Diablo Winds

Buenos dias.

The “diablo” winds have pushed CA’s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. to an unprecedented power shut-off that will affect up to 600K customers.

Those dry, warm winds can reach speeds upwards of 70 MPH, especially coming down mountain slopes,. P&E is playing offense by shutting the power down to try and avert any fire catastrophes like those witnessed in Paradise, CA last year.

Stay safe, my western amigos.

Meanwhile, Wired is reporting on a braindrain of astrophysicists leaving academia to work in the data science realm (particularly in machine learning). The lure? Job security, no tenure-track bottlenecks, money, and interesting work.

More interesting than studying the cosmos?! Apparently, as studying human beings can be just as complex and complicated as the heavens.

Back here at home on our little blue marble, right here in Austin, Austin AI startup SparkCognition has raised $100M in a Series C led by March Capital Partners, making that a total of $175M.

SparkCognition focuses on AI for specific industries, including oil and gas, defense, utilities, aviation, and financial services, and recently partnered with Boeing to form SkyGrid, a joint venture focused on unmanned aircraft system traffic management.

#whyaustin