TLDR 2020-09-02

Bumble is preparing for an Initial Public Offering early next year, possibly seeking a valuation of between $6 billion to $8 billion. No plans have been finalized and the timing of the IPO could change. The pandemic forced several companies to postpone their debuts earlier this year, but the US capital markets have made a stunning recovery.

Whole Foods is opening its first online-only store in New York. The store will not be open to the public. Instead, Amazon delivery drivers will collect orders from the shop and deliver them to customers. Amazon had converted a few of its stores to temporary online-only stores to help meet demand but has since reverted four of them. While demand for grocery delivery has risen since the pandemic, plans for the online-only location were made pre-COVID-19. Amazon recently launched its first Amazon Fresh supermarket in Los Angeles.

Engineers at Vanderbilt University have built optical tweezers that can pick up individual proteins and DNA molecules without damaging them. The opto-thermo-electrohydrodynamic tweezers use a laser to trap and lift individual objects as small as ten nanometers. It does this without exposing the objects to high-intensity light or heat. The technology could help doctors diagnose diseases like Alzheimer's sooner.

Small modular reactor designs could mean safer, cheaper, and easier to install nuclear facilities. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has approved its first small modular reactor design. A two-minute video is available in the article that explores NuScale's design. The basic design is conventional and uses a passive cooling system. It has passive features that ensure that the plant shutdowns safely and remains safe under emergency conditions.

handcalcs renders Python calculation code to look like it was written in pencil. It writes the symbolic formula, followed by numeric substitutions, and then the result. A basic GIF demo is available.

Machine Learning from Scratch is a book that covers the building blocks of the most common methods in machine learning. It covers the concepts, construction, and implementations of Ordinary Linear Regression, Linear Regression Extensions, Discriminative Classifiers, Generative Classifiers, Decision Trees, Tree Ensemble Methods, and Neural Networks. The book was written for readers interested in seeing machine learning algorithms derived from start to finish. It does not review best practices or discuss in depth when certain models are more appropriate than others.

Amazon contract drivers are hanging phones on trees outside Amazon delivery stations and Whole Foods stores to get first dibs on accepting new orders. According to the drivers, Amazon's system chooses drivers based on who is closest to the pickup location. Competition has increased in the gig economy due to a steep drop in business. Drivers have complained to Amazon, but Amazon says that the system doesn't work in the way that the drivers had described and that waiting closer to the pickup location wouldn't increase one's chances of receiving an order.

Airline pilots landing at Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday reported seeing 'a guy in a jetpack' flying about 300 yards off their wing while on final approach to landing. The airliner was descending through 3,000 feet when the man showed up next to them. There are a low number of known jetpack designs capable of such a feat. It is unlikely that this was one of them.