Tom Elwood -best of the internet.

Tuesday, March 26, 2019

The Truth Is Worth It: Fearlessness | The New York Times

A great little video that makes the case for how tedious, dangerous, tenacious, expensive, and important good journalism is.

Monday, March 25, 2019

Truth About Wasabi

https://youtu.be/fhlklE9wBSY

At 1:37, he describes that real wasabi (not that made from horseradish) tastes at first fragrant, then sweet, then spicy.

Funny commercials about people with a lead foot

https://adland.tv/adnews/honda-accord-coupe-lead-foot-2003-030-usa

https://youtu.be/AGnxrzVcp-o

Pass The Salt

https://youtu.be/nORRgU8sGdE

Best Rube Goldberg machine ever...a lot of funny little elements including backtracking and returning to a part of the setup you thought was already completed.

Friday, March 22, 2019

After Several Deaths, Tesla Is Still Sending Mixed Messages About Autopilot - Digg

http://digg.com/2018/tesla-crash-autopilot-investigation

Tesla in Seattle steering towards barrier at Northgate

https://arstechnica.com/cars/2019/03/dashcam-video-shows-tesla-steering-toward-lane-divider-again/

Pretty scary video - pay attention! You'd only have a fraction of a second to react.

https://www.reddit.com/r/teslamotors/comments/b36x27/its_back_after_6_months_of_working_fine_2019515/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share

Friday, March 15, 2019

Lightning Strike at 103,000 frames per second

https://youtu.be/qQKhIK4pvYo

I think you'll enjoy this. You can skip ahead to 4:59 to avoid all the buildup.

Also by these guys - ultra-fast filming actually captures teh speed of light.

World Record Shortest Plane-Landing

https://youtu.be/hPakbghLe38

Things that make for a short landing: light plane, huge wing, headwinds, and cold (denser) air.

7000 feet down in Resolution Copper Mine

https://youtu.be/N0y4zYMYOrQ

Block cave mining, used when the ore is friable, opens up chutes below the ore mass through which the ore crumbles and caves in on itself. The risk for a catastrophic collapse, either of the mine tunnels or a sinkhole in the overlying ground, seems huge to me.

The mining company has invested over $6B, and twelve years, before ever seeing any ore.

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Balance training seems to prevent falls, injuries in seniors - Harvard Health Blog - Harvard Health Publishing

Such a simple way to prevent fall injuries, which can invoke such tremendous morbidity upon seniors.

"French researchers analyzed the results of 17 trials that tested the effect of fall-prevention exercises on seniors' risk of falls and fall-related injuries. Overall, exercise programs reduced falls that caused injuries by 37%, falls leading to serious injuries by 43%, and broken bones by 61%. The report was published online in the BMJ."

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/balance-training-seems-to-prevent-falls-injuries-in-seniors-201310316825

Friday, March 8, 2019

Americans Will Need a Visa to Visit Europe Starting in 2021

"In two years, Americans will need to apply for something called ETIAS (European Travel Information and Authorization System) in order to enter the continent. The European Commission says the new visas will be enforced as an effort to upgrade international security, effective Jan. 1, 2021"

https://www.travelandleisure.com/travel-news/americans-need-visa-europe

Thursday, February 28, 2019

Trypophobia

https://youtu.be/TPTqqi-kfVM

Trypophobia and a "unified theory of disgust," that holes remind us of parasitic infections. Gives some background on the genesis of phobias.

Wednesday, February 27, 2019

How Much Leisure Time Do the Happiest People Have?

Too little, and people tend to get stressed. Too much, and people tend to feel idle.
A research paper released late last year ...analyzed data covering about 35,000 Americans, found that employed people’s ratings of their satisfaction with life peaked when they had in the neighborhood of two and a half hours of free time a day. For people who didn’t work, the optimal amount was four hours and 45 minutes...The research traced a correlation between free time and life satisfaction, but didn’t provide any definitive insight into what underlies that correlation...
https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/02/free-time-life-satisfaction/583171/

Robot on stairs

https://youtu.be/qV-92Bq96Co?si=OyuULMMNH7MQqwzj

Finally, a video that walks you through what they're working on in improving gait.
Cassie is blind to the world, and treats all obstacles as a gait disturbance.

At 1:10, "Cassie is able to walk forwards, backwards, and sideways over an obstacle without any knowledge of the environment. Cassie thinks the world is flat, and the combination of passive dynamics and software control is robust enough that this does not matter."

This reminds me of earlier experiments where a robot had to generate random movements to figure out how to walk, which then made it adaptable when encountering difficult terrain.