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."