Challenges of sending power over distance

These numbers surprised me - efficiency of only 20%. I thought they were already able to send power to satellites by laser. 

DARPA...new record in transmitting energy over distance...over 800 watts of power delivered for about 30 seconds with a laser beam crossing 8.6 kilometers...laser is much more focusable—you can create a narrow beam [almost] without any spreading [in ideal conditions]," he says...estimated receiver efficiency, says POWER team leader Paul Jaffe, is around 20 percent...the receiver reflects the infrared radiation from a conical mirror onto the photovoltaic cells—which, in turn, turns that beam into usable electricity...the goal...was not efficiency, but speed. "There's a number of design decisions that were made in the interest of building something quickly, not efficiently,"...timeline of three months between planning and execution.

https://spectrum.ieee.org/darpa-optical-wireless-power

Using data to create fluid art displays

https://youtu.be/I-EIVlHvHRM?si=EUcPFTAIWmjym5DP

 -Tom

Damping sway in tall buildings

Tuned mass dampers - huge blocks moved by hydraulics

https://youtu.be/QJXThNHexJc?si=nMvCa46B92dlPaA9

Dramatic movement during an earthquake:

https://youtu.be/Tkz6b7Q3dRk?si=qvtg_k7il1QnaVh5 

Other techniques to reduce sway - holes and twists

https://youtu.be/ebx5Y5qOmTM?si=DfQhNQCkz1PTFJM7 

With water passed through a constricted opening: 

https://youtu.be/fudWbvE8ZKw?si=EiiudxYf-enVUpSl 

Eliciting info from strangers

https://youtu.be/JJQrjOYBcwI?si=OoNQ7Qar_8MjkmBv

Statements rather than questions - statements that urge others to respond based on deep human needs. 

4:44 Elicitation leverages people's innate need to correct, to appear competent, to be helpful, and to feel appreciated, heard , and involved. 

3:44 Start your statement with "So" and then a recap: "So you've been working on this for 3 years." Or with "I bet," as in "I bet you overcame a lot of challenges to get to this point." 

1. Make a deliberate false statement to elicit a correction: I heard you guys make $60K
2. Bracket a figure to elixir a more accurate answer: I bet homes in this area are between 1 and 3 million. 
3. Disbelief: There's no way your company could be bought out by a Chinese conglomerate. 

Robot factories unlit as humans not needed

https://youtu.be/MCBdcNA_FsI?si=h8Uk98COaVquaFjd

The world's most populous country, struggling to recruit factory workers, is resorting to almost total robot automation buoyed cheap loans and subsidies, and unfettered by labor regulations and unions. 

Brutal Navy seal training

https://youtu.be/oNyQ8_T15Xw?si=6YKDtgHvYZBL4yIG

More than 90% attrition amongst these highly selected, motivated, and tough recruits. Throughout their sleepless ordeal, they taunt them with the comforts that await them if they quit. 

Glambot - slow-motion rotating portrait

https://youtube.com/shorts/AN_IciK6SA8?si=-wTsH5RBaoc6kOku

https://youtu.be/lusxk6DQ_Uw?si=O-zKUIYBY-aDuSPw 

 

Glambot panning slow motion Hollywood photographer

https://youtu.be/K69Z2VMQaoA?si=b3M_WnunxEU_j6T2

Fire department warns of shrub arborvitae fire risk

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16TDCRdPct/

Alternative shrubs

Billy Joel

"I can't say there was a time when I wasn't struggling with something." - Billy Joel

In the amazing documentary by Tom Hanks, "And So it Goes." 

https://www.hbomax.com/shows/billy-joel-and-so-it-goes/2abc1a61-f4ac-4b0e-ae84-3cc5a3b53d03 

Desperately Seeking Symmetry: emotion is expressed on left side of face

40:47 And almost like a contour map, you could actually look at the amount of change, amount of muscle movement that had occurred. Which you will see if you measure the muscle movement in millimeters on each side of the face, you'll see that the smile curves a few extra millimeters on the left side of the face. He says this is nearly always the case, always on the left side. What it's really telling you is that when somebody smiles or when they frown, they're doing it slightly more strongly on the left side of their face.

Now, if this is the case that our left side is saying more emotionally than our right side, then if you think about the mirror, it's a discombobulating thing, because it's taking your left, which is sort of broadcasting emotion, flipping it to your right, you're seeing yourself, you're all mixed up. You don't know which part of you is where. So, you're saying because I tend to address you with my attention on your left side, unbeknownst to me, and your left side is actually flipped over to your right, so it's a "Where are we?" sort of question.

https://radiolab.org/podcast/122382-desperately-seeking-symmetry

Parents! Get off your cell phones!

No surprise here. 

Parental Technology Use in a Child's Presence and Health and Development in the Early Years

A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. 2025

"Parents' use of technology in their child's presence was negatively associated with cognitive and psychosocial outcomes..." 

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/fullarticle/2833506 

Aluminum in Vaccines not associated with Risk for Autism or other Childhood Disease. Annals of Internal Medicine 2025.

The study included 1,224,176 children born in Denmark between 1997 and 2018 who were still living in Denmark at age 2 years...

The researchers found no association indicating that aluminum exposure from vaccination during the first 2 years of life increased the risk for autoimmune, allergic/atopic, or neurodevelopmental conditions through age 5 years.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/ANNALS-25-00997-PS

NYTimes: Supreme Court Keeps Ruling in Trump’s Favor, but Doesn’t Say Why

Supreme Court Keeps Ruling in Trump's Favor, but Doesn't Say Why https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/16/us/politics/supreme-courts-shadow-docket.html

Why the supreme Court can give unsigned orders to emergency docket decisions without writing a justification. It's complicated. 

Larger trucks?

https://youtu.be/WpenLsHEHaY?si=J0rA1hBo2R8EJQ8S

7:58 Finland and Sweden allow 120-ton trucks (vs US 40 tons) and 210 foot length (vs US 53 ft.)

8:45 these "high capacity" trucks have a lower cost per pound per mile, and 33% lower emissions per pound of cargo. 

Extreme opinions

https://youtu.be/mvtEINcqc6c?si=qnjfsfVhueOLqAF7

This video makes a good point that extreme opinions are very newsworthy and are weaponized by the opposition as representing the opinion of an entire group, when in fact they may be espoused by only a small minority of that opposition. 

4:40 "the mistaken belief that the most vocal or visible members of a group represent that group as a whole"

To fight back against the opposition based on the assumption that they all have an identical opinion is a waste of time and energy. 

Human breast milk oligosaccharides

http://www.wnycstudios.org/story/the-elixir-of-life/

Human milk oligosaccharides can not be digested by humans or bacteria - why are they there? 

22:31 Bifidobacterium sticks to the walls, prevents any other bacteria from coming there, so that basically nothing bad gets to the walls, so you can actually see the disappearance over time because if you look back over time at poop samples

Be good ancestors

Jonas Salk, known for development of the polio vaccine, once shared a simple yet profound statement: "Our greatest responsibility is to be good ancestors." This quote encapsulates a timeless truth that speaks to the core of our humanity and our duty to future generations.

This podcast talks about the value of having purpose in life - transcendent purpose that goes beyond our hedonistic values, and how that gives happiness and longevity, and the ability to withstand natural disasters and war. People with purpose are far more resilient. 

For instance, at 43:50 - people who were told that their backpack contained important scientific equipment reported less struggle with an uphill trudge than those who were not told the backpack contained anything important. 

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/you-2-0-what-is-your-life-for/

The Villa Where a Doctor Experimented on Children | The New Yorker

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/02/the-villa-where-doctors-experimented-on-children

A dark and sobering story of an abusive post-Nazi psychiatric institute and the lifetimes of trauma inflicted h and one woman's brave quest to bring it to light. 

Most craters are round - even though steroids strike at random angles

https://youtu.be/BCGWGJOUjHY?si=nmtvSJgF80rnVxaF

Interesting simulations of the massive kinetic energy of asteroid strikes. 

Magnetic field effects on plant growth, development, and evolution - PMC

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4154392/

"...a low frequency magnetic field (16 Hz) can be used as a method of post-harvest seed improvement for different plant species, especially for seeds of temperature sensitive species germinating at low temperatures" 

"promoted activity of cells and enzymes in germination stage of the seed." 

"a linear increase in germination" 

"seeds of pea exposed to full-wave rectified sumusoidal non-uniform magnetic field of strength 60, 120, and 180 mT for 5, 10, and 15 min prior to sowing showed significant increase in germination. The emergence index, final emergence index and vigor index increased by 86, 13, and 205%, respectively."

Physics of windmill design

Summarized at 2:50: windmills are most efficient of they're tall, large, fast-rotating, and narrow-bladed. 

https://youtu.be/WGKIjojADmg?si=T37bwjBWKqwBq-AX

Such a great bass line!

https://youtu.be/2IbPn5j2YKk?si=OTH3AhRHeadznv_a

Paul McCartney had so many iconic bass licks. 

https://youtu.be/ZNXW-q1fjeQ?si=nJgykmbNmjMqcndO 

Science Says Hard Acceleration Might Be Good For Your EV Battery

https://insideevs.com/news/764150/ev-battery-flooring-it-good/

Lab tested various stores of EV driving: "some rapid acceleration—was the best case scenario for battery longevity" 

Medical assistance in Dying goes further in Canada

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/01/magazine/maid-medical-assistance-dying-canada.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

A legal challenge allowed patients to seek assisted suicide even if their death was not imminent, opening floodgates to a wide array of non-lethal chronic pain conditions that are a quandary for doctors to assess, whether everything possible has been tried, and whether that's even important if the suffering is too terrible. 

Backing into parking spaces

I back in to parking spaces because

 1) the rear bumper is higher and not as likely to get damaged by a high curb than the front spoiler. 

2) you have much better situational awareness of other traffic as you enter, when you're in traffic instead of entering traffic, and so better able to avoid an accident

3) as you leave, you have a much wider field of view when entering a parking spot than when you're leaving, and since you're often more tired when you're leaving, or often there's condensation or frost on the window, you have a much better chance of seeing approaching cars if you're facing the road and driving forwards when leaving. 

"How infrastructure works" by Deb Chachra

The cost of light per lumen hour has gone down by a factor of 10,000 in the last two centuries. 

"How infrastructure works" by Deb Chachra

Incredible aluminum catamaran time-lapse

https://youtu.be/XmChG1GyjlU?si=9DGa2EV6bzYGmoie

This build clearly took a lot of planning, ordering the CNC cutting of all the parts. At 6:24 they fill the hill with water to check for leaks. He explains at 7:45 that the interior is made of lightweight honeycomb covered with fiberglass that's much lighter than marine plywood. 

How submarines prevent cavitation from their propellers

How submarines prevent cavitation at the propellers - the injection of gas in front of the propellers seems counterintuitive to me, since that would lower the density of the water and reduce power. But the rubber membrane on the front of the propellers makes sense: 

More methods than I had expected: 

Reduced Propeller Speed: Operating the propellers at lower rotational speeds helps to reduce the pressure differences in the water, thus decreasing the likelihood of cavitation. However, this can impact the submarine's speed.

 * Increased Operating Depth: Cavitation is less likely to occur at greater depths due to the higher ambient pressure of the water. Submarines often operate at depths where cavitation is minimized.

 * Air Injection/Masking: Some submarines have systems that release small amounts of compressed air near the propeller. This air fills the vacuum bubbles as they form, preventing them from collapsing violently and creating noise. This is mentioned as a standard technique in the US Navy and possibly other navies.

 * Degassing Water: Research has shown that releasing degassed water near the propeller's low-pressure side can prevent cavitation without altering blade speed or pitch. This method is highlighted as simple and cheap to implement.

 * Nozzle Systems: Some designs use nozzles that spray compressed air in front of the propeller to create a large bubble, known as a "macro bubble," which helps reduce hull vibrations caused by cavitation.

 * Air-filled Rubber Membranes: An alternative to nozzle systems involves placing an air-filled rubber membrane directly behind the propeller. This also creates a pocket of air to prevent cavitation without the need for compressors.

https://youtu.be/gIglclb59SQ?si=Dve6tYLfWYDBfwG8

https://youtu.be/4YOyy6Jfz8E?si=7SCjXk-D_bRmUfmJ 

Toroidal propellers provide more surface area that reduces the amount of cavitation for a given amount of thrust. 

https://youtu.be/MGy8jvf-DZ0?si=OvjnWTrjjhM_EzjP 

How Shazam recognizes songs

https://youtu.be/b6xeOLjeKs0?si=ls-9oTH23cI6zDFk

World's longest continuous flight.

https://youtu.be/b_yWU80TzWc?si=6bhhz1JnVHCqfAIP

Black hole has fastest moving star

https://youtu.be/TF8THY5spmo?si=JnlpbSQ3c03o9ZeP

20-year time lapse of stars being flung around a black hole. 

In the comments: The closest one, S4716 is moving at about 8% speed of light at a distance of about12.6 AU at perigee to the black hole. It has an orbital period of 4 years.

Our galaxy's center features the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*, as massive as 4 million suns. It has hundreds of stars pulled closely into its orbit, experiencing a gravitational boost from this proximity. The fastest of these stars, S4714,  orbits around Sgr A* at more than 8% of light speed, or 15,000 miles per second, faster than any other known star.

https://www.space.com/fastest-star-ever-moves-8-percent-light-speed.html 

Big brother is watching you.

Washington State Patrol bought anonymous cellphone data that reveals where drivers are speeding and texting while driving so that they can target their surveillance to those areas. 

"Cellphone data from more than 1 million cellphone users in Washington in 2023 helped the state identify where to look for dangerous drivers...

The commission used state funding to purchase telematic data gathered by Michelin Mobility Intelligence to show when and where drivers were speeding, braking, and talking and texting while driving." 

https://www.king5.com/article

If you don't know the reference to "Big Brother," it's from George Orwell. 

Vanessa Carlton Cobus

https://youtu.be/Ig4dt5Ako9Q?si=oRuWWEuKXkGMnum8

Did predictions about heat waves

https://youtu.be/7hBMbQ9de1g?si=nK-PcgY6I76rJIgt

There a temperature-humidity combination above which humans cannot cool themselves and need external cooling. When AC fails because of power outages, great-related deaths are inevitable. 

Champagne glass suspension test

https://youtu.be/HFbvsrSoJ2w?si=k61ZyIznfm0H38-u

Aluminum recycling

https://youtu.be/uyi2RT3Kak4?si=SfINddo9CWkadZDQ

5:01 removing paint at a temperature will below the melting point improves the grade of aluminum produced

8:12 recycling aluminum takes 95% less energy than producing new aluminum from ore. 

Why do similar shops cluster together e.g. selling from carts on beach

https://youtu.be/jILgxeNBK_8?si=quTHEO55U7o99Xcz

3:10 "Ultimately, there's nowhere you can move that will improve your situation." 

Camera magic with robots for Fast food

https://youtu.be/FBP-DxfZCgo?si=cch7nkrUsP8N6lAb

Study Finds Bacterial Toxin May Trigger Multiple Sclerosis Onset and Relapse | Newsroom | Weill Cornell Medicine

"Clostridium perfringens in unusually high abundance within the gut microbiome of people with MS...epsilon toxin opens the blood vessels of the brain allowing inflammatory cells to gain access to the central nervous system and cause demyelination characteristic of MS."

https://news.weill.cornell.edu/news/2023/03/study-finds-bacterial-toxin-may-trigger-multiple-sclerosis-onset-and-relapse

Housing the unhoused decreases public costs.

New data shows that King County's Health Through Housing program helps residents maintain stable housing and improve health.

95% of supportive housing residents maintained a stable home.

Residents had 33% shorter hospital stays, 22% fewer hospital stays and a 17% decrease in ER visits.

Health Through Housing combines housing with onsite services like workforce training, financial planning, health care, food programs and case management.

https://dchsblog.com/?p=8837&preview=1&_ppp=ba7fb1680c

Landfill design

https://youtu.be/HRx_dZawN44?si=g4NIm4NQjj6PKqfj

Leachate and off-gassing have to be carefully managed and monitored. 

12:12 The landfill for L.A., now closed, generates enough methane to produce electricity for 70,000 homes. 

Roundabout / rotary

https://youtu.be/atORPw-w83I?si=W2P0Xvr6Ajb9-iNY

1:23 roundabouts lead to a 67% reduction in crashes, and an 87% reduction in injury-crashes. 

I delivered food to find out - can food delivery apps survive?

https://youtu.be/8V9ypoULc0I?si=-ppF3IsTaWp2LvlS 

10:50 "I'm definitely re-thinking how I make the door dash deliverer come up to my apartment...rethinking every time I didn't tip when the order was late, because that's (mostly) out of the delivery person's control." 

Regenerative seawater agriculture

https://youtu.be/b4csIdPZxsg?si=8nMwRP0FO4L74X7z

So many advantages

-1:20 halophyte plants naturally actively exclude salt

-2:26 very resilient plants

-2:13 high yield per acre

-3:16 no fertilizer or pesticide

-3:12 no plowing or tilling the soil

-yields 1:38 carbon capture, fiberboard, a succulent animal feed, and oil. 

-3:02 it can be harvested several times a year with new cross growing from the remaining root system. 

-12:55 agriculture that enhances, rather than disrupts, the existing natural processes and biodiversity 

Synthetic pineapple leather

https://youtu.be/Ustm5PQpl5Q?si=uDpejevt3tzEyJRy

Pinatex uses waste leaves from pineapples to make synthetic leather. 

Electric truck charging near LAX

https://youtu.be/rY-JbCYmepg?si=zKo5Z5QX9AftV9Dd

3:12 for full-size tractor trucks, there are sufficient incentives in CA for the costs to win out over diesel. 

2:24 The shortfall is adequate charging infrastructure - these trucks deviate 20 miles off their route for this charging. 

Flight turnaround delays

https://youtu.be/v2C7w0RfMaw?si=iVcAPw61XkKQgM3s

6 teams' generic scramble to turn a flight around in 55 minutes. A $9 billion investment has improved their on-time departure rate, and employs AI to shuffle planes around to minimize delays. 

Moths

https://youtu.be/mIr-jy0nJg0?si=ypc2BXT-CkufquR_

Months has to evolve countermeasures relatively quickly once bats evolved. Some make ultrasonic "jamming" signals to confuse bats. 

Asotin to Enterprise

Great drive - Avants member

Shared route

From Asotin, Washington to Enterprise, Oregon 97828 via WA-129 S and OR-3 S.

1 hr 40 min (79 mi)

1 hr 40 min in current traffic

1. Head west toward Washington St

2. Turn left onto WA-129 S

3. Arrive at location: Enterprise

For the best route in current traffic visit https://maps.app.goo.gl/jVo4Zi11vfsx5YJA6?g_st=ac

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16gCCBcD9M/

Also check out 

 https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16kAbjS8nT/

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1CSof8yp8D/ 

Podcast about being both assertive and warm

To be assertive and warm, use a skill you have to help others. 

Brag-thank: when you mention your accomplishment, in the same breath thank others who helped achieve it. 

Humor-bragging - use (non-self-deprecating) humor to soften something you brag about. 

https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-to-win-people-over/

Pothole repair automation

There has been a lot of innvation in pothole repair - here are some examples listed in decreasing levels of automation.

Robotic arm on from of truck

https://youtu.be/1RG23iWqqsE?si=KwH1EwX58d04Drxg

https://youtu.be/7k0NTpVkSL8?si=7b1pwO1b4NnJT8vd 

https://youtu.be/qWqA0ye4S2Q?si=f0rpBiRSrcOxpxxQ 

https://youtu.be/6XRaONuQO7Q?si=iyUly2XWRekmI3VS 

Expand hole to fit pre-formed patches

https://youtu.be/U23Mr830L8s?si=GgiDFcT3LHpLdFJ5 

Multiple heads on backhoe-type machine

https://youtu.be/edfU4tNRlaA?si=O4LtVOJa8_-qOn3q  

Injection patching handheld hose 

https://youtu.be/VV_QU8-IRl0?si=D5JUpis57pDLa2a2 

Patch sheets laid down by hand

https://youtu.be/Vr_Dxg1LdxU?si=ilacAf9J4UewtiV1 

Shake from bag, paved by traffic

https://youtu.be/q5kHFB_LgrE?si=d-LoXJ68aFbA9hkP 

Show traffic waves

https://youtu.be/6ZC9h8jgSj4?si=QmII1yHByyrfq10K

So annoying when this peristaltic motion causes waves of stopped traffic during congestion. 

Lion lights

https://youtu.be/3bPlu0StTUE?si=J0EwaY0qDRmLraJq

A tinkering 12 yo invented random-flashing perimeter lights which protect a homestead by giving the appearance of human activity surrounding their encampment and cattle.

Christopher Burkett | Green Veratrum, 1993

https://photographywest.com/product/christopher-burkett-green-veratrum/

This beautiful print now hangs in our bedroom. 

Using Lidar to gauge the terrain ahead and adjust the suspension.

"Results of field tests showed the vertical acceleration of the vehicle body was reduced by 54%, when passing the bump at 5 km/h and axle displacement was reduced by 51% when travelling an even road at 5 km/h." 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S240589631831190X

Incredible suspension

https://youtu.be/n-nEEtD_OXQ?si=DYes39GEhOK9q1k6

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1AamYGsfEA/

https://youtu.be/3KPYIaks1UY?si=CgY4tIfacRtsnqIQ 

Faith

"Faith is the courageous trust that good is yet to come." - The very reverent Steven L. Thomason

It Is Not the Critic Who Counts | Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

—Theodore Roosevelt

Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

https://www.trcp.org/2011/01/18/it-is-not-the-critic-who-counts/

NYTimes: Beware: We Are Entering a New Phase of the Trump Era

"We humans are stability-seeking creatures. Getting accustomed to what used to seem unthinkable can feel like an accomplishment. And when the unthinkable recedes at least a bit — when someone gets released from detention (as the Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi was a few weeks ago) or some particularly egregious proposal is withdrawn or blocked by the courts (as the ban on international students at Harvard has been, at least temporarily) — it's easy to mistake it for proof that the dark times are ending." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/opinion/trump-danger-normalization-shock.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Who has strong opinions on the internet?

"We found the people who have the strongest counter-consensus views have the highest levels of subjective understanding (feel like they understand the issues the best)...but actually have the lowest level of objective knowledge." 

@39:40 in https://hiddenbrain.org/podcast/how-much-do-we-really-know/ 

Much like the Dunning-Kruger effect. 

Best tornado footage ever

Deploying specially-designed drones into active tornadoes. 

https://youtu.be/NGD2e741Riw?si=pB3G061oo6CAumch

https://youtu.be/MjEX51Qmz3o?si=bkatFnZ3LcDYkVC2

https://www.theotusproject.com/ 

https://www.facebook.com/share/1CkY5DUsYX/ 

Taking AI to review communities

A small backpack-sized solar-powered large-language model that can bring AI capabilities to standalone computers in remote communities. 

https://youtu.be/LQH0eHHEAlU?si=lTnYVu9tGPbB6foV

Spy microphones

https://youtu.be/mEC6PM97IRI?si=NW96ZccZqiaoGzDA

A deep dive into spy recording techniques by a very persistent home experimenter. 

High voltage line man dangerous job!

 https://youtu.be/oBJyyEAw-6g?si=avy9MpuMVe8ekiL2

Installing the orange marker balls 

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=680933238236733&surface_type=vod&referral_source=vod_deeplink_unit

More realistic robot walking

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16ixJ3NkYs/

A million parameters and millions of simulations later...

Ocean salinity mapped

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GxMBBMNCH/

Computer forecasts getting worse

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AbdDJsoi4/

Why concert speakers are arranged vertically.

A vertical "line array" of speakers avoids 1:40 "cone filtering" - volume fluctuations from interference between adjacent speakers. 

https://youtu.be/8c-gD4mwI8A?si=gIvQvgHotpMKvS3U

Live map of where subway trains are in London

https://youtu.be/SuQatFDWnSI?si=J6BBY4uR3h-C0k_a

Will China invade Taiwan?

WSJ examines evidence that China is planning a massive purpose-built beach-landing invasion of (probably) Taiwan. 

https://youtu.be/DtrGMsGsZiU?si=A5yZeFmyU4J258Ce

Container shipping

https://youtu.be/5R9gM7jzclw?si=XMrjbT2eBBeAh6rW

3:12 shipping a standard 40' container from China to the West Coast is $2300. 

3:33 about a 20% sailing cancellation rate

School shootings

Wow, there are school shooting incidents almost once a day in the US. https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings 

Interesting podcast on school shootings. 

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/how-to-succeed-at-failing-part-1-the-chain-of-events-update/ 

https://youtu.be/YOndgQi61FY?si=YtIWvR9ZURFKcU-I 

He makes the point that a single action by a single person can prevent a school shooting, and there are dozens of potential times for intervention in every shooting, between parents/friends/teachers/security....

NYTimes: The Danger for India and Pakistan Has Not Gone Away

The Danger for India and Pakistan Has Not Gone Away

"In a new global chapter defined by perilous conflicts, distracted leaders, and a retreating sense of international responsibility to keep peace, the safety net had never seemed thinner." 

  https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/world/asia/india-pakistan-war-analysis.html?smid=nytcore-android-share