User:Lfstevens/sandbox

$$y=\ln((x\div m)-sa)\div r^2$$

Social Security reform proposals have been offered by organizations across the ideological spectrum. The primary motivations include desires to improve benefits for seniors and improving financial stability. Social Security has historically operated on a pay as you go basis. However, as of 2024, the Social Security Trust Fund was expected to be exhausted by 2033, leading to 23% benefit cuts, absent additional funding or other reforms. As of 2024 the system had 2728 rules and hundreds of thousands of pages explaining the rules, governing 13 benefits.

Strategy
Social Security has not been substantially reformed since the bipartisan Social Security Reform Act of 1983. Subsequent reform efforts were blocked either by the party in power or by the inability to overcome the Senate filibuster.

A 2023 proposal advocated combining various reforms with administrative reforms such as upgrading the advice offered to retirees and ending the punishment of administrative errors that trigger benefit clawbacks (numbering 2 million in 2023).

Proposals
Reform proposals generally fall in five categories: benefit cuts, funding increases, tax increases, eligibility changes, and miscellaneous.

Benefits
Few proposals have incorporated actual benefit cuts. One proposal is to change the inflation index used to increase benefits in line with inflation. Using the Chained Consumer Price Index instead of the traditional CPI-W would slow benefit growth. The claim is that this would better reflect the prices that seniors actually experience.

Allow participants to make "early withdrawals" at the cost of reduced long-term benefits.

Establish a time limit on benefit clawbacks in cases where the bureaucracy has made mistaken payments. In some cases, an error was not discovered for decades, but this did not stop attempts to recover the entire amount of improper payments.

Senators Debbie Stabenow and Susan Collins proposed to eliminate the 5-month Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) waiting period for those who accept a 6.1 percent reduction in their monthly benefit amount,

Funding
The most common proposal to increase Social Security funding is to increase the amount of income subject to the payroll tax. As of 2024, that limit was

Taxation
Eliminate the Social Security "benefits tax" (the increased tax on non-Social Security income) and count benefits as ordinary taxable income (for future retirees). While the immediate effects would increase total costs, this would be offset by the taxes by beneficiaries who thereby choose to work because that income is not subject to the benefits tax.

Index all retirement-income taxation, including the Social Security benefits tax.

Miscellaneous
Critics have charged that the Social Security Administration has a high error rate in the advice that it dispenses to beneficiaries. Beneficiaries who follow that advice may be later penalized. Errors include at what age benefits are started, how to manage spousal benefits One reform would be to correct such errors, which would often result in higher lifetime payouts without any program changes.

Offer an online calculator to help beneficiaries make informed judgments about the program.

Allow beneficiaries to work without reducing benefits.

Eliminate mandatory withdrawals from retirement savings accounts.

External inks
Maui businessman and boat captain Riley Coon won a Congressional Medal of Honor Single Act of Heroism for the efforts by him and his team at Trilogy Excursions to rescue people fleeing the 2023 Lahaina wildfires.

Some utilities have embraced “reconductoring” to handle the increase in electricity production. Reconductoring is the replacement-in-place of existing transmission lines with higher capacity lines. Adding transmission lines is difficult due to cost, permit intervals, and local opposition. Reconductoring has the potential to double the amount of electricity that can travel across a transmission line.

The rate of transmission expansion needs to double to support ongoing electrification and reach emission reduction targets. As of 2022, more than 10,000 power plant and energy storage projects were awaiting permission to connect to the US grid — 95% were zero-carbon resources. New power lines can take 10 years to plan, permit, and build.

Traditional power lines use a steel core surrounded by aluminum strands. Replacing the steel with a lighter, stronger composite material, such as carbon fiber allows lines to operate at higher temperatures, with less sag, and doubled transmission capacity. Although advanced lines can cost 2-4x more than steel, total reconductoring costs are less than half of a new line, given savings in time, land acquisition, permitting, and construction.

A reconductoring project in southeastern Texas upgraded 240 miles of transmission lines at a cost of $900,000 per mile, versus a 3,600-mile greenfield project that averaged $1.9 million per mile.+++

The company signed a memorandum of understanding with Verne to evaluate cryo-compressed hydrogen for use in its planes. Cryo-compressed hydrogen stores gaseous hydrogen at cold temperatures, achieving energy density 40% higher than liquid hydrogen and 200% percent more than (350 bar) gaseous hydrogen. Verne claimed that can significantly lower densification costs and refueling times versus liquid hydrogen, while increasing storage duration and potentially eliminating pressure management (venting).

+++

Mobileye CEO Amnon Shashua and CTO Shai Shalev-Shwartz proposed an alternative taxonomy for autonomous driving systems, claiming that a more consumer-friendly approach was needed. Its categories reflect the amount of driver engagement that is required. Some vehicle makers have informally adopted some of the terminology involved, while not formally committing to it.

Eyes-on/hands-on
The first level, hands-on/eyes-on, implies that the driver is fully engaged in operating the vehicle, but is supervised by the system, which intervenes according to the features it supports (e.g., adaptive cruise control, automatic emergency braking). The driver is entirely responsible, with hands on the wheel, and eyes on the road.

Eyes-on/hands-off
Eyes-on/hands-off allows the driver to let go of the wheel. The system drives, the driver monitors and remains prepared to resume control as needed.

Eyes-off/hands-off
Eyes-off/hands-off means that the driver can stop monitoring the system, leaving the system in full control. Eyes-off requires that no errors be reproducible (not triggered by exotic transitory conditions) or frequent, that speeds are contextually appropriate (e.g., 80 mph on limited-access roads), and that the system handle typical maneuvers (e.g., getting cut off by another vehicle). The automation level could vary according to the road (e.g., eyes-off on freeways, eyes-on on side streets).

No driver
The highest level does not require a human driver in the car: monitoring is done either remotely (telepresence) or not at all.

Operational driving domain
An operational driving domain is a particular driving context, such as limited access roads in the US during the day, or city streets in Tel Aviv in the rain. A given vehicle might operate at different levels depending on the ODD. For example, a system that offers eyes-off driving on limited access roads, might fall back to hands-off on for city streets or when visibility is poor. ODDs should be broad enough so that most trips do not involve repeated transitions among them. E.g., freeways, not I10 between San Bernardino and Palm Springs). As systems evolve, ODDs expand in size and scope and decline in number, with the goal of a single unlimited ODD.

Safety
A critical requirement for the higher two levels is that the vehicle be able to conduct a Minimum Risk Maneuver and stop safely out of traffic without driver intervention.

+++

In 2023 GE demonstrated a subscale laboratory rig TBCC system that combined a Mach 2.5-class turbofan paired with a rotating detonation-dual-mode ramjet (RD-DMRJ). The test came 18 months after program launch. The company reported rotating detonations of a compressed fuel-air mixture in the presence of the supersonic airflow necessary for speeds above Mach 5.

Each pebble is 60 mm in diameter. They have an outer layer of graphite. Each contains some 12,000 four-layer, ceramic-coated fuel particles of 8.5% uranium (totaling 7 g) dispersed in a graphite matrix. A selenium sulfur battery is a rechargeable battery that in prototype has an energy density of 500 watt-hours/kg. It is approximately 40% lighter than conventional lithium ion batteries.

History
NASA announced a prototype cell and pack architecture in July 2023.

Solid-state Architecture Batteries for Enhanced Rechargeability and Safety program (SABERS)
SABERS is a NASA program that researches advanced battery technologies for use in aircraft propulsion. The program funded the development of the new battery.

Design
NASA's prototypes use a solid-state electrolyte. The cathode is made from sulfur and selenium. The prototype exceeds 1100 Wh/kg at a discharge rate of 0.4C, and 804 Wh/kg at a discharge rate of 1C. The anode is made from lithium metal. This cathode incorporates NASA-patented holey graphene technology provides a highly conductive, low-weight electrode scaffold. Lithium ions are the charge carrier.

NASA's prototypes can be stacked without a casing. Case-free stackability means that the battery's cooling systems can be smaller and lighter. Operating conventional batteries at full power causes rapid temperature increases. The prototype can operate at much higher temperatures than conventional lithium-ion batteries. In addition, they are less affected by pressure changes, which occur during takeoff and landing. A submillimeter bundled microtubular membrane is a --> stuff.{{sfn|DFG}