Tuesday, May 5, 2026

Radical Acceptance - Hidden Brain Media

https://www.hiddenbrain.org/podcast/radical-acceptance/

28:53 "Accepting the reality you're in instead of standing outside banging on the door of reality [asking it to change] doesn't change a things." You need a new perspective. 
Going to stop fighting but we cannot change, it opens up avenues for real change. 

That's what wonder does it really means us fully in to our humanness. 

Coherent life: Who I am, what I'm doing, and what I believe in are all connected. Compass exercise: write down 3 paragraphs: 1) my life view - what are the most important questions that define reality. 2) what do you believe is the purpose of your work - to make the world a better place/ to keep you busy/ to make a living / a place where community can be experienced as we collaborate ? 
3) what's going on with you - what's the long caption of your story right now. 

These give a picture of your life right now and you can dial your core values from these. 

47:00 "Flow State" defined as the experience of full and deep engagement where time stands still, where  the task you are currently involved in, and your skills to perform that task, are in approximate balance. 

But you can turn any situation into a simple flow state by being fully present in the moment. If chopping onions, enjoy the sharpeness of the knife, feel the crispness of the onion, to fully engage in the experience. 

On our "transactional" world, we are always think of the future benefit of what we're doing, instead of getting present in the moment. 

Sunday, May 3, 2026

Ocean cleanup benefits in Jakarta

https://youtu.be/XFXQtSnBnTs?si=R4HKp9wQwY_hVMMP

4:49 profiling several people whose lives and jobs have been directly impacted and improved  because of the ocean cleanup project. 5:06 A silkworm farmer has increased his yield 30%. 

An experiment where genetic change happens in a single generation

https://youtu.be/J9-Ov-_KcWk?si=daw6ps41f_mCsOy8
Mice exposed to almond scent when shocked will grow more almond-sensing neurons - in their offspring!   

World's largest organism

A few contenders: 

By area: The largest living organism by area is a Posidonia australis seagrass meadow in Western Australia's Shark Bay, covering 180 square kilometers (about 69 square miles). 

By weight/mass, it's a tie — 1) the "Humongous Fungus" (Armillaria ostoyae) in Oregon, which spans 3.4 square miles.
(The best defence against it is to 5:50 plant tree species that can survive the infection.)

or Pando, a 106-acre aspen grove in Utah. 
It weighs 13 million pounds. It's in Fishlake National Forest. The immature sprouts being 3:27 eaten, or browsed, by animals unopposed by traditional predators, and the older trees are near the end of their life span. So 5:12 they're fencing off the young plants. 


Saturday, May 2, 2026

Fixers vs hopeless catastrophizers

https://youtu.be/ZtOxCJqEHjY?si=xYz-MuzoSTkgOew_
2:14 it's a learned relationship with uncertainty 3:34 uncertainty doesn't sound like a verdict to them is a starting point.*

0:41 self-efficacy...you are capable of handling what's in front of you

1:01 this belief changes how long someone pressure at a problem before giving up

2:17 internal locus of control...do better at fixing things...don't get depression...cope better with stress... They sense that their effort matters (which is a protective psychological trait)

5:51 spending time around people like that is one of the most recalibrating things you can do. 


*This reminds me of the podcast "Sitting with uncertainty" on Hidden Brain. 

Flushing sediment out of a dam

https://youtu.be/_pad4MAV1H0?si=KN5YFOhlSKRkaQdY

[Preparing to flush segment buildup] 3:21 requires detailed planning and coordination. 
Before flushing begins: 
Reservoir levels are carefully monitored. 
Weather and inflow forecasts are analyzed. 
Downstream safety alerts are issued.
Power generation units may be reduced or temporarily shut down.
Instrumentation systems are checked for structural monitoring. 
Engineers ensure that the dam structure, galleries and monitoring instruments remain within safe operational limits.

Tuesday, April 28, 2026

Sargassum for good

https://youtu.be/dYbPuR1hmao?si=ZT6TlYizTdRpV65X

Harvesting ever-increasing massive beach-dumps of sargassum seaweed - mixed with rum byproducts (sugar) and sheep manure (anaerobic bacteria) to yield methane gas fuel. 

Picture at 6:10 - removing arsenic yielding fertilizer and methane. Arsenic is preferentially taken up by the seaweed. 
https://youtu.be/X4rxSz8Oze0?si=D6LjXRZZvtAiEVXi
Pelagic Sargassum blooms have massively increased, littering Caribbean beaches - perhaps fueled by nitrogen runoff from Amazon deforestation. 
At the right proportions, sargassum with its lignin, cellulose, and polysaccharides
3:16 acts like rebar reinforcing the concrete blocks, making them twice as strong as conventional ones. 
The bricks also have 4:07 half the thermal conductivity of regular bricks, reducing air conditioning costs. 

Sunday, April 26, 2026

Self driving fails

https://youtube.com/shorts/nOfU04nB9-Q?si=YStgmIV7--_g-2sc

I think they deployed this self-driving tech before it was fully tested! These are some pretty embarrassing fails. 

Sunday, April 19, 2026

Robots working in close proximity to humans safely.

The End of the Cage: How Robots and Humans are Finally Working Side-by-Side
For decades, the "safety protocol" for industrial robots was simple: a giant steel cage. If a human stepped inside, the power was cut. It was safe, but it was also slow, rigid, and physically demanding.
As we move through 2026, we’ve entered the era of Human-Robot Collaboration, where multi-ton machines and human workers share the same floor, often working on the exact same part at the exact same time.
Here is how we’ve moved from "reactive stopping" to "intelligent collaboration."
1. Meet the Cobot
The foundation of this shift is the Cobot (collaborative robot). Unlike traditional industrial robots, cobots are designed with rounded edges, hidden pinch points, and specialized internal sensors.
However, being "collaborative" isn't just about the hardware—it’s about the mode of operation. A robot is only truly collaborative if it is governed by one of the following safety pillars.
2. The Four Pillars of Collaborative Safety
To keep humans safe without cages, engineers rely on four distinct, verifiable methods:
Safety-Rated Monitored Stop: The most basic level. The robot operates at full speed but halts the instant a human enters its "yellow zone."
Hand-Guiding: Think of this as the "power steering" of robotics. A human can grab the robot arm and physically lead it to teach it a new path.
Speed and Separation Monitoring (SSM): The robot uses 3D vision, LiDAR, or radar to calculate the distance to a human. The closer you get, the slower it moves.
Power and Force Limiting (PFL): This is the "gold standard." The robot’s joints contain torque sensors that detect even a light touch. If it bumps into you, it instantly dissipates its energy so the impact is no more painful than a gentle tap.
Watch: Combining SSM and PFL for Safe Collaboration – A biting lecture and deep dive into how robots use math to decide when to slow down vs. when to limit force.
3. The Future: E-Skin and Predictive Engines
The newest developments in 2026 have moved beyond just "sensing" a human to "understanding" them.
Electronic Skin (E-Skin)
Modern robots are now being outfitted with tactile "skins” — thin, flexible sensor arrays that give the robot a sense of touch over its entire body, not just its "fingers." This allows a more nuanced response to accidental contact.
Predictive Safety Engines
The most exciting breakthrough is the shift from reactive to predictive safety. Using Edge AI and 3D depth cameras, robots no longer wait for you to move before they react — they analyze your body language and walking path to predict where you are about to move, adjusting their own path to stay productive while keeping you safe.
Watch: How E-Skin Makes Robots Intuitive – See how touch sensors allow robots to feel pressure and adjust their strength in real-time.
4. Safety is Software, Not Steel
In today's factories, safety is no longer a physical barrier; it’s a living, breathing software protocol. As robots become more mobile and more humanoid, these standards—like ISO 10218—ensure that technology adapts to us, rather than forcing us to stay behind a fence.
Watch: You Think Robots Are Safe? Think Again – A field guide on how modern factories manage "uncaged" robots and the risks of mobile machinery.

Friday, April 17, 2026

Jails charge inmates money




We didn't know where eels come from

https://youtu.be/y0UIJekwyPY?si=o9wzVxBPzkMb4XfY

This guy is incredibly good at long-take monologues filled with facts. 

Solugen harnesses bioenzymes to achieve 96% yield

The Eureka Moment (02:23-03:30): The founders discovered a specialized enzyme found in pancreatic cancer cells—which produces hydrogen peroxide—and realized they could harness it for industrial chemical synthesis.
Scaling Up (10:32-11:57): The company evolved from small-scale experiments to their state-of-the-art Bioforge plant. This facility uses industrial-scale bubble columns to transform corn syrup into massive quantities of chemical products with high efficiency (96% yield).

Sunday, April 12, 2026

Autological words

I love words like sesquipedalian and obfuscatory because they are perfect examples of themselves. Apparently they're called "autological" words.
Erudite
Polysyllabic
proparoxytone (pro-par-OX-y-tone) - a word stressed on the antepenultimate, or third-to-last syllable
https://theweek.com/articles/459441/17-words-that-describe-themselves 

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