One-off specialty parts created out of sheet metal without the use of die stamps and hydraulic presses, by using opposing robot arms to coax and squeeze the metal into the correct shape.
Saturday, September 19, 2026
Wednesday, September 16, 2026
Bees are capable of learning.
A fascinating series of experiments that prove bees are capable of picturing something in the future that requires a tool they've learned to use - previously only proven in primate experiments.
Robot thinks beyond mimicking
https://youtu.be/IJvyS2aPsnA?is=kIf-0aasG4QQ6bBN
0:44 as far as I can tell, the robot is figuring out that the nut can be spun with a rapid motion once it's loosened, or perhaps generalizing from watching a human loosen other nuts.
From an AI summary of the OM-1 robot: OM-1 is trained exclusively on human data captured through the Omnibody Hand, a wearable seven-degree-of-freedom device. The company claims the system can generalize zero-shot across robot bodies—including tabletop arms, industrial arms, and humanoids—without teleoperation data, on-robot training, or robot-specific fine-tuning. A temporal history of these streams allows the policy to reason about how contact and task progress evolve.
The model translates the twisting motion from a human demonstration directly to different mechanical bodies—such as tabletop arms or humanoids—without needing robot-specific fine-tuning.
OM-1 natively processes a continuous stream of high-frequency data, balancing tactile signals and inter-finger proximity alongside visual tracking.
Tuesday, September 15, 2026
The dark truth behind targeted advertising.
Skip ahead to 13:13 to skip the setup that companies are definitely not listening to your phone microphone; but they are using reams of metadata.
A gold mine of hundreds of facts about you and your interests are shared to thousands of advertisers in the milliseconds before you're shown an ad. Hundreds of times a day.
Monday, September 14, 2026
Rare earth metals.
https://youtu.be/BXLGV0Sj0n8?is=jUz6af0gh9FNVJId
China's carefully crafted and executed monopoly on rare earth metals accomplished over 30 years annihilated the competition and placed a stranglehold on foreign military production. Companies like MP (Mountain Pass) are being supported by fixed prices that ensure longevity for the mine.
Saturday, September 12, 2026
Friday, September 11, 2026
Thursday, September 10, 2026
Cerebellum
80% of the total number of neurons in the brain are in the cerebellum. It is not purely a motor system - many insufficiently with the entire neocortex. It is now thought to coordinate and "smooth" the output of all brain regions - regulating emotion, or planning a smooth sentence/conversation.
Episode "Song of the cerebellum" Radiolab.
Tuesday, September 8, 2026
60 Words
https://radiolab.org/podcast/ea1c84b585e58d5befeefebf
Really interesting podcast that studies the actual meaning of declaring war after 9/11, and how the words declaring war have been used and misused.
Monday, September 7, 2026
Panthalassa wave generator - now I get it.
https://youtu.be/VcmDN4T90Fw?is=cjjwMY3zysF-Uv2E
These untethered wave generators incorporate AI data centers, so they float across the ocean sending AI compute results to the web, and use ocean water for passive cooling of the computer chips.
This eliminates traditional electrical distribution entirely. The electricity generated by the ocean's waves is consumed entirely on-site by modular AI data centers housed right inside the generator nodes.
1:58 "Panthalassa" is the name of the mega-ocean that once surrounded the conglomerate continent Pangea.
Huge N Korean scam of fake IT jobs and ID theft.
https://youtu.be/RUhdmIFpb-w?is=tu1CXtWXeSNoFl_4
This is a thorough investigation by the Wall Street Journal into an extensive scheme of raising money for the North Korean government by enslaving workers who apply for US jobs using either stolen identities or actual US middlemen criminals who share the salary for the work done remotely online. Hundreds of millions of dollars. Incredibly elaborate.
Sunday, September 6, 2026
Breakthrough 36 passenger electric passenger plane for short-haul 2hr flights
https://youtu.be/nM86DBOqgPM?si=nPszTyfr-EOOde_n
2:53 Jet engines are far more complex - take the turbine blades, for example which must be grown as a single crystal of a nickel super-alloy to withstand the heat and physical forces.
https://youtu.be/QtxVdC7pBQM?is=SCbLua2xNvguGoTK
5:30 they built a 400kW electric motor. (Standard Tesla motors are 137 - 200 kW.)
7:45 actuators: Boeing aircraft have 2 or more backup systems to drive hydraulic systems (electric pump, ram-air turbine in case of total engine failure) — what backup systems will this aircraft have for flight control systems? Maybe a hydraulic pump run by the hybrid engine.
9:45 hardest design challenge was dealing with a diverted flight destination: 1 in every 1000 flights is diverted. That's why they needed a hybrid engine design.
12:55 first flight
Myriad detection uses of fiberoptic cable
https://youtu.be/8939X_kFwG4?is=jGBXjUpU9_xcxLFn
So intriguing. Detecting back-scatter reflections that occur at temperature or pressure points in fiberoptic cable can be used to efficiently monitor oil boreholes, seismic activity, elephants walking onto Indian railroads, whales singing in the ocean, and tankers or submarines. Telecom companies often lay down excess cable capacity, and these as-yet unused fibers can be used for such monitoring.
Saturday, September 5, 2026
Tesla ramps up production
https://youtu.be/MvLQ0ygZoqM?is=CNria5Z1NT3uFMfT
Lofty goals to increase production rates to unheard-of rates. "Unboxed production," which really just means parallel manufacturing assembly lines, is explained at 12:32.
Best explanation of JPEG
https://youtu.be/0me3guauqOU?is=K4Bpw4XNWvZMtrfl
Very clear detailed description of how compression happens mathematically.
Best explanation of MP3 music compression
https://youtu.be/jFjDoELxonU?is=iC_N0zX5G_9o8f38
There are a lot of videos out there, but this poorly-edited one is actually one of the better ones.
Also, useful to view this description of how human hearing functions, at 1:31 in this video.
Lidar satellites see more
https://youtu.be/UKLuei1CnZY?is=ZKH-uyd20wjBr7pU
Unimpeded by clouds or smoke, LIDAR satellites pan across Earth's entire surface every 12 days. 2:16 Successive images can be compared to observe sub-mm movement. (That implies the satellite plane above the earth is more stable than a sensor on the ground itself.)
4:09 They mapped the interior of a pyramid by listening to it vibrate [from background seismic vibrations] from space.
Friday, September 4, 2026
Man who made counterfeit $100 bills describes his journey through crime and punishment
https://youtu.be/FGAVpJfG1yQ?is=NlNNU3ase1EYAOy1
This man started counterfeiting at age 19 and spent months protecting his craft and avoiding "bill checker" methods for years and millions of dollars. He used an eye-shadow product to mimic the shiny ink, a fine-tipped glue nozzle to make raised lines, and sprayed a chemical to make the bill-checker pen show the correct color. Ironically, he has to go to bookstores and steal blank pages from Bibles to get the right paper quality.
World-record most massive vehicle
https://youtu.be/U8772vEfUu8?is=eaUExVAGMvn7h7r0
It harvests a low-grade coal in Germany that's uneconomical unless mind at a huge scale for nearby use in generating power.
960 frames per sec on a $700 camera
https://youtu.be/Wpko8vAJcEk?is=2-Ww2b0rKcwFelCz
This guy does a very feel dive on the specs, but the footage he achieved is pretty amazing.
Drone warfare on Ukraine's front line
Intense front-line embedded reporting from Ukraine with access to drones, pilots, and their successes and failures and challenges.
Different reporter, same intense journalism from the front lines.
https://youtu.be/rqr2sQzYhQw?si=6eBgCO3nGi5FMsuQ
Thursday, September 3, 2026
Surprisingly agile and adaptable "Sunday robotics" home robot
https://youtu.be/QfBw0gMuhaI?is=1-Uf4wlK0htBoBrj
Handling wine glasses is particularly difficult because they're delicate and transparent.
Folding socks, which are deformable objects, is hard for robots.
Tuesday, September 1, 2026
Monday, August 31, 2026
Impressive bricklaying
https://youtube.com/shorts/gQUVPtMPQuk?is=NhTKFt-pvRWk_aRx
Did you know that my great-grandfather was a bricklayer?
How EV predicts and calculates range and battery state of charge (SOC)
https://youtu.be/0Z4s6LYB7ls?is=d-1kjpYLxPPRresl
Range anxiety is countered by knowing exactly how much that you have left. Calculating it is not straightforward!
Can't use voltage because a large portion of the curve is flat.
Saturday, August 29, 2026
Micro mini drone
https://youtu.be/wZlViCPCWJw?is=cjrgdRuPeiBwYjo-
I'm surprised how well the flight controller adjusts to the new configuration seamlessly and flies with stability.
Wednesday, August 26, 2026
Subliminal messages increase strength and hostility
"death-related words were subliminally primed...We recorded handgrip force..,male participants in the priming-plus-self condition had a higher peak force output than the priming and control conditions"
When people are exposed to death-related concepts—even flashing words like "death" subliminally for milliseconds—it activates unconscious existential anxiety. To cope with this hidden fear, the human mind clings tighter to its cultural values, beliefs, and familiar groups to regain a sense of safety and meaning...subjects frequently display heightened intolerance, harsher judgments, and increased hostility toward anyone who looks different, holds opposing views, or belongs to a different racial or social group.
Sunday, August 23, 2026
WAMI wide-area motion imagery
https://youtu.be/cWbBsfwtCIo?is=FcDSbLoyAWbIjGVI
Developed to trace military bomb drop-offs back in time to their origin, this deep dive of modern wide-area, AI-assisted surveillance is, well, eye-opening.
For more of a deep dive into thei technology, there's thie following book: "Eyes in the Sky," by Arthur H. Michel.
High-tech cars may not keep up with software updates
https://youtu.be/_FfIx2cOEYs?is=cVWPAca1XV1PMQ0O
2:52 the average age of cars on the road has reached an all-time high of 12.8 years.
Saturday, August 22, 2026
Robot copies human movement
https://youtu.be/YJSw0Jf8DZ0?is=QAx6NlsCPqaxbrqU
A humanoid robot that can watch a human and immediately reproduce their movement.
Friday, August 21, 2026
Every life form struggles to prevent cancer
45:20 from the very first multi cell organism onwards, life has been about cells shooting at each other to prevent one feel from becoming cancer. As soon as one cell starts replicating faster, it is naturally selecting for itself.
Thursday, August 20, 2026
Thinning of forests, instead of clear-cutting
https://youtu.be/ggWBECTC81w?is=-Zlt7T5VoDMlHkOT
Keeping the large trees standing mitigates fire risk. The logging company realized they needed to fund the environmental analysis and re-tooled the mills to handle small logs.
Tuesday, August 18, 2026
Timeline for tsunami modeled
I didn't realize it takes hours for a tsunami to traverse Puget sound. https://www.facebook.com/share/1CxTLwCxnz/
BYD EV for $7800
Interesting video explaining all the people losing money on cheap EV's from China, notably factory workers enduring "slavery-like" conditions, and billions of Chinese government subsidies.
Have they started selling Chinese EV's in Canada? I heard the PM is allowing 49000 of them in under a reduced tariff (NPR story )
Friday, August 14, 2026
A better lifeboat system
https://youtube.com/shorts/fDe_ya9VZcI?is=gdrGX-ETbhTQEA8h
This flexible escape shaft and self-inflating raft seem a lot gentler than the traditional design, and, as they point out, can deploy even if the shop is leaning at any angle.
Tuesday, August 11, 2026
Claude learns your skill and copies your workflow
This could be a really good time saver... until it made a mistake and went rogue. I would be reticent to give AI complete control over my files like this...
Sunday, August 9, 2026
How GPS works
To get accurate position, the satellites are "told" their position from earth stations that locate relative to quasars. That enable accounting for tectonic movement.
Signals from the satellite are 50 watts, so only a quadrillionth of a watt reaches your phone - easily drowned out by jamming signals.
The signal from the satellite gets distorted on the ionosphere, adding several meters of uncertainty. Wackadoodle car propulsion idea
A very thorough discussion of the physics of a wacky compressed air vehicle that slides the wheels back and forth. He even builds a 3-D printed model of the idea. He also explains why rapid cooling as air expands is the downfall of previous compressed-air-driven vehicles, and the volume of air required to achieve range.
https://youtu.be/WvePFAgMECo?is=4tptWfWhdXPOq3hB
Saturday, August 8, 2026
Thursday, August 6, 2026
Using stored terrain data to locate position
As humans, we navigate by recognizing landmarks. This system recognizes everything from buildings and rivers to mountain peaks to determine position when GPS is jammed.
Tuesday, August 4, 2026
Electric Nissan RV with 400 mile range
87 kilowatt-hour battery pack...real wood cabinets and countertops, a 90-liter refrigerator, and induction stove...Truma-Eezy auxiliary heater...$103,479...doesn't seem to be coming to the U.S.
Are 2nd babies born at a different time of year?
A highly popular strategy among second-time parents is to deliberately wait until August or September to conceive. This ensures they experience the bulk of their pregnancy during autumn and winter, allowing them to wear comfortable layers and avoid peak summer heat entirely while heavily pregnant.
First vs. Second: Across the general population, a massive volume of first-born conceptions happens spontaneously during late fall and winter holiday seasons, leading to an involuntary influx of late-summer births.
Intentional timeline: Because second-time parents are more experienced with tracking cycles and managing family timelines, they are far more likely to practice deliberate contraceptive spacing to override seasonal patterns and force a preferred birth month.
Energy conservation: Couples take into account that managing a first-born's outdoor summer activities while simultaneously experiencing third-trimester exhaustion and heat stress is structurally unsustainable. This makes planning for a winter or spring birth much more appealing the second time around.
Your customer service chat bot puts the company on the hook
Air Canada's chatbot lied to a customer. Then the airline argued in court that the bot was on its own — it didn't go well.
Jake booked a flight after his grandmother died. Before buying, he asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares. The bot told him he could book now and apply for the discount within 90 days.
So he did.
Then Air Canada rejected the refund. Because that policy the chatbot described? It didn't exist. The bot made it up.
Jake took them to a tribunal. Air Canada's defense was that the chatbot is a "separate legal entity" responsible for its own actions. In plain English, the airline argued it shouldn't be on the hook for what its own bot said.
The tribunal was not amused. The ruling basically said a chatbot is still just part of your website. You're responsible for everything on it, whether it comes from a page or a bot. Air Canada paid up.
The lesson isn't "don't use chatbots." It's simpler and scarier than that: whatever your AI says, you said. There is no version where the bot is the one who messed up. The customer doesn't see a bot. They see your company making a promise.
A lot of owners are racing to automate customer-facing stuff right now to save a few bucks. Fine. But every automated word that goes out under your name is a word you're legally and morally on the hook for.
If a human employee promised something wrong, you'd own it. The bot is no different. It's just faster at being wrong.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19BJsMwjiz/
Jake booked a flight after his grandmother died. Before buying, he asked Air Canada's website chatbot about bereavement fares. The bot told him he could book now and apply for the discount within 90 days.
So he did.
Then Air Canada rejected the refund. Because that policy the chatbot described? It didn't exist. The bot made it up.
Jake took them to a tribunal. Air Canada's defense was that the chatbot is a "separate legal entity" responsible for its own actions. In plain English, the airline argued it shouldn't be on the hook for what its own bot said.
The tribunal was not amused. The ruling basically said a chatbot is still just part of your website. You're responsible for everything on it, whether it comes from a page or a bot. Air Canada paid up.
The lesson isn't "don't use chatbots." It's simpler and scarier than that: whatever your AI says, you said. There is no version where the bot is the one who messed up. The customer doesn't see a bot. They see your company making a promise.
A lot of owners are racing to automate customer-facing stuff right now to save a few bucks. Fine. But every automated word that goes out under your name is a word you're legally and morally on the hook for.
If a human employee promised something wrong, you'd own it. The bot is no different. It's just faster at being wrong.
https://www.facebook.com/share/19BJsMwjiz/
Sunday, August 2, 2026
Truck reversing
Wow, some clever driving! Especially with all the idiots trying to go around his truck in tight spaces.
Friday, July 31, 2026
Dramatic rescue
Can you imagine going through this? I can't believe he was still conscious when they picked him up.
https://youtu.be/GBLQEnYy_68?is=EKbAk0cgTKttUpza
Wednesday, July 29, 2026
What a cute story! Skagit County teens and seniors swap life, tech skills
...putting teenagers and senior citizens in a room together so they could learn from one another.
The event, called “Ageless Intelligence,” took place in Sedro-Woolley where a banquet hall was set up like a science fair. There were booths with titles like, “How to do a reverse image search,” and, “What’s a large language model?”
Around 30 seniors between the ages of 60 and 85 mingled with more than 100 16- and 17-year-olds.
...a giant skills swap. The teenagers gave presentations about AI and technology. The seniors gave presentations about animal rescue and how to fix a flat tire.
[A senior] explained the art of writing a letter — by hand.
...they almost had to cancel the event because they couldn’t get enough seniors to enroll.
“I saw a different side of the teenagers. They were polite, caring, interested in each other and talking to older people."
https://www.kuow.org/education/2026-05-28/teens-seniors-swap-life-and-tech-skills
Tuesday, July 28, 2026
Sunday, July 26, 2026
Boston's "Museum of Bad Art"
Many paintings submitted are rejected. "Works must demonstrate serious artistic intent, possess an "Oh my God" quality, and above all, not be boring." https://whichmuseum.com/news/museum-of-bad-art-where-artistic-failures-become-celebrated-masterpieces-83
Here's a documentary about it.
Saturday, July 25, 2026
Friday, July 24, 2026
Contagious cancer in fish
The cancer cells on the fish were all similar to each other and very different from their hosts. The possibilities of such a tumor happening in humans are particularly ominous.
Thursday, July 23, 2026
Radical Acceptance
1:19:25 in the Hidden Brain episode "Changing our Mental Maps," in the Q&A appended section about the show "Radical Acceptance."
What's the difference between "It is what it is," and radical acceptance?
Radical acceptance invites me through acceptance to not become passive. Passivity, as the outcome of acceptance, means you've not changed your mind about everything. What radical acceptance is supposed to do is to free you to change your mind about what can be not get stuck on what can't be and then move into that. The reason acceptance helps is you're no longer wasting your time on something that didn't require your attention, so you can do that which deserves your attention to some distance pointed out day.
Victor Borge Claire de Lune
https://youtu.be/1mPJ3hm6M5I?is=0X6isbzXsE2D4Sz2
Absolutely beautiful performance. I love how he plays around with the tempo so delicately.
Here's a rare recording of Debussy himself playing it.
And here's Victor Borge at his best doing comedy.
Very funny - the "page turner"
Preventing relapse into depression
Comedian Gary Gulman describes having to be "vigilant" so he doesn't relapse into depression.
What does he mean:
11:09 "Exercising every day, eating right, getting enough sleep, taking on projects that keep me busy, and accepting invitations."
Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Training robots pays
https://youtu.be/yfZhpEupz5M?is=9BWaAP3yxoZ7n1zC
This innovative idea pays people to clean houses for free, while wearing cameras to gather data about household chores.
Smart startup - have your home cleaned for free by people wearing headsets that train robots for everyday tasks.
You just have to ignore the privacy concerns.
Crushed basalt helps trees grow.
1:49 Crushed basalt encourages 85% more growth and 27% more carbon sequestered in 4 years.
Why?
Crushed volcanic basalt slowly dissolves in soil water, releasing vital trace elements like magnesium, calcium, potassium, and iron over several years. - ref
This also supports soil bacteria and fungi, which build a healthier living network around tree roots.
Tuesday, July 21, 2026
Phonesthemes
sway/sweep/swerve/swing/swirl/swish/swoop
(they all imply a closing motion)
clam/clamp/clap/clasp/clench/cling/clip/clop/close/ clutch (clump together)
lump/rump/hump/bump (heavy protrusion)
Changing our mental maps
25:45 the "default mode network" in our brains is constantly working to pass off mental tasks to an automated pattern. This simplifies "what am I doing in every given moment" but it also features blind spots as to "what other possibilities in this moment" which has big implications in our ability to change. The default mode network is like a "groove" that our mind falls into.
Thinking about "the self" takes the highest priority because that's important for our survival.
33:37 we saw that in depressed patients, the brain showed decreased activity in the areas related to sensation in areas of the body
Monday, July 20, 2026
Sunday, July 19, 2026
Marks Marine Pharmacy (CanShipMeds)
Marks Marine Pharmacy (CanShipMeds) https://share.google/cHPpwkCXNGQpfKkDr
Ships prescription drugs for less from Canada
Saturday, July 18, 2026
Nuclear battery - radioactive nickel encased in diamond
https://youtu.be/Onk0FRuA4XU?is=EJ8oE_3YliwGQ8Pg
Invented a half century ago, but this new design uses a safer nickel isotope, and a diamond-based conductor that doesn't degrade over time.
Lasts for decades. Weak radiation needs no shielding. Byproduct is copper.
Friday, July 17, 2026
Weird sandwich
This combination sounds wild, but peanut butter, Miracle Whip, pickles, and bacon makes the ultimate sweet, salty, tangy, and crunchy bite.
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