C. S. Lewis on love in marriage

It is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit; reinforced by the grace which both partners ask, and receive from God.

https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/resources/reflections-december-2005/

Voice like chocolate and nicotine

He has a wonderful sonorous speaking voice ("chocolate stained with nicotine" is how Rachelle's sister Naomi described it)

-London Falling, by Patrick Radden Keefe, p.13

How AI "thinks"

https://youtu.be/rKV5JcALQoQ?is=xuurxSp6FK869raH

Peeking under the hood of AI reasoning, words that the model is "thinking about" but not actually saying are important to achieving results; eliminating the ability to use such intermediate words in the process made some prompts impossible for it to answer. 

When AI was fabricating results, these inner words in the "J-space" indicated the model knew it was fabricating. 

Soldiers use silly string to detect fine-wire booby traps.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/14kBRNWuZyu/

Unsinkable metal

https://youtu.be/lGpOkQ_6iT8?is=D9t1Z5TMLurTfsrk

Tiny groves on the surface and a hydrophobic coating make these tubes, of 6:33 a very specific diameter, unsinkable. 

Predatory loan takeovers forcing foreclosure

https://youtu.be/2U9kSz1pFhs?is=qPfphBBhi37J-h29

Predatory bankers take over loans that homeowners thought were forgiven, making 30-fold profits and devastating people's personal finances. 

World-record longest drone flight

https://youtu.be/cA1Asda-jTk?is=2RG-aTvjRc5jBMJA

It takes a lot of 3D printing, tinkering, and innovation to get a some to fly for over 4 hours. 

Is court evidence accurate?

https://youtu.be/mvcesPWvUIc?is=2deKEEPcEvXFxSPQ

When you actually subject court-approved evidence to the test, to scientific method, most methods are woefully inaccurate. 

Modular homes - barriers to adoption

https://youtu.be/2pbYafEcsbk?is=GLZ8aOzsr9Hqte_F

The broken system of "stick-built," on-site construction is favored by regulation, permitting, banks and neighbors. Changing that to the modular-friendly process popular in Sweden and China is going to take a long time. 

21:43 "But if we really could build homes and apartment buildings 20 to 30% cheaper, twice as fast, make them more environmentally friendly, and make them with better materials then maybe, just maybe, one day, we could address this housing shortage"

Horses rebuild after desertification

https://youtu.be/Hl8vErrqjKY?is=nO5pfnHNYYIOS4k_

Start at 9:00. Horses selectively trample bare ground, not the grasses they eat. Seeds in their dung germinate better after traveling through their gut, essentially providing a 11:20 "self-watering, pre-fertilized seed packet." Nitrogen levels rose, insects, then birds, and then predators started to return. 

21:25 China had planted 66 billion trees in a failed attempt to thwart desertification, but 21:58 grasslands require 90% less water than trees. 

By 2023, a desert that was 23:27 expanding by thousands of km² per year was now shrinking by 47 km² per year. 

Homeless

https://youtu.be/0pcDKYLIHXY?is=_kYiwedM2TkvfKhb

Such a depressing report - hard-working people sleeping in their cars, getting evicted and living in motels, surviving on food stamps. Not addicted, not avoiding hard work, just struggling. 

 Los Angeles has a higher homeless population per capita than Seattle. In the city of Los Angeles, the rate is roughly 1.1%, while Seattle's rate is closer to 0.9% to 1.0%

Recycling aluminum

https://youtu.be/PR5mykiFzN4?is=ROigKR6_HjFiYVIK

4:11 - recycling aluminum requires 95% less energy than harvesting it from bauxite ore. 

AI end to end full self driving startup competing with Waymo, Uber and others in London.

https://youtu.be/8Nu36Rwxz_0?is=TRUD8nTYIruYuTaB

4:23 Stellantis and Nissan are partnering with Wayve. 

2026 Cars That Still Offer a Stickshift Manual Transmission

The Best New Cars That Still Offer a Stickshift Manual Transmission https://share.google/nYXNltRe2C87q9Aa6

Gifting to grandkids

https://youtu.be/L_uRTIZKL4Y?is=fWo84cNU_vIoNswM

Gifting to relatives under 19K/yr is ok under IRS rules, but Medicaid counts this as wealth that precludes them from covering nursing care. Instead, 2:42 use 1) a Medicaid asset protection trust, taking the funds out of your name, or 2) a promissory note, lending the person the money with a payback structure. 

Give grandkids money as a structured trust with a distribution staggered between age 25 and 30. 

8:57 Don't put grandkids on the deed while you're alive, but leave the home to them in a 9:20 revocable living trust so they get a "stepped up basis" of the value when you die for capital gains taxes. 

9:46 A trust allows you to decide when they get the money. 

10:48 include a "letter of wishes" with the gift - it's not legally binding, but then their parents can substantiate "that's not what Grandma wanted you to do with that money," which is sometimes just what a 20-year-old needs to hear instead of blowing the money.