Quite a breakthrough - silent fast actuators that doing generate heat.
Saturday, December 6, 2025
Friday, December 5, 2025
Thursday, December 4, 2025
How the Chinese qwerty keyboard was developed
The Wubi effect - the story of Professor Wang Yongmin, and how he saved Chinese script from the brink of extinction.
Bioluminescence explained
https://radiolab.org/podcast/the-glow-below
At 24 minutes - why deep sea creatures flash back bioluminescence when you flash a light at them
Sunday, November 30, 2025
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Dendrochronology to determine the age of violins
Using photographs of tree-ring patterns on the wood to identify the source wood and date of manufacturer of a violin.
They used this method, and other clues, to prove that Ron Patterson's violin, which he was always told was by Stradivarius' son, was actually an original Strad - which skyrockets its value, especially because it was so well preserved. Heere's the video of presenting the evidence regarding his vollin.
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Do Mattresses Really Double in Weight?
Over years, mattresses can gain a few pounds due to the accumulation of dead skin and dust mites, but they won't double in weight.
A mattress can gain between 10% and 20% of its original weight over a period of 10 years, depending on factors such as the mattress type, the environment, and how well the mattress is maintained. ref
On 8 March 2015, popular Facebook user George Takei published a post...stating that the weight of mattresses doubles every 10 years...attributed to the "accumulation of dust mites and dust mite droppings"...I never quoted that statistic. I told [the reporter] that Internet web sites have statistics that try to strike fear in the consumer...She asked me if any of these statistics have any scientific merit and I told her that none of them are in the literature. To the layman that is NO! ref
Voice actor skills
https://youtube.com/shorts/f13q5O82ewY?si=205pAnAcby511VvN
Same voice actor, various voices for different sales pitches.
Monday, November 24, 2025
Home robots
https://youtu.be/qDM5N_1QL9k?si=v-rffxGLf_huLsFt
This home robotics company starts by recording human movements previously with people wearing special gloves, then engineering their robots to copy the same movements.
Jet engine turbine design - pushing the limits
https://youtu.be/QtxVdC7pBQM?si=SMxCdPYqZf4-pIMU
6:12 a 300g turbine blade at full speed generates 20 tonnes of centripetal force.
8:57 great visualization of plastic deformation of a metal lattice using bubbles
13:48 turbine blades start as a wax mold
21:42 the optimal nickel alloy has enough blocks of gamma prime to block dislocations (fractures) but enough gamma structure to keep the metal ductile (resistant to cracking)
23:03 elements added to steel to impart various properties.
26:18 cooling of the molded blade is very gradual to tightly control the crystal structure - directionally solidified with grain crystals oriented in a favorable direction. 31:06 This gives incredible longevity to turbine engines and efficiency.
Thoughts on retiring gradually.
My contribution to the anesthesia discussion group today. For those of you already retired, what do you think?
I never thought I'd be the sterotypic physician that can't find things to do in retirement, because I have many interests.
Enjoying retirement is about finding happiness and purpose, and this video has really great advice about those. I would advise retirement well before their health and cognition mandates retirement, because all the hand-wringing over asking a colleague to quit because of declining function is one of the hardest things anesthesia chiefs have to do.
First, some financial points: A related question is "how much money do I need, and this video about striving for 7 figures may surprise you that it's less than most people think. Remember that every dollar you earn from part-time employment in early retirement allows your nest-egg to continue growing, so here's some advice on choosing a part-time job. Also, consider keeping a substantial part of your nest egg in stocks (the 100 minus age rule) so you keep up with inflation. And learn about the various types of Medicare coverage. Be careful to avoid permanent late-enrollment Medicare fees if you forget to sign up before age 65.
I semi-retired a year ago, now working 2 days a week. Filling those other days is surprisingly hard because of planning around my wife's schedule, I often find myself searching for same-day activities. Much as I'd love to travel, that doesn't work with her schedule easily.
Volunteering has been the most fulfilling activity, though various musculoskeletal problems act up if I overdo it. A local food bank has huge needs for labor and interacting with clients, and that has been good for me.
My interests in drone photography, sailing, and cycling are largely fair-weather activities, and weather is not Seattle's strong point!
So, gradual retirement has been useful for me to think about how to best enjoy my time, and ease into the "4 phases of retirement." I'm still in phase 1.
If I had retired "cold turkey," I think this would've been a challenge for me, and more of a burden on my spouse. (Then again, maybe I would've signed up for weekly volunteering and other activities and more easily filled my schedule, so it's hard to say.) If you and your spouse can retire at the same time, I think that changes the equation substantially.
Every situation is unique, but the resources mentioned above have been useful to me in planning for retirement. Hope this helps.
Novel method to get 3D views from satellites
https://youtu.be/VWdmXlRpL84?si=MLlYbGQAgQ9kRB2J
Using multiple satellite images from slightly off-vertical, they feed the messy combined image into a diffusion model to auto-complete its best guess, and use Gaussian splatting to find the best fit amongst multiple guesses - and the results are surprisingly good.
This effort is important because the alternative to obtain 3D views is flying aircraft at low altitude with multiple cameras and passes, which is expensive and can be impossible in restricted areas or conflict zones.
Sunday, November 23, 2025
The Streisand effect
"Attempts to suppress information sometimes invoke extensive publicity, becoming viral over the Internet or being distributed on file-sharing networks. Seeking or obtaining an injunction to prohibit something from being published or to remove something that is already published can lead to increased publicity of the published work.
The Streisand effect has been described as an example of psychological reactance, wherein once people are aware that some information is being kept from them, they are significantly more motivated to acquire and spread it.
Crows trained to pick up garbage in Sweden
https://youtu.be/TklOxbWfRDM?si=43PC59nC8B1s8SYS
Crows are being recruited to pick up discarded cigarette butts from the streets and squares of a Swedish city as part of a cost-cutting drive. The wild birds carry out the task as they receive a little food for every butt that they deposit in a bespoke machine...[The town currently] spends 20m Swedish kronor (£1.6m) on street cleaning...He estimates his method could save at least 75% of costs involved with picking up cigarette butts in the city. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/feb/01/swedish-crows-pick-up-cigarette-butts-litter
France is trying it too.
https://youtu.be/zk644QrklNE?si=EGQCX3e0HjYVVwse
Cigarette filters contain cellulose acetate, a plastic. Although it disintegrates within a few months, the chemicals that leach out to them are " acutely toxic to freshwater invertebrates, even at 1 butt per liter. ref
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