Here's a pretty nice approach to adding cellular to your home without having to attach it to the roof. It's more flexible and it would seem adds more flexibility.
Sunday, December 14, 2025
Thursday, December 11, 2025
Scientists Generate Power At Night By Passively Beaming Heat into Outer Space. It's "Like Solar Cells in Reverse"
That's pretty cool. Scientists have refined what's known as a Stirling engine - one that captures heat dissipation to generate power - to collect heat that's being released from the earth at night.
They're calling it a sort of reverse solar cell.
Experts warn ongoing concern with Atlantic Ocean will be direct threat to dozens of nations: 'Consequences for at least 1,000 years to come'
There have been several articles about changes to the Atlantic current that will have a direct impact on our climate.
And why is it changing? It's maybe still debatable, but appears to be as a result of the worlds changing climate. Then this will have a follow on effect on our climate.
Canada launches $1.2 billion push to attract talent, as U.S. charges $100,000 fee for H-1B visas - CBS News
You go, Canada! Way to try and build yourself into a competitive world power.
Scientists will be happy to make there way to the great white north and help build something lasting.
A 180-Year Assumption About Light Was Just Proven Wrong : ScienceAlert
I always enjoy reading about how scientific notions, assumptions, and theorems can be challenged and sometimes disproved or updated.
Here's a case where the Faraday effect on light was shown to be affected by magnetic fields. It's a bit to digest, but the basic idea is that light that is polarized can be nudged by a magnet, in addition to electric fields (which was known).
And they sum it up thusly.
Finally, this work is tantalizing because it reminds us of one of the cornerstones of science – namely, that researchers may discover other as-yet unknown properties of light or other electromagnetic phenomena at any time, even in well-established models.
Sunday, December 7, 2025
A fun podcast
I recently listened to a podcast from Radio Lab called "the creation story" ... it was an interesting half hour or thereabouts.
Latif (the host) interviewed Ella al-Shamahi, who is described as a real-life Indiana Jones. She is quite interesting and explores anthropology and history through her work, and several shows she hosts.
But this podcast was about her story, and how she got here. She was born Muslim (in England) and followed all the traditions and beliefs growing up. When she went to school, she decided that she was going to prove Charles Darwin wrong because evolution couldn't be a thing.
And as you might guess, she couldn't. Because evolution is demonstrably true and try as she might to poke holes, the evidence didn't support her point of view.
So....she changed directions and now tries to elucidate and educate others, but not in a confrontational way. I found that most interesting, and wanted to share.
A few things are worth noting: it's okay to question the world around you, but you should keep an open mind. Trust science and look at the body of evidence that's presented to you (rather than something "your crazy uncle" posted). And realize that some people need time to get to a sort of enlightened thinking (and some may never get there), but you can take an approach where you share ideas and try and explain what you know while listening to why they believe in something that may not be reality.
Thursday, December 4, 2025
How Blue Origin Plans to Beat SpaceX to the Moon
Blue origin - until very recently - was known for providing space tourism. People with a bit of money to burn were taken aboard a flight that let them experience weightlessness.
But the purpose of these missions was to slowly grow the company's ability to get into space. To test out their rockets, and their reusability.
And so they started launching satellites, and in early November had a rather remarkable moment where the booster returned and "missed" the drone ship it was to land on by a few yards or so. The rockets fired and it hung in the air while the drone ship moved underneath it, then it landed successfully.
Next stop is a moon venture. They are planning missions in 2026, because they feel they are ready.
The rockets they'll use are purpose built, and not as heavy as starship, and won't require the complexity of refueling.
Okay, game on. Let's see what Jeff Bezos can do.
Wednesday, December 3, 2025
The cryptobros bought themselves a president (plus, we’re in The Guardian)
I received this earlier today. Thought it's worth sharing, if you want to understand one of the bigger things that's happening right now.
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Goodbye to solar energy ― Sweden starts mining "moon" energy over the seas with this underwater kite
As we know, the moon is what affects the seas, and causes the tides to shift.
Here's a company in Sweden that is trying to harness that natural power by placing a sort of kit under the ocean, and capturing the power generated when the tides shifts.
Neat idea!
Solar device converts salt water into drinking water at record speed - Earth.com
Hmmm. Convenient and cost effective way to get drinkable water from the seas?
Yeah this device can remove the salt. And it does it with solar power, so there's no net cost to run it.
Europe goes green at desperate speed — France is creating WindTrees growing 36 artificial leaves
Now here's a clever and innovative idea for power production. Instead of a solar array or a wind turbine, a European group has invented a wind tree. It's a system that uses 36 mini turbines in branches of what look like a tree.
That is a nice leap forward for economical and environmentally friendly means of creating energy that can be used on a local scale.
NASA’s TESS Spacecraft Triples Size of Pleiades Star Cluster - NASA Science
Utterly fascinating.
One of the key things that I took away is that these were known as "3 stars" at some point. Then were known as 3 clusters of stars. And now they have been identified as over 1,000 stars making up this object!
And that's culled from the nearly 10,000 that are near enough by the clusters to have been possibly part of it.
10,000 stars we can see in one location! That just boggles the mind.
Tuesday, December 2, 2025
November: AI and 5G unite bringing sports fans closer to the action than ever before | News and features | University of Bristol
The problem they identified was that at football matches, where many people converge, there is a strain on the cellular network and most fans experience latency.
So they employed an AI solution - and for the record, this seems like an appropriate use of the technology - to best manage the network.
In their testing, fans were able to get real time match data and stream video without buffering. And media outlets were able to communicate out information.
It's actually pretty cool.
Living cement: scientists turn bacteria-infused cement into energy-storing supercapacitors
In short, a group of Danish researchers found a way to infuse bacteria into cement, so that the bacteria can be "fed" electricity and that can be stored in the cement kind of like a battery.
The applications would be that anything made of cement - your home, a roadway, whatever - could store energy at a low cost. And then that energy could be extracted and used.
And all this without having to extract metals from the earth.
Monday, December 1, 2025
Disneyland's new plan to get everyone off their phones
This story mildly amused me. Disney wants people's heads out of their phones so they can interact with loved ones who are with them, and enjoy the moment.
And of course the plan is to change nothing about how technology must be used. But rather to try and employ *more technology*
Their aim is to make the use of whichever brand of connected glasses so you can look up. While watching something else and not paying any attention to those around you.
But you can look like you are!
Such weird times we live in.
Final Skating penguins
Ultimately, after a few hours (or so) of cutting and gluing, I was done. And they look pretty good!
I fixed a few parts that broke, but otherwise it was just a matter of re-covering them.
Sometime later, I may update them in a more detailed way.
Stay tuned.
Skating Penguins
A few years ago, I worked on some skating penguins. You can read about my DIY approach here:
I pulled them out for this holiday season and … well … they looked pretty ratty.
My papier maiche had completely worn off. They looked terrible.
I decided they needed an upgrade. I had a few ideas, and saw some videos that had some creative ideas.
But, I pulled these guys out just after Halloween, and updating them with more sophistication was going to take time.
So I came up with a very simple plan B. Something I could make work in a short amount of time and which would cost very little.
I went to Walmart and bought 3 plastic table covers, one each of orange, white, and black. And I purchased some wood glue because it should work with the plastic.
And I set about cleaning these guys and recovering them.
I will also note that originally I had 4 penguins. There was another one that turned out bigger than I had planned and he looked like he was slipping on the ice. His arms stuck out far … and after a couple of uses, he started to really deteriorate and I had no good place to store him.
So I sadly dismantled that one and moved on having just 3. I potentially could re-make him later. But for now, I’m happy with these.
Ford CEO says he has 5,000 open mechanic jobs with 6-figure salaries from the shortage of manually skilled workers: ‘We are in trouble in our country’
Quite the perspective. Very many skilled manual labor jobs remain unfilled.
As Farley notes "we are in trouble in our country."
The idea of bringing manufacturing back requires that people step in to various jobs in the industry.
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is now home to dozens of species - Earth.com
The "great pacific garbage patch" has become part of the ecosystem, with its own unique attributes and its now home to several species of marine life.
That's just wild…
https://www.earth.com/news/great-pacific-garbage-patch-so-large-that-dozens-of-species-call-it-home/
Walt Disney Imagineering Brings ‘Frozen’ Olaf Robotic Character to Life | The Walt Disney Company
Imagineers have developed a fully autonomous robot that has a shell that looks like Olaf from frozen.
You can read more about the technology involved in the attached article. But man, what a cool technology leap forward.
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