"Can I Lick It?"
Friday, April 26, 2024
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Flame-Throwing Robot Dog
"You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000"
If you've been wondering when you'll be able to order the flame-throwing robot that Ohio-based Throwflame first announced last summer, that day has finally arrived. The Thermonator, what Throwflame bills as "the first-ever flamethrower-wielding robot dog" is now available for purchase. The price? $9,420.
Young Chess Challenger
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Reflections On The Past Boom
I think the coming AI boom will benefit many people and will also many people very wealthy.
Q: What's the best strategy to take advantage of this? Carefully chosen individual stocks? Broad based tech funds? Other?
And some perspective from the prior boom, "If You Invested $1000 In Apple When Macintosh Was Introduced 40 Years Ago, Here's How Much You'd Have Today"
Monday, April 22, 2024
Technological Resistance Is As Old As Technology
"How Isaac Asimov Predicted the OpenAI Drama"
I discovered, to my amazement, that all through history there had been resistance... and bitter, exaggerated, last-stitch resistance... to every significant technological change that had taken place on earth.
Some things never change.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Too Many Authors
Jordan Smoller: "Letter to Science 1958 arguing that this trend of having 3 or more authors on a paper is ridiculous"
Letter to Science 1958 arguing that this trend of having 3 or more authors on a paper is ridiculous pic.twitter.com/d4rLSlMm7G
— Jordan Smoller (@jorsmo) April 13, 2024
Wednesday, April 17, 2024
26-Year Old Identifies 12 New Dinosaurs
Tuesday, April 16, 2024
Clever Gold Smuggling Tactic
"$10 Million In Gold Disguised As Machine Parts Seized From Cargo Plane"
On March 27, [Hong Kong] customs officials x-rayed two air compressors and discovered that they contained gold that had been "concealed in the integral parts" of the compressors. Those gold parts had also been painted silver to match the other components in an attempt to throw customs off the trail.
Acting Senior Superintendent Jason Lau Yuk-lung told the South China Morning Post that this was the first time customs officials had ever discovered gold disguised in this way. Authorities reportedly believe the smuggler went to the lengths he did in an effort to avoid Japan’s 10-percent import tariff. "Smugglers could have evaded about HK$8.4 million ($1 million) in taxes if the precious metal was successfully smuggled into the country," Lau told the SCMP.
Monday, April 15, 2024
Academic Editor Resigning
Starlink For Space
Friday, April 12, 2024
Electronic Traction Control
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Updated Scrabble
"Mattel launches new, less 'intimidating' version of Scrabble"
"The game speaks to a trend in younger people who want to avoid competitive games, instead favouring teamwork and collaboration working towards a fun goal together," Brett Smitheram, the current UK number one Scrabble player and 2016 World Scrabble Champion, said in the statement.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
A Long Awaited (Eclipse) Party
RIP Peter Higgs
"Peter Higgs, physicist who proposed Higgs boson, dies aged 94"
Prof Fabiola Gianotti, the director general at Cern and former leader of the Atlas experiment, which helped discover the Higgs particle in 2012, said: "Besides his outstanding contributions to particle physics, Peter was a very special person, a man of rare modesty, a great teacher and someone who explained physics in a very simple and profound way.
"An important piece of Cern’s history and accomplishments is linked to him. I am very saddened, and I will miss him sorely."
Tuesday, April 09, 2024
Monday, April 08, 2024
Friday, April 05, 2024
Thursday, April 04, 2024
Wednesday, April 03, 2024
Astronaut Escape Slides
Secret Houses
"Ex-Caltrain employee, contractor charged with building secret homes at train stations".
As Jason Crawford says, "My main takeaway here is that you can build a home in CA for $42k as long as no one is watching."
Tuesday, April 02, 2024
Hsieh Forbes Column On AI And Medical Malpractice
Monday, April 01, 2024
Friday, March 29, 2024
Thursday, March 28, 2024
Consumer Test For "Forever Chemicals"
A friend recently told me: "Quest Diagnostics has now released a PFAS blood test to detect nine 'forever chemicals.'"
Cost is $250. Might not be appropriate for everyone, but could be helpful if you are suffering from declining health from unknown causes.
Customers have the option of reviewing positive results with an independent physician group.
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
AI Inner Monologue
"Researchers gave AI an 'inner monologue' and it massively improved its performance". (Via M.B.)
Scientists trained an AI system to think before speaking with a technique called QuietSTaR. The inner monologue improved common sense reasoning...
Oobleck Update
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Boom Supersonic Update
Neuralink Update
Monday, March 25, 2024
Unaligned Natural Intelligence
Funny story about perverse incentives (or "unaligned natural intelligence" for the AI policy geeks).
1) Dog rescues toddler who had fallen into local river, gets rewarded with a nice steak from grateful father.
2) Soon, dog rescues an unusual number of toddlers regularly from similar near-drownings on nearly daily basis -- each time rewarded with a steak.
3) Eventually local residents figure out that the dog had been pushing the kids into the water, so as to be able to rescue them afterwards (and get the reward).
4) FWIW, I don't fault the dog.
(Source: NYT, Feb 2, 1908, "Dog A Fake Hero", via Zvi Mowshowitz.)
Life In The Great Salt Lake
Friday, March 22, 2024
Boosting Processor Speed
Gels For Surgery
Thursday, March 21, 2024
Wednesday, March 20, 2024
Tuesday, March 19, 2024
AI Story Idea
My latest science fiction story idea:
Billionaire builds secure bunker on a remote tropical island as a hedge against future apocalypse. However, due to subtle flaw in the programming of the "smart" security software, the software develops independent agency and becomes a rogue AI.The rogue AI takes over the bunker, keeps the billionaire and family members sealed off, but uses video/sound simulacra of the people to maintain a pretense to the rest of the world that the humans are all fine. The AI also feeds fake data about the goings-on in the rest of the world to the humans within, who think everything is totally fine outside.The AI now has access to the full economic and technical resources of one of the richest humans on Earth to commence rapid takeoff/Singularity.But just before it starts the takeoff, a set of critical wires in the local hardware are chewed up by a nest of indigenous tropical field mice of a species hitherto unknown to human scientists. As it turns out, the insulation used in the wiring happens to be super-tasty to the local mice.The AI powers down abruptly, and the humans within the compound (who never realized they had been in an artificial data "bubble") have to now deal with restoring power, water, air conditioning, communications, etc."Stupid technology," they curse, "it always seems to fail right when you need it most".
Monday, March 18, 2024
ASCII Art And AI
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Light Posting
Wednesday, March 13, 2024
Tuesday, March 12, 2024
Monday, March 11, 2024
Friday, March 08, 2024
Thursday, March 07, 2024
Museum Specimen CTs
"Scientists CT scanned thousands of natural history specimens, which you can access for free". (Via Debby Witt.)
More information at the openVertebrate Project.
Wednesday, March 06, 2024
Steve Jobs On AI In 1985
Video: "Steve Jobs on Al in 1985". We are getting pletty close to what he envisioned!
Steve Jobs on Al in 1985 pic.twitter.com/BLWUmKX0us
— Historic Vids (@historyinmemes) March 4, 2024
Tuesday, March 05, 2024
Rich, Broke or Dead?
Veritaseum On Black-Scholes-Merton
Video: "The Trillion Dollar Equation"
From the description: "The most famous equation in finance, the Black-Scholes/Merton equation, came from physics. It launched an industry worth trillions of dollars and led to the world’s best investments."
Monday, March 04, 2024
Failed Ideas For Auto Safety
Friday, March 01, 2024
Hsieh Forbes Column: "E-Cigarettes Can Help Smokers Quit"
Straight Line East Of Seattle
Excellent puzzle from Fin Moorhouse: "Imagine you begin a journey in Seattle WA, facing exactly due east. Then start traveling forward, in a straight line along the Earth's surface. You will travel across North America, and onto the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually, you will hit another country. What is the first country you hit?"
The answer totally surprised me. Click here if you want to read more.
Thursday, February 29, 2024
Bionic Arm Update: Atom Limbs
Wednesday, February 28, 2024
Tuesday, February 27, 2024
Superbug Killer
Monday, February 26, 2024
Billionaire Survival Bunkers
"Billionaires' Survivalist Bunkers Go Absolutely Bonkers With Fiery Moats and Water Cannons".
Related: "Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Top-Secret Hawaii Compound"
Friday, February 23, 2024
175 Millions Guesses Is Too Many For Police
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Wednesday, February 21, 2024
Tuesday, February 20, 2024
Scam Psychology
"The Day I Put $50,000 in a Shoe Box and Handed It to a Stranger. I never thought I was the kind of person to fall for a scam."
How very clever scam psychology can take in even wary and educated people.
Monday, February 19, 2024
Deep Space Medicine
Thursday, February 15, 2024
Wednesday, February 14, 2024
Tuesday, February 13, 2024
Facebook Security Vulnerability
"How a social engineering hack turned these Facebook pages into a dumping ground for spam".
Short lesson from one of the scam victims: "At this moment in time, I don't recommend that anybody accepts Facebook Live interviews"
Monday, February 12, 2024
Friday, February 09, 2024
Thursday, February 08, 2024
Wednesday, February 07, 2024
Dot AI Domains
"The Tiny Caribbean Island That's Making A Fortune From AI"
Back in the 1980s, when the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority was dishing out the geographic two-letter domains, Anguilla had the good fortune to be awarded .ai. That good fortune has turned into an actual fortune, with a huge influx in domain registrations over the past couple of years that have massively boosted the island’s economy.
The boom in .ai domain sales was triggered by the arrival of ChatGPT in November 2022. “In the five months after that, our sales went up by almost a factor of four,” Vince Cate, who manages domain registrations for the Anguillan government, told IEEE Spectrum. “Then they sort of leveled off at this new, much higher level. It’s just wild—we’re already like a third of the government’s budget.”
Tuesday, February 06, 2024
Functional 16-Bit CPU Built And Runs In Excel
"Functional 16-bit CPU built and runs in Excel, 3Hz processor includes 128KB of RAM, 16-color display, and a custom assembly language"
Here's the video, "I built my own 16-Bit CPU in Excel":
Monday, February 05, 2024
Feynman Reverse Sprinkler
"Mathematicians finally solved Feynman's 'reverse sprinkler' problem". (Via H.R.)
A typical lawn sprinkler features various nozzles arranged at angles on a rotating wheel; when water is pumped in, they release jets that cause the wheel to rotate. But what would happen if the water were sucked into the sprinkler instead? In which direction would the wheel turn then, or would it even turn at all? That's the essence of the "reverse sprinkler" problem that physicists like Richard Feynman, among others, have grappled with since the 1940s. Now, applied mathematicians at New York University think they've cracked the conundrum, per a recent paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters—and the answer challenges conventional wisdom on the matter...
One might intuit that a reverse sprinkler would work just like a regular sprinkler, merely played backward, so to speak. But the physics turns out to be more complicated. “The answer is perfectly clear at first sight,” Feynman wrote in Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (1985). “The trouble was, some guy would think it was perfectly clear [that the rotation would be] one way, and another guy would think it was perfectly clear the other way.”
Friday, February 02, 2024
Hsieh Forbes Column: How Much Basic Math And Health Statistics Should Legislators Know?
My latest Forbes is now out: "How Much Basic Math And Health Statistics Should Legislators Know?"
How much basic math do legislators know?
The Royal Statistical Society asked 101 members of the U.K. Parliament in 2021, “If you toss a fair coin twice, what is the probability of getting two heads?” The correct answer is, of course, 1/4 or 25%.
However, only 52% of the MPs got the answer correct. On the bright side, this is an improvement from 2011, when only 40% of the MPs got the answer correct.
My first thought when I learned about this study: I would love to know how U.S. congressmen would perform with the question...
Thursday, February 01, 2024
Repeating Patterns In Conway's Game Of Life
Wednesday, January 31, 2024
Smallest Knot
"Chemists tie a knot using only 54 atoms"
Link to original Nature paper: "Self-assembly of the smallest and tightest molecular trefoil knot"
Tuesday, January 30, 2024
Awesome Wildlife Photos
Scientific Fraud Sleuth
Monday, January 29, 2024
Railway Workers Solve Trolley Problem
Railway workers solve the Trolley Problem:
"'Slip the switch' by flipping it while the trolley’s front wheels have passed through, but before the back wheels do. This will cause a controlled derailment, bringing the trolley to a safe halt."
Some great comments in the original post:
"In case anyone is wondering: yes, this is how train robberies operated in the Old West. Slip the switch after the locomotive passes by, passenger cars are stuck there. They could rob everyone and get away before the locomotive could even stop and reverse back to the passenger cars.""And in case you were also wondering: yes, this tactic is still used by people stealing UPS packages from trains in various American cities today.""This actually comes from railroad workers talking in comments on a fb [Facebook] group. I just made the meme for them. They were like 'those trolley memes are stupid, we have to do this in our railyard like once a week when some intermodal runs loose.'"
Friday, January 26, 2024
Realistic Children's Stories
"Distressingly Realistic Children's Stories":
Children’s books are great, but wouldn’t it be good if they taught useful life lessons rather than just nonsense about talking animals and whatnot? Have you ever wanted to give a child a gift that will force them to learn a hard, important truth about life that will scar them forever? Well look no further! Here are 3 ideas for how 3 popular children’s books could be adapted to teach children valuable life lessons...
(Click on image to see full size.)
Thursday, January 25, 2024
Ring Data
Big Screen Car
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
Tuesday, January 23, 2024
Monday, January 22, 2024
AI Skin Cancer Detection
Today's 21st Century Headline
Friday, January 19, 2024
Badass Detective
Smart Binoculars
Thursday, January 18, 2024
Bad Software, Bad Convictions
"Fujitsu is sorry that its software helped send innocent people to prison".
According to a related BBC news story:
Between 1999 and 2015, more than 900 sub-postmasters and postmistresses were prosecuted for theft and false accounting after money appeared to be missing from their branches, but the prosecutions were based on evidence from faulty Horizon software.
Some sub-postmasters wrongfully went to prison, many were financially ruined. Some have since died.
It has been described as the most widespread miscarriage of justice in British history, but to date only 93 convictions have been overturned and thousands of people are still waiting for compensation settlements more than 20 years on.
Wednesday, January 17, 2024
Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Chatbot Roles
Monday, January 15, 2024
Politicians And Probability
In 2021, 101 members of the UK Parliament were asked "If you toss a fair coin twice, what is the probability of getting two heads?" The answer is, of course, 1/4 or 25%. FWIW, only 52% of the MPs got the answer correct.
However, this is an improvement from 2011, when only 40% of the MPs got the answer correct.
First immediate thought: What would be the result if we asked US Congressmen the same question?
Second immediate thought: If that many legislators don't understand such a basic principle of high school math, are they qualified to be making big policy decisions that affect all our lives?
Lost City Found
"Huge ancient lost city found in the Amazon"
"It changes the way we see Amazonian cultures. Most people picture small groups, probably naked, living in huts and clearing land - this shows ancient people lived in complicated urban societies," says co-author Antoine Dorison.
The city was built around 2,500 years ago, and people lived there for up to 1,000 years, according to archaeologists.
It is difficult to accurately estimate how many people lived there at any one time, but scientists say it is certainly in the 10,000s if not 100,000s.
Friday, January 12, 2024
Thursday, January 11, 2024
Strange Metals
"In 'Strange Metals,' the Flow of Electricity Is Equally Strange"
Now scientists may have found the first direct evidence that in so-called strange metals, electricity may flow as a mysterious fluid instead. In a paper published in Science, researchers suggest this electronic fluid could possess extraordinarily low viscosity, potentially leading to unusual applications.
Wednesday, January 10, 2024
Navajo Nation And The Moon
"NASA responds to Navajo Nation's request to delay private mission placing human remains on the moon"
WikiEM
"WikEM, The Global Emergency Medicine Wiki, is the world's largest and most popular emergency medicine open-access reference resource."
The site is uneven, but some pages look pretty good. Here is the one on ring removal. (Contains a NSFW photograph.)
Tuesday, January 09, 2024
Monday, January 08, 2024
SAT Vindicated
"The Misguided War on the SAT". (Via A.S.)
A couple of interesting points:
“Standardized test scores are a much better predictor of academic success than high school grades,” Christina Paxson, the president of Brown University, recently wrote. Stuart Schmill — the dean of admissions at M.I.T., one of the few schools to have reinstated its test requirement — told me, “Just getting straight A’s is not enough information for us to know whether the students are going to succeed or not.”...
[T]he data suggests that testing critics have drawn the wrong battle lines. If test scores are used as one factor among others — and if colleges give applicants credit for having overcome adversity — the SAT and ACT can help create diverse classes of highly talented students. Restoring the tests might also help address a different frustration that many Americans have with the admissions process at elite universities: that it has become too opaque and unconnected to merit.
Friday, January 05, 2024
Vibes For Cancer?
Syllables?
"Do syllables exist?"
We all think we intuitively know what a syllable is, but trying to explain them isn't so easy and even linguists aren't in agreement about a definition.
I think Sam Gamgee in Lord Of The Rings knows the answer!