feelings.

It got even weirder, asking about whether the Vegas ballpark should be located near or outside the Strip, and whether Id prefer it to be an open-air, retractable-roof, or domed stadium. There wasnt an option for I dont give a shit.

Would I (or my company) be interested in purchasing tickets for a new Vegas park? Why not? Because I live in the Bay Area, obviously. Would the extra visits from AL West rivals affect my likelihood to attend games in Vegas? I dont think youre understanding the issue at hand. What mode of transportation would I most likely use to get there? I chose Other, because the options didnt include a wormhole that takes me to a dimension where any of this makes sense.

Toward the end, it shifted gears from the stadium to the team itself.

What is your attitude toward the Athletics franchise as it exists today?

I chose Somewhat Positive, which felt generous. It asked why. My answer:

I love the players and the front office and the team on the field. But the owner makes it impossible to respect the organization. John Fisher has become such a toxic presence that its overshadowing everything great about the As. Whether its laying off employees during a pandemic, refusing to speak publicly about any topic, skimping on player payroll, or failing to get a stadium built for 15 years and counting, his relentless incompetence has become so routine that it now threatens the teams very existence. The indifference he shows toward his paying customers is the defining aspect of the As team brand, despite the consistently amazing efforts of his front office and players.

Its understandable that companies perform market research, but its difficult to imagine what the value was here. Did it require a survey to determine that fans dont want their team to leave, and that customers in a local market wont travel to a new venue if its 500 miles away? Is there some ambiguity in past precedents in other cities where this has happened, or in the stAy signs held proudly all over the Coliseum?

The whole exercise was insulting to a fanbase whose patience has already run thin. It was the latest gut punch from the organization, who back in May brought us Team President Dave Kaval tweeting from a Las Vegas Golden Knights hockey game during an As game. If only theyd sent a survey to gauge interest in jacking up ticket prices at the Coliseum for 2022 before making that decision.

The rest is here:

Tell the Oakland As what you think of their Las Vegas relocation idea - Athletics Nation

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Daily Archives: November 9, 2021

Summit gathers top minds in science and tech – Chinadaily USA

This Restaurant Robot Fries Your Food to Perfection With No Human Help – Singularity Hub

Democratic Moderates Aren’t the Answer to Right-Wing Republicanism; They’re the Cause, by Ted Rall – Creators Syndicate

Masks to be worn at NFR in Las Vegas as proof of COVID-19 vaccination not required – FOX5 Las Vegas

Las Vegas soccer star invited to train internationally – FOX5 Las Vegas

Looking forward: Future of transportation in Las Vegas already in motion – KTNV Las Vegas

JobFest planned Dec. 7 in Las Vegas to help job seekers find the right fit – KLAS – 8 News Now

Experts warn of projected nursing shortage in Las Vegas – KTNV Las Vegas

Southern Nevada’s affordable housing problem commands imaginative solutions – Las Vegas Sun

Tell the Oakland As what you think of their Las Vegas relocation idea – Athletics Nation

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