Expert brick walls

Starting at 3:15 - 4:50, some really interesting bricklaying in the walls.

https://youtu.be/ftFZDJs4ASc 

Can A Microloan Really Lift A Poor Woman Out Of Poverty? -NPR

""When we started this work there had been practically zero studies using randomized controlled trials to answer a question on any development topic."

Since then, about a dozen randomized controlled trials of microloan programs in multiple countries have been conducted...India, Mexico, Mongolia and the Philippines.

Across the board, the findings were damning: To be sure, in all but one of the studies, borrowers who owned businesses did use the loan at least in part to expand their business. And in two studies, ownership of businesses increased. But these expansions were modest and rarely translated into increased profits. Most disappointing of all, in none of the studies did the average microloan borrower end up significantly increasing income relative to the control group."

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2016/11/01/500093608/you-asked-we-answer-can-tiny-loans-lift-women-out-of-poverty

Hacker insulin

Reverse engineering insulin to make it 98% cheaper, and making the recipe open-source to facilitate undercutting the oligolopoly of manufacturers.

Apologies - Hidden Brain

49:30 "Perhaps we need to think of apologies and forgiveness as gifts we give, expecting nothing in return." 

https://omny.fm/shows/hidden-brain/the-power-of-apologies

How Tesla is working to improve autonomous driving

This 35-minute lecture (you can start at 2:05) is long and tedious. Andrej can be hard to understand and he talks very fast. 

But this video describes the challenge of compiling and analyzing petabytes of data from challenging real-world scenarios (discrepancy between autonomous prediction and real driver input) in order to improve the cars' interpretation to make driving smoother and safer. He talks about "training time" (when the supercomputer analyzes everything in detail with the benefit of hindsight) vs "test time" in real-world driving where efficiency (short latency) is paramount. 

https://youtu.be/NSDTZQdo6H8

24:00 is a good example - the car in front slams on its brakes. The radar has trouble detecting if the car in front has stopped or the radar is picking up an ancillary stationary object, so in rapid succession 6 times the radar signal "drops" (assumes it's an erroneous signal) while the vision-only system "understands" the situation more smoothly and consistently. 

25:39 explains "phantom braking" under bridges and overpasses - radar can't distinguish between a fixed object like a bridge and an obstruction like a stopped vehicle, so it "panics" and looks to confirm with the visual input that there's a stopped object, which sometimes is erroneously confirmed, and braking is initiated. By "doubling down" on interpretation of visual information and ignoring radar, they can achieve smoother driving. 

29:31 "We expect the legacy stack (the existing sensor configuration) to have one accident every 5 million miles"

Long-term perspective on immunity to COVID.

This is good news about long-term immunity after vaccination. 

"immune memory to many viruses and vaccines is stable over decades, if not for a lifetime...

For SARS...originally identified in 2003...the continued presence of high concentrations of neutralizing antibodies in blood serum for more than 17 years was reported in 2020. Wang and colleagues' [new] results suggest that long-term immunity might also be expected for SARS-CoV-2"

I didn't realize that plasma cells can be converted to memory cells, residing long-term in bone marrow, ready to be summoned for future infections. 

Vertical Farming

https://youtu.be/AGcYApKfHuY

2:01 grow more, faster, with no water and no pesticides.

Nice profile of a vertical farm worker, following instructions of a computer. 

A trendy investment, but there are pitfalls. Overproduction of the few crops that are easy to grow drives their price down; vertical farms can take years to become profitable. "Albright famously calculates, for instance, that the cost of a loaf of bread would be $24 if farmed indoors."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkobayashisolomon/2019/04/05/investing-in-vertical-farming-five-take-aways/

Electric Planes are Inevitably Coming

https://youtu.be/aH4b3sAs-l8

If electric passenger planes make it to market, they will revolutionize the industry by making short-haul flights the most profitable sector of the industry. This video goes over the numbers in detail. 

Nightbirde's Original Song

https://youtu.be/CZJvBfoHDk0

Such a great quote about resiliency and optimism: @5:12 "You can't wait until life isn't hard any more before you decide to be happy."

Expensive Sable paintbrushes

https://youtu.be/zKqfC0E82gU

Cashew Liquor Tradition

https://youtu.be/yM-tAkSoVjo

Cashew apples - who knew? The fruit that generates the cashew is mostly just thrown away because it won't survive shipping. A few farmers make a traditional fermented drink from it. 

https://youtu.be/N0o65tMtoB8

Made by hand for decades, "feni" liquor comes from the fruit that accompanies cashew nuts. The fruit's very short shelf life makes it impossible to market any other way. 

Nexii - Michael Keaton is Building a Factory

https://youtu.be/gXMG1Kz6se0

A proprietary new building material made from sand but contributes far less CO2 than cement. 

Starbucks is proud of its new more sustainable building material. 

https://stories.starbucks.ca/en/stories/2020/first-of-its-kind-sustainably-constructed-starbucks-store-to-open-in-Canada/

https://goo.gl/maps/fwqNZmnHh3L6FDNc8

These shoes are killing me!

Freakonomics podcast about shoes versus running barefoot. 

23:58 randomized traditionally barefoot women with knee osteoarthritis to minimal shoe versus regular shoe: minimal, flexible shoe decreases osteoarthritis pain in knees and hips, improves function, and eliminates flat feet. 

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/shoes/

Cross Laminated Timber (CLT)

https://youtu.be/YuAya0hRjwU

2:28 Manufacturing this "super plywood" has a carbon footprint 50% less than concrete, and 99% less than building with steel. 

H&M's Recycling Machines Make New Clothes From Old Fabric

https://youtu.be/obO1PKfXGpQ

Watch your garments being recycled live at the mall. 

4:10 "The average American spend $1800 a year on clothes." 

Ground Effect Plane with LiDAR Altitude Control

https://youtu.be/nvMUYdr5_g8

I like how this tinkerer thinks, and plans each step. 

An ekranoplan, he explains, is an airplane that flies very low over the ground to take advantage of the ground effect that essentially extends the effective wing length. 

He uses a lidar to control the throttle to get a constant height over the ground. Then iterates the correct proportion of throttle increase for decreasing altitude until it achieves stable flight. 

Decompress Your FULL BACK

https://youtu.be/wMRG9O1PQBU

A series of simple back stretches to alleviate pain. 

What is Audio Zoom for smartphones?

https://www.dxomark.com/what-is-audio-zoom-for-smartphones/

Just noticed my Google Pixel has a toggle under camera settings for "audio zoom" - here's how it functions. 

"This highly-directional result using non-directional receivers is achieved by setting different gains on each microphone depending on its position in the device, and then constructively adding the phase for frontal waves (to enhance the desired sound) and destructively for side waves (to attenuate off-axis interference)."

What are those large propellers I see in fruit orchards?

Fruit trees like cherry trees need heat for a few days each year when a frost is forecast to prevent ruining a crop. 

I was passing a fruit farm today and finally got a chance to look up why farmers put those wind machines in their fruit orchards. I found the attached paper that explains it in lots of detail, but here are the highlights if you're interested. I found the science and economics of it intriguing, considering that the last option they discuss is to fly a helicopter over the orchard.

They're put there for frost protection.

"Wind machines, large propellers on towers which pull vast amounts of warmer air from the thermal inversion above an orchard...provide protection by mixing the air in the lowest parts of the atmosphere to take advantage of the largeamount of heat stored in the air." p12

Only needed for a few days in the spring or winter, they may dispense and disburse hot air, or a fine mist of water.  Usually only a few degrees of heating are required. p1

The "critical temperature" for a crop at a given time of year may be well below freezing. The temperature for a week or two preceding a cold event affects the decision to deploy the protection system. p2

Protection against loss of heat by radiation on a cold, still, clear night that creates a temperature inversion, is more often needed than protection against blowing cold wind.p 1-2

An "overtree" system is designed to dispense a mist that freezes on the buds. The freezing of the water releases a tiny amount of heat that protects the crop. (Heat of fusion, p7)

The amount of water required to protect a crop in this manner is about ten times as much water per hour as needed for regular summertime irrigation, stressing the capacity of an irrigation canal system long before spring runoff, p5 forcing farmers to build holding ponds for an adequate early water supply. p6

A wind machine propeller or fan system should never be used in conjunction with an "overtree" system - no explanation given. p13 (I presume because it would favor evaporation over freezing.)

If the sprinkler system fails at any point during a cold night, this stops the continuous heating provided by the freezing process, and evaporation takes over and it becomes a cooling process, ruining the crop. p7

An air heating system with fossil fuel wastes 90% of the heat generated which simply rises and never warms the fruit, p4 and requires moving 30-40 heaters into and out of the orchard per acre. p11

The combination of propane heaters with propellers or fans reduces the fuel usage by up to 90%. p11

An "undertree" system is designed to distribute the heat in oil-heated water to the orchard, and the effect is augmented by fans or propellers that distribute the moist air. About 75% of the heat is wasted and never reaches the plant to protect it. p8 This system can warm up the orchard about 1.7 degrees Celsius, and the fans or propellers can add an equivalent temperature increase. p9

Flying a large helicopter over an orchard is an expensive but viable option, since one helicopter can protect up to 50 acres, flying over signal lights that indicate a temperature risk and "putting out the lights." p13

ref: http://irrigationtoolbox.com/ReferenceDocuments/BasicWaterManagement/f21_orchard_frost_protection.pdf

A more recent blog post explains more: 

"Good site selection for frost protection includes air drainage [to prevent a temperature inversion]. The availability of natural heat sources, such as large water bodies and rivers, can help make the site a good choice."

"Heat guns, small gas-powered heaters or even the burning of organic materials such as wood or hay have been used... a heater alone, however, is one of the least effective frost prevention methods."

"Frost fans get air from the inversion layer down into and mixing with the freezing air at ground level... are energy efficient...on average, cover 10 to 13 acres per fan."

https://fruitgrowersnews.com/article/protecting-your-fruit-from-frost-and-freeze/

Can We Teach Physics To A Machine?

https://youtu.be/g7bEUB8aLvM

@6:24 when AI was asked to simulate things that are quite unreasonably outside of what it has seen before, it handles these with flying colors...and it  can learn from multiple algorithms at the same time

Teslas Giga press 6000 ton force.

At 5:46, they finally start describing how the giga-press works. 

https://youtu.be/YZoVEauHDt4

Boxabl: mass-produced manufactured homes

the "one-minute pitch:" 

https://youtu.be/PrJhijCd8kI

The business case: 

https://youtu.be/qVV6CyGJgZo

Mass housing solution: 

Comes complete with kitchen, fridge, washer-dryer, counters, interior finish, bathroom. 

Factory-built by robots. 

Can be towed to site by a pick-up truck. 

Setup takes an hour. Connect utilities and you're done. 

The sales pitch: 

https://youtu.be/O_W1G4bZuPU

Cheap, pleasant, durable, fireproof, moveable. 

Rimac Nevera: INSANE Acceleration

https://youtu.be/xk6Zb9VKkuA

Mind-blowing. 1914 horsepower. 0-60 in under 2sec. At 4:28: its artificial intelligence driver coach is programmed to show you how best to go around specific racetracks at each turn to get the best times. Or drives itself around them. And learns how to do it better. 

This story about microwaves is interesting.

https://youtu.be/2tdiKTSdE9Y

You won't believe it. Tom Scott gets to the bottom of it, as usual. Even interviews the 101-year-old scientist who worked on it.