How to apply Teflon tape - clockwise, full threads with thin strand first.

https://youtube.com/shorts/dpu__tRdNL4?si=hJYuv0sGPNhw1nBA

How Singapore is trying to build a climate-proof city.

https://youtu.be/7Af6lb4rBQw?si=MQiCmGZmJUmhrbLJ

Singapore is a tiny island-city nation with a high population density, imbuing it all the constraints that encourage development that propels the world towards a carbon-neutral future. 

3:11 Singapore installed a massive 45-hectare solar farm on its water reservoir, generating 60 MW of power. (For comparison, the large wind turbines you see are 2MW.) The advantage is two-fold: the underlying water keeps the solar panels cool, optimizing their efficiency, and their presence diminishes evaporation from the reservoir. 8:44 They also claim it improves the water quality of the reservoir. 

8:05 The solar panels are tilted at 5 degrees, as a compromise between rain runoff that keeps the panels clean when they're tilted, vs maximizing sun exposure at 0 degrees (Singapore is near the equator.) 

10:25 they even have drones to scope out bird poop on the panels. 

11:12 Singapore is partnering with Equatic, a US company that is cleverly combining carbon capture with hydrogen fuel generation (CO2 + H2O = NaHCO3 + H2) 

Interestingly, 13:35 almost 80% of Singapore's population live in government housing. The latest development 14:05 will have minimal vehicles, autonomous trash collection, and a centralized multi-building solar cooling system. 

The city has long been seen as a concrete jungle 20:51, so new developments are designed (and computer-modeled 16:48) to optimize greenery, shade, and wind-flow between buildings in what they call 19:12 "biophilic" design. 

Talhotblond, a dark rabbit-hole of internet catfishing leads to murder

"while "Jessi" was a real person, Thomas had been chatting [online] with her mother, Mary Shieler, catfishing and posing as her daughter online" 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talhotblond_(2009_film)

Design constraints of piston rings

James, you first introduced me to the concept that high-performance engines are designed to burn through a lot of oil on purpose - a liter every 1600km. I understood in general, but this in-depth analysis goes into great detail about the way a piston ring exerts pressure on the cylinder wall, and how the lower rings are cleverly designed to scrape oil and deposits off the cylinder walls. 

You can skip to 3:56 after the discussion of steam-engine piston rings. 

6:26 I didn't realize that combustion pressure forces its way behind the inner diameter of a piston ring, pushing the ring against the cylinder wall. 

7:39 I also didn't realize that piston rings convey half the heat from the piston to the cylinder wall. 

14:23 graphite-steel is stronger, and chrome or other minerals are deposited onto the surface of the piston ring to enhance strength and wear-resistance. 

18:19 piston ring design is a trade-off between performance, engine break-in, and friction. 

https://youtu.be/EFfyWbi3APk?si=IhceImT53gWgj9e4

The world's biggest desalination plants shouldn't exist

10:25 "multi-stage flash" desalination (boiling under low pressure) uses 10-25 kWhr per m³ of fresh water produced. 

11:45 reverse osmosis of seawater uses far less energy, about 4-5 kWhr per m³

https://youtu.be/Dd9q30yjEqc?si=sjhi6916s6V5zauB

Why are street lights turning purple?

https://youtu.be/4Mll-YDDAF4?si=MK2FpKhtTfmbUqJM

The main reason is that the phosphor layer on top of the LED is failing and popping off, causing the blue light to shine through without being converted to white light (see 10:29).

Incredible dexterity with a backhoe

https://youtu.be/7_iyiOLpRVA?si=zYSsLf712eLRghcA

Acquired savant math genius developed after Tacoma brain injury

 

Montana's economic strategy increases homelessness and profits the rich

https://youtu.be/dU2x0BmFhJI?si=ShQ95zgnhJwcuu-T

How physicists broke the solar efficiency record.

Very interesting description of how to squeeze every last photon of energy out of solar energy. 

You may have to read the next sentence twice to really take in the magnitude of it. 

20:00 "470 exajoules* of energy reach the Earth's surface every 8 minutes, which is the same amount of energy that the entire world's population uses in a year."

https://youtu.be/J1QDq5Ggz6s?si=MNG85ppWuVZF8S4E

*An exajoule is 10^18 joules, equivalent to 277.8 terawatt hours

Catenary curve in Christopher Wren's tallest building in London

https://youtu.be/iRv_syz2DAc?si=VmU2hia51_gDNgRe

3:15 Hooke -"As hangs the flexible line, so but inverted will stand the rigid arch." - the same shape taken by a hanging chain (in tension) will yield the strongest shape for a dome the other way up. 

4:20 "This allowed them to build taller, over a narrower opening, with less material." 

Women bosses - be nice, or be assertive?

 https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/men-45-women-0/

"It is really the very, very fine line of being a shrew on one hand and a puppet on the other that any woman in public life has to walk," says former U.S. Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, a Democrat from Illinois.

So what's a woman to do? Be nice and kind and friendly, as our gender stereotypes about women require? Or be tough and decisive, as our stereotypes about leadership demand? To be one is to be seen as nice, but weak. To be the other is to be seen as competent, but unlikable."

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-to-win-people-over/

" an amazing and depressing study...looked at longitudinal data of 15 years about of professors teaching evaluations...you might think, oh, evaluations are going to get better for the people who succeed and stay because they'll become more experienced professors. And then, I don't know, maybe at the end of their career, they tail off and they get worse...When they were younger, they would get high evaluations. As they went into middle age, their evaluations would drop, and as they got older, their evaluations would rise again...women who got the lowest teaching evaluations...middle stage of their career, those women were perceived as the most assertive and the least warm...Because if someone's gonna have control over me, I care a lot about the fact that they are gonna do good things with it, not just to help me, but to make sure they're gonna use it responsibly. If I don't respect somebody, I could be concerned, and wait a second, you're gonna have all this control, and you're just gonna mess it up."

An antidote: "humor bragging is saying something positive about yourself, while also using humor that is not self-deprecating"

World's largest iron mine, Australia

https://youtu.be/F1bJYHl5iJw?si=KgW_bpadB5XySU6r

Largest iron mine profits from very little over-burden to be removed before encountering high-grade ore. Many of the mine's operations run autonomously, and trains ship out ore 365 days a year,

The surprising solutions to the world's water crisis with Hannah Fry

https://youtu.be/FDY2McKLvlM?si=OTflTWbMb1xOZdBF

7:12 "Practical Action" is drawing water up from aquifers using solar power, to sustain localized farming. 

12:39 a correlation between water depletion and social unrest. 

23:21 water is this issue of national security. Singapore had to teach rock bottom before they changed their approach to the importance of water. Let's hope the rest of the world learns how important water security is, and will continue to become. 

Take off shoes indoors - to limit exposure to micro plastics

https://youtu.be/tyuu6NYuo1Q?si=Pb6M8eeWpctf8ZRZ

"Finnish schools, shoes are taken off by coat racks near the classrooms (shoe schools). The new course of action is to take shoes off right when entering the building (sock schools)...concentrations in corridors were significantly higher in shoe schools compared to sock schools...elemental concentrations (Li, Al, Si, Cr, Mn, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Cd, Ba, Pb) in settled dust were also higher in shoe schools compared to sock schools" 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969719362680

"Contaminants tracked in from outside, such as lawn pesticides and lead dust from work or home renovation: Use a doormat, remove shoes at the door, and plant shrubs and grass to help reduce dust levels and limit the potential to track dust indoors." 

https://www.health.ny.gov/publications/2818/

"...estimated that between 9,000 and 400,000 metric tonnes of microplastics are released from shoes globally per year from regular use...trail running events deposit significant plastic fibres and rubber fragments onto soil...100 runners release about 425,000 rubber particles over a 10 km race...85% of used shoes in the UK were sent to the dump rather than recycled or reused...once they're in the landfill, shoe plastics degrade...and release ethylene and methane, two potent greenhouse gases" 

https://www.asparagusmagazine.com/articles/reducing-plastic-pollution-from-shoes-through-recycling-and-repair

"We recommend not heating food in plastic containers, because chemicals leach from that plastic into the food product...placing plastic in the dishwasher can have a similar leaching effect by degrading plastic containers...[prevent exposure by] taking off your shoes when coming inside, to removing dust, and vacuuming frequently."

https://newsroom.uw.edu/video-library/limiting-your-exposure-microplastics-home