Tom Elwood -best of the internet.: June 2019

Sunday, June 30, 2019

Pixar’s Secret Formula For Making Perfect Films

A great presentation on the specific storytelling rules that make Pixar films so memorable, poignant, and touching.

Norway: a more humane prison

Benefits of a more humane prison are discussed. Incarceration rates are so much higher in the US that such a design philosophy would never be popularized. US 750 per 100,000 vs 66 per 100,000 in Norway.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2page1.stm

Another story on the Halden prison, which notes:

"In Norway, the incarceration rate is about 75/100,000 people, and the recidivism rate is the lowest in the world at around 20 percent. In the US, more than 700/100,000 people are incarcerated, and more than 70 percent of freed inmates are re-arrested within five years."

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/not-the-worst-but-not-norway-us-prisons-vs-other_b_59b0772ae4b0c50640cd646d

Yondr CEO a pouch that allows phone-free zones at events

https://youtu.be/szqJ-iWb2CU

This is such a great business idea, because your customers are music stars and concert promoters (read, rich) and they want to buy your product in batches of tens of thousands

The world largest machine - a wide area inter-connection, or power grid.

https://youtu.be/v1BMWczn7JM

At 2:15, a wide area inter-connection, or power grid.

Cinematic Footage with a Racing Drone

https://youtu.be/CknYO7ZGv38

Cinematic first-person view (FPV) footage from a drone. I'm hooked, that looks like the freedom of flight.

Of course, you fly watching one camera with glitches and spotty transmission, while the better camera records the flight, and then you need to edit the movie to stabilize the shot. Not as good as larger drones that have a 3-axis gimbal to smooth the footage right at the source, but the end product here looks pretty good!

Where did modern art come from?

https://youtu.be/Q1irNBh2qg8

This is the best explanation of modern art I have ever seen, its genesis and how it has emotional impact.

At 6:04, he concludes "It's inspiring how irrepressible human creativity can be."

Donair vs Shawarma vs Gyro

People with way too much time on their hands can argue endlessly, even throwing in a few capital letter exclamations, about tiny differences that aren't consistent enough to be definitions.

"The donair originated in Halifax (and shortly afterwards in Alberta)"
"Donner, Shwarma, and Gyro all refer to the way the meat is cooked - upright on a spit. This method of cooking orignated in southern Turkey and was refered to as 'chevirme', meaning "rotation," or, "turning". 'Chevirme' was pronounced 'shwarma' by Arabic speakers. Similarly, 'doner' comes from the Turkish verb 'donmek', meaning "to turn". This cooking method is referred to as 'gyro' in Greek, meaning "to turn," also (think 'gyroscope'). Doner/shwarma/gyro probably originated in southern Turkey and was quickly adopted into the cuisine of northern Syria. By and large, upright roasted meat is an Anatolian, Levantine, and Greek tradition. The regional differences in all of these dishes stem from the local fixings that are served with them. In Aleppo (my personal favorite), for instance, it tends to be quite spicy, served with pickles, and after the meat is rolled in the bread with the fixings the whole thing is dipped in the drippings and toasted on a griddle. Turks tend to forgo the dip in fat and use creamier fillings (though this is sometimes seen in Syria as well). Greeks tend to slather theirs in the ubiquitous tadziki."
"Please pay closer attention. I'm not denying that ETYMOLOGICALLY there is a confluence among these terms, but PRACTICALLY SPEAKING, a "shawarma" place will sell a ground product called "donair" and a non-ground product called "shawarma." It will not sell "gyros" unless it's Greek."

https://www.chowhound.com/post/difference-shawarma-donair-split-western-canada-board-437986

Saturday, June 29, 2019

Outsourced fundraising

The charity gets 15% of the donation. This must be worth it for charities, to reach a large market without all the headaches.

"A $10 contribution for the chance to win a prize-based experience (like a car, vacation or tuition) breaks down as follows: $1.50 is donated to charity; $7 typically goes to sourcing and shipping the prize, covering the winner's taxes, marketing the experience, and processing credit card fees; and $1.50 goes to Omaze."

https://www.omaze.com/pages/about-us

A fracking huge business

https://youtu.be/tfPZ8tlUnBc

First of all, I didn't know how successful "fracking" has been, allowing the US to rise as the world's top oil producer.

I agree with the point made at 5:58 - "flaring" or burning off natural gas at the well-head just because it's not profitable is profligate waste.

Trump rolled back Obama-era restrictions in such "upstream flaring," whereas in Canadian oilfields there are strict guidelines on what can be flared, e.g. toxic gases.

https://www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2018-09-18/trump-relaxes-obama-curbs-on-flaring-gas-from-wells-on-u-s-land

https://www.aer.ca/documents/directives/Directive060_2020.pdf

Thursday, June 27, 2019

World's First Solar Powered Train

https://youtu.be/6Y4QGFte3T8

A 70-ton train with solar panels on its toll and on the train station. It only works, as he explains, because it's a small train in a short flat track. Anything more ambitious would not be well served by solar.

First production car covered with solar panels. No, it's not a solar-powered car, but it can generate a significant amount of charge from its solar panels. At 16:50 -

"If they're in direct s

un I mean what's their peak yeah it's about one point two five right and that means that so we will charge between ten and twelve kilometers per hour right that's quite nice it's like that is the same as a 13 amp plug the same as a domestic plug that's about that range that's about 50 to 70 kilometres a day."

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

FPV drone flying

https://youtu.be/m59kVp7GN8o

This is the perfect setting for filming what this drone can do - so many nooks and crannies to explore.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

Solving the planet's plastic problem by closing the recycling loop

https://youtu.be/sjOPVnCTBTY

Antiemetics in kids

"A Cochrane database review in 2011 examining children undergoing tonsillectomy concluded that children given a single dose of IV dexamethasone 0.15 to 1.0 mg.kg-1 (max 8-25mg) were half as likely to vomit in the first 24 hours after tonsillectomy

(Relative Risk = 0.49, 95% CI 0.41-0.58). Routine use of dexamethasone in children was associated with a NNT of 5. The authors do not provide a dose

recommendation due to the pitfalls of subgroups analysis within a meta-analysis.

A dose finding study of dexamethasone (0.25 to 1.0 mg.kg-1) in 168 children undergoing strabismus surgery compared to placebo identified no additional

benefit of using doses greater than 0.25 mg.kg-1. For all groups studied, there was an NNT of 2.2- 2.7. In all groups receiving dexamethasone there was no evidence of side effects relating to increased blood sugars or increased wound infection rates.

In another dose-finding study 215 children undergoing tonsillectomy were given dexamethasone (0.05 to 0.5 mg.kg-1) or placebo. The relative risk of POV (first 24hr) was reduced from 0.54 for 0.15 mg.kg-1 to 0.23 with 0.5 mg.kg-1 dexamethasone. Three studies have shown lower doses of dexamethasone provide similar clinically significant prevention of POV.

One study in 140 children used dexamethasone 150 mcg.kg-1 (max 8mg) and found an overall reduction in POV from 71% to 40%.

Another study compared low dose dexamethasone (50 mcg.kg-1 to 250 mcg.kg-1) finding a significant reduction in POV even with doses as small as 50 mcg.kg-1 The NNT range for all groups was 2-2.9."

Error-free delivery system

https://youtu.be/dX-0el2wuEU

Wow, delivering thousands of homemade lunches with a nearly perfect error rate. They explain in the comments that their lunches wouldn't survive their long commute, so workers need them delivered rather than carrying the lunchbox themselves.

Monday, June 24, 2019

Why Rich Rebuilds Is Opening A Tesla Repair Shop

https://youtu.be/m3vhtI7tTPk

Great entrepreneurial spirit starting their own independent garage working only on Saturdays while they're both working full time jobs, and they have no employees.

Emirates Makes 225,000 In-Flight Meals A Day

https://youtu.be/4wkvaEM4bIg

Quite a production process. They call it the biggest airline food production facility in the world.

Sunday, June 23, 2019

What's the greenest way to travel?

https://youtu.be/TkXEU5ng8rE

A bus is pretty green for short-medium distances, while a plane is best for long distances (especially if it's a direct flight and there's not a busy hub with excessive taxiing)

What happens when a Tesla reaches 100,000 miles?

https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/what-happens-when-tesla-reaches-100000-miles-150000-miles

Minimal problems compared to other cars.

"...about 5 -7% battery degradation."
"...As for the drive units, they are warrantied for infinite miles or 8 years. The earlier designed units had steel ball bearings on the rotor shafts, that caused come milling noise, due to microscopic pitting. They came up with a new design using ceramic bearings and the drive units (motor, invertor, gear reduction box) are designed to last a million miles."
"...Unlike most auto companies, Tesla reduces its parts costs as its volumes increase and their own costs go down. For example the center CPU/17" HD display used to be $4,000 and is now $1,200."
"I have 93,000 on my 2015 85D model S, Other than a set of new tires, it has not required anything. It has lost around 3% battery life."

Police Unlock AI's Potential to Monitor, Surveil and Solve Crimes | WSJ

https://youtu.be/H_fyQCeBaeM

These systems are already in place, able to track a person's movements before a crime, able to search through reams of footage for a specific object, and capable of self-learning what constitutes unusual activity at a location.

Japan Points the Way to Better Safety

https://youtu.be/etUejYb48BE

Japan train drivers point and call out safety checks in a proven method to reduce errors.

Saturday, June 22, 2019

The Mighty Translatotron

https://youtu.be/38ZXwJj6j8k

It seems like there's an incredible amount of computation going on here. Deciphering speech to meaning to translated speech using the original speaker's voice. Incredible.

Google Chrome has become surveillance software. It’s time to switch.

Your browser is sending thousands of cookies to advertisers, not unlike surveillance.

"it's much easier to switch to a browser not owned by an advertising company."

https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/06/21/google-chrome-has-become-surveillance-software-its-time-to-switch/

Friday, June 21, 2019

Sought-after Silicon Valley School abhors tech.

https://youtu.be/eAZ-fuWdz8M

At 3:13, she says "It's become a real sign of status and privilege to be tech-free. Children from low-income families spend on average about 3 hours more per day on their phones."

Can Kids Navigate Their Way Across London Alone? | ITV

https://youtu.be/AqI0lAb8RQg

Endearingly cute.

Where snow is. And odd snow formations.

"About 98% of snow on Earth is in the northern hemisphere."

http://thescienceexplorer.com/nature/sastrugi-penitentes-and-sun-cups-10-weird-things-you-don-t-know-about-snow

Tuesday, June 18, 2019

How much honey?

"An average worker bee makes only about 1/12 teaspoon of honey in its lifetime."
http://www.goldenblossomhoney.com/education_bees.php

https://www.apexbeecompany.com/honey-bee-facts/

1 tsp
"A single bee can produce 1 tablespoon of honey in its lifetime. 683 bees fly roughly 32,550 miles to gather 5.93 lbs of nectar from about 1,185,000 flowers in order to make one 9.5 oz. jar of Big Island Bees’ honey!"
https://bigislandbees.com/blogs/bee-blog/14137349-interesting-bee-honey-facts

Actual ICD codes (medical billing codes) for really bizarre things

Monday, June 17, 2019

Everything About Grain Bins - Smarter Every Day

https://youtu.be/ywBV6M7VOFU

Grain bins are built without cranes or heavy equipment by building from the top down and jacking it up hydraulically.

Grain is held at the optimum humidity (too wet promotes mold, too dry decreases profit when it's sold by weight) by fans blowing up from below, drying an incrementally ascending layer of beans gradually. What he doesn't explain is the over-drying of lower layers while attempting to dry upper layers. It's probably best to harvest close to the optimal moisture level so you don't have to do much active drying.

The farmer also mentions that he will increase the humidity by blowing the fans on humid days, if need be.

You've been training AI for free

https://youtu.be/1-cZkc7gyfI

Think of all those times you think you're proving you're a human, on a website, when in fact in the background you may also be teaching an AI system to recognize things better, as seen at 3:00.

Sunday, June 16, 2019

How environmentally friendly is your cruise holiday? | The Guardian - sustainable business

This article says that cruise ships emit a lot of harmful emissions, but it doesn't mention the amount of fuel per passenger compared to other means of travel.
"...these giant floating playgrounds leave an enormous environmental impact...Friends of the Earth’s (FOE) report card, cruise line companies are mostly doing a poor job at reducing air and water pollution. Foe’s report card, the sixth from the US nonprofit, assigned 17 cruise lines and their 171 ships a grade between A and F in four categories: sewage treatment, water quality, air pollution reduction and transparency...FOE found much of its information for the report online, Keever said. The sources included contractors who have installed waste treatment technologies and air purifiers on the ships.
"...companies have made the biggest improvement in reducing their air pollution by using newer technology. They made that switch in response to a recent international regulation, which requires all ships sailing within 200 nautical miles of the US and Canada coastline to use cleaner fuel or install technology that reduces the sulfur content in emissions...
"...Many cruise lines are using outdated systems to filter their sewage, resulting in minimally treated sewage being dumped into the water..

https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/jun/12/cruise-ships-environment-ocean-liners-emissions-waste

This article says that cruise ships are worse per passenger mile than long-haul flights.

""According to our calculations, a cruiseliner such as Queen Mary 2 emits 0.43kg of CO2 per passenger mile, compared with 0.257kg for a long-haul flight (even allowing for the further damage of emissions being produced in the upper atmosphere)."
"Quite aside from the carbon emissions, there is a high cost to the ocean. The cruise industry has a poor record in terms of waste water treatment and disposal...
"a rough initial calculation for the Queen Elizabeth II. Cunard says the ship burns 433 tonnes of fuel a day, and takes six days to travel from Southampton to New York. If the ship is full, every passenger with a return ticket consumes 2.9 tonnes. A tonne of shipping fuel contains 0.85 tonnes of carbon, which produces 3.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide when it is burnt. Every passenger is responsible for 9.1 tonnes of emissions. Travelling to New York and back on the QEII, in other words, uses almost 7.6 times as much carbon as making the same journey by plane.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/travel/2006/dec/20/cruises.green

Wednesday, June 12, 2019

Using restaurant grease to "supercharge" biogas production in wastewater treatment facilities.

At 4:47, Supercharging the biogas production, reducing the plant's energy costs 90% from half a million down to $50,000 a year, at 5:20.

Does a slow surgeon risk increased complications?

This is hard to study because forcing a surgeon to go slower would be unethical. The problem with these analyses is that "sicker" patients are more likely to take longer during surgery, and sicker patients are inherently more likely to suffer complications. It's hard, even with statistical manipulation, to remove that strong association so you can correlate longer surgery alone. This is known as logistic regression analysis.

Operative duration as an independent risk factor for postoperative complications in single-level
lumbar fusion: an analysis of 4588 surgical cases.

“...multivariate risk-adjusted regression models demonstrated that
increasing operative time was associated with step-wise
increase in risk for overall complications (odds ratio [OR], 2.09-5.73),
medical complications (OR, 2.18-6.21),
surgical complications (OR, 1.65-2.90),
superficial surgical site infection (OR, 2.65-3.97), and
postoperative transfusions (OR, 3.25-12.19).
Operative duration of 5 hours or more was also associated with
increased risk of
reoperation (OR, 2.17),
organ/space surgical site infection (OR, 9.72),
sepsis/septic shock (OR, 4.41),
wound dehiscence (OR, 10.98), and
deep vein thrombosis (OR, 17.22).”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24365901

General surgical operative duration is associated with increased risk-adjusted infectious
complication rates and length of hospital stay.

“...Multivariable regression adjusted for 38 patient risk variables...
unadjusted infectious complication rates increased linearly with operative duration
at a rate of close to 2.5% per half hour (...p < 0.001).
After adjustment, infectious complication risk increased...
almost doubling at [greater than 2 hours versus less than 1 hour]
(odds ratio = 1.92; 95% CI, 1.82 to 2.03; p < 0.001).”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20123333

How slow is too slow? Correlation of operative time to complications:
an analysis from the Tennessee Surgical Quality Collaborative.

“104,632 general and vascular cases..."Long" cases had increased rates of
[UTI, SSI, sepsis, prolonged intubation, and pneumonia]
and also deep venous thrombosis, deep incisional infection, and wound disruption...
The highest marginal time risk was for sepsis,
occurring 16.6 times per additional hour of operative time over standard.”

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25728140

Surgical duration and risk of venous thromboembolism.

“Retrospective...the longest procedures experienced a
1.27-fold (95% CI, 1.21-1.34; adjusted risk difference [ARD], 0.23%)
increase in the odds of developing a VTE...
The robustness of these results was substantiated with several
sensitivity analyses attempting to minimize the effect of
outliers, concurrent complications, procedural differences, and unmeasured confounding variables.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25472485

Thursday, June 6, 2019

Creating water from fog in the desert

They use biochar (carbon) to store the water because
1) it holds water like a sponge
2) it allows growth of helpful microorganisms
3) stores and releases nutrients

At 0:42 - a single net 13 feet log and 33 feet high can colect 60 gallons a day.

Wednesday, June 5, 2019

UFO hydrofoil sailboat

https://youtu.be/xPSxoot4H2U

A hydrofoil day-sailer, designed by the guy who designed the Laser. It looks very fast, and a little unnerving to sail when it falls backwards towards the wind when coming down off the hydrofoil.

Tuesday, June 4, 2019

Airbus and Boeing congratulate each other

https://youtu.be/xWaTjYpczKQ

https://youtu.be/5j3ob0CfH9I

Sunday, June 2, 2019

How "night sight" works.

https://youtu.be/iDn5HXMQNzE

This hints at the incredible and fast processing of multiple images in short succession to get one higher resolution image.

Saturday, June 1, 2019

This video raises some interesting questions. How does water get up to the top of a tree?

"evaporation creates a negative water vapor pressure in the surrounding cells of the leaf...water is pulled into the leaf from the vascular tissue, the xylem, to replace the water that has transpired from the leaf. This pulling of water...will extend all the way down...into the xylem of the roots due to the cohesive forces holding together the water molecules along the sides of the xylem tubing...The loss of water from a leaf (negative water pressure, or a vacuum) is comparable to placing suction to the end of a straw. If the vacuum or suction thus created is great enough, water will rise up through the straw. If you had a very large diameter straw, you would need more suction to lift the water. Likewise, if you had a very narrow straw, less suction would be required. This correlation occurs as a result of the cohesive nature of water along the sides of the straw (the sides of the xylem). Because of the narrow diameter of the xylem tubing, the degree of water tension, (vacuum) required to drive water up through the xylem can be easily attained through normal transpiration rates.

"The xylem is also composed of elongated cells. Once the cells are formed, they die. But the cell walls still remain intact, and serve as an excellent pipeline to transport water from the roots to the leaves...All xylem cells that carry water are dead, so they act as a pipe. Xylem tissue is found in all growth rings (wood) of the tree. Not all tree species have the same number of annual growth rings that are active in the movement of water and mineral nutrients. For example, conifer trees and some hardwood species may have several growth rings that are active conductors, whereas in other species, such as the oaks, only the current years' growth ring is functional...It's amazing that a 200 year-old living oak tree can survive and grow using only the support of a very thin layer of tissue beneath the bark. The rest of the 199 growth rings are mostly inactive.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-do-large-trees-such-a/?redirect=1

4:29 Why do trees transport so much water if they only use 5% of what they transport?
The leaves have to have openings to let CO2 in, which also allows water to escape by evaporation, and leaves have to remain moist to transport nutrients and sugars, so the price they pay for survival is to transpire huge amounts of water they never use.
"To make sugars, plants must absorb CO2 from the atmosphere through small pores in their leaves called stomata. However, when stomata open, water is lost to the atmosphere at a prolific rate relative to the small amount of CO2 absorbed; across plant species an average of 400 water molecules are lost for each CO2 molecule gained. The balance between transpiration and photosynthesis forms an essential compromise in the existence of plants; stomata must remain open to build sugars but risk dehydration in the process...The amount of water lost via transpiration can be incredibly high; a single irrigated corn plant growing in Kansas can use 200 L of water during a typical summer, while some large rainforest trees can use nearly 1200 L of water in a single day!"
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/water-uptake-and-transport-in-vascular-plants-103016037

Why does an air pocket not kill the tree?
"Water moving through plants is considered meta-stable because at a certain point the water column breaks when tension becomes excessive — a phenomenon referred to as cavitation. After cavitation occurs, a gas bubble (i.e., embolism) can form and fill the conduit, effectively blocking water movement. Both sub-zero temperatures and drought can cause embolisms...An air seed creates a void in the water...Failure to re-establish flow in embolized conduits reduces hydraulic capacity, limits photosynthesis, and results in plant death in extreme cases. Plants can cope with emboli by diverting water around blockages via pits connecting adjacent functional conduits, and by growing new xylem to replace lost hydraulic capacity. Some plants possess the ability to repair breaks in the water columns...Brodersen et al. (2010) recently visualized and quantified the refilling process in live grapevines using...a type of CAT scan...Successful vessel refilling was dependent on water influx from living cells surrounding the xylem conduits, where individual water droplets expanded over time, filled vessels, and forced the dissolution of entrapped gas.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/water-uptake-and-transport-in-vascular-plants-103016037

Tesla advantages that make you crave owning a Tesla

Tesla
-autopilot with auto-follow, even resumes after braking to a stop, smoothly.
-autopilot reduces the stress of driving
-autopilot wakes you up if sleepy
-autopilot engages evasive maneuvers if a crash is imminent, even when autopilot is not on.
-will soon be able to stop at red lights on own.
-self-parking
-over-the-air software updates remotely and automatically
-keyless entry and startup
-auto summon feature
-auto-raising suspension system, by location
-traction control
-map always updated showing current charging stations within range
-shows you how full the nearest charging station is.
-precise control - no lag
-smooth quiet ride, especially with the 19-inch tires.
-unmatched safety profile
-designed from the ground up as an electric vehicle
-a whole bunch of Easter eggs

Also, minimal problems compared to other cars.

"...about 5 -7% battery degradation."
"...As for the drive units, they are warrantied for infinite miles or 8 years. The earlier designed units had steel ball bearings on the rotor shafts, that caused come milling noise, due to microscopic pitting. They came up with a new design using ceramic bearings and the drive units (motor, invertor, gear reduction box) are designed to last a million miles."
"...Unlike most auto companies, Tesla reduces its parts costs as its volumes increase and their own costs go down. For example the center CPU/17" HD display used to be $4,000 and is now $1,200."
"I have 93,000 on my 2015 85D model S, Other than a set of new tires, it has not required anything. It has lost around 3% battery life."
https://forums.tesla.com/forum/forums/what-happens-when-tesla-reaches-100000-miles-150000-miles

Faulty solar panels

https://youtu.be/10Gnf-wvF7A

It's hard to tell if solar panels are any good, without independent testing, at 2:30. At 2:00 she says that 5000 models of solar panels lost their accreditation. I had to replay it to see if I misheard that number! At 11:22 he says that over 2 million holes have solar installed.

At 5:34 they show the fires that can start from the inverter or a water-damaged cutoff switch.