26-Year Old Identifies 12 New Dinosaurs

"Young researcher leads identification of new sauropod dinosaurs in outback Queensland"

Artificial Vision Update

"The Next Frontier for Brain Implants Is Artificial Vision"

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.

 

Moral Panic On Beepers

"The Forgotten War on Beepers"

Academic Editor Resigning

"Journal editors are resigning en masse: What do these group exits achieve?"

Starlink For Space

"Starlink to provide high-speed internet to world's first private space station". (Via H.R.)

New AirPods

"New Apple AirPods are coming. Here's everything we know"

Electronic Traction Control

"A frozen lake and several Lamborghinis provide lessons on traction control". (Via H.R.)

Best Muppet Guest

A great bit of Muppets history. Would love to know what she said to him!

 

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. 

A Long Awaited (Eclipse) Party

"A teacher promised his 1978 class an eclipse party. He just hosted it."

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."

 

Bare Bones iPhone

"How to turn your iPhone into a bare-bones device"

Elephants To Germany

BBC: "Botswana threatens to send 20,000 elephants to Germany"

xz Utils Backdoor Explained

Ars Technica: "What we know about the xz Utils backdoor that almost infected the world"

Total Eclipse of the Heart Literal Video Version

"Total Eclipse of the Heart Literal Video Version"

Periodic Table Regions

xkcd: "Periodic Table Regions".

An an explanation of each region.

 

Faster Internet

"Scientists somehow made the internet go 4.5 million times faster"

Software And First Amendment Update

Eugene Volokh: "Conviction for Writing Software for ISIS Upheld"

Eclipse Viewing Safety Tips

NYT: "Eclipses Injured Their Eyes, and the World Never Looked the Same"

Astronaut Escape Slides

"SpaceX's workhorse launch pad now has the accoutrements for astronauts". (Via H.R.)

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."

Hsieh Forbes Column On AI And Medical Malpractice

My latest Forbes column is out: "Who Pays The Bill When Medical Artificial Intelligence Harms Patients?"

Bad NYC AI

"New York City's AI chatbot is telling people to break laws and do crimes"

Weird Caves

"Earth's 8 Weirdest Cave Systems". (Via H.R.)

Invisibility Shield Update

"Personal 'invisibility shield' goes on sale, starting under $70"

 

More Bad Science

NYT: "More Studies by Columbia Cancer Researchers Are Retracted"

The Unsolvable 3 Body Problem

"The 3-body problem is real, and it's really unsolvable"

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.

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...

Hey, I wonder if learning to "think before speaking" would work for people, too!

Oobleck Update

Ars Technica: "This stretchy electronic material hardens upon impact just like 'oobleck'". (Via H.R.)

Boom Supersonic Update

"It's a few years late, but a prototype supersonic airplane has taken flight"

Neuralink Update

"Watch: Musk shares Neuralink's 'telepathy' breakthrough in human trials". (Via H.R.)

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

"Scientists Thought Only Two Animals Lived in The Great Salt Lake. They Were Wrong." (Via H.R.)

Boosting Processor Speed

"An Ingenious New Process Could Make Computers 2x Faster -- Without a Hardware Upgrade"

Gels For Surgery

"A sprayable gel could make minimally invasive surgeries simpler and safer". (Via H.R.)

Sneaky Phone Scam

Cory Doctorow explains how he himself was scammed by clever social engineering.

Active Shielding Update

"Shields up: New ideas might make active shielding viable". (Via H.R.)

Squatting Benefits

"The Forgotten Art of Squatting Is a Revelation for Bodies Ruined by Sitting"

New Nvidia Chip

"Nvidia unveils record 30 times faster AI chip". (Via H.R.)

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".

 

Zebra Cows

"Japan's farmers paint cows like zebras to fight bloodsucking insects". (Via H.R.)

 

ASCII Art And AI

"Researchers jailbreak AI chatbots with ASCII art -- ArtPrompt bypasses safety measures to unlock malicious queries"

Light Posting

Admin note: Posting may be lighter than usual for a few days due to external obligations.

Medieval Eyeglasses

"Eyeglasses' Arrival: How Immigrants Transformed Medieval England's Vision"

Mild Jalapeños

"Why Jalapeño Peppers Are Less Spicy Than Ever". (Via Gus Van Horn.)

Free Indirect Speech

"How Jane Austen Changed Fiction Forever"

Submarine As Spaceship?

xkcd Video: "Would a Submarine Work as a Spaceship?"

Game Design

"How to Design a Tabletop Game"

Beautiful Movie Shots

"The Most Beautiful Shots in Movie History"

Testing AI On The Battlefield

Time: "How Tech Giants Turned Ukraine Into an AI War Lab"

FDA Progress

"FDA clears first over-the-counter continuous glucose monitor"

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.

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

Rich, Broke or Dead?

"Rich, Broke or Dead? Post-Retirement FIRE Calculator: Visualizing Early Retirement Success and Longevity Risk"

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."

Literal Escape Room

"Cambridge academic escapes toilet using eyeliner and cotton"

Failed Ideas For Auto Safety

"It's no accident: These automotive safety features flopped". (Via H.R.)

Hsieh Forbes Column: "E-Cigarettes Can Help Smokers Quit"

My latest Forbes column is now out: "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.

Bionic Arm Update: Atom Limbs

BBC: "The 'mind-bending' bionic arm powered by AI". Click through to see some pretty cool video demostrations.

Storage Vs. Time

"Scientists Find Optimal Balance of Data Storage and Time"

Hexagons And Board Games

"Hex Marks the Spot"

QC Reality Check

"Quantum Computing's Hard, Cold Reality Check"

1 Petabit Optical Disk

"Meet the Super DVD: Scientists Develop Massive 1 Petabit Optical Disk"

Superbug Killer

"Superbug killer: New synthetic molecule highly effective against drug-resistant bacteria"

Billionaire Survival Bunkers

"Billionaires' Survivalist Bunkers Go Absolutely Bonkers With Fiery Moats and Water Cannons".

Related: "Inside Mark Zuckerberg’s Top-Secret Hawaii Compound"

NSFW Aviation Art

"A Pilot Drew a Pen*s in the Sky and Wrote 'See Ya' During a 6-Hour Flight". (Via J.P.)

 

175 Millions Guesses Is Too Many For Police

"Police must return phones after 175 million passcode guesses, judge says"

Silicon Valley Vs. Harvard

Time: "Silicon Valley Has a Harvard Problem"

Closing iPhone Apps Myth

"Closing your iPhone apps is a mythical waste of time"

EU And AI

"What the EU's tough AI law means for research and ChatGPT"

RNA Editing

"Move over, CRISPR: RNA-editing therapies pick up steam"

AI Nukes

"AI Deployed Nukes 'to Have Peace in the World' in Tense War Simulation"

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. 

Moving Electrons

"Scientists report first look at electrons moving in real-time in liquid water"

About robots.txt

"The text file that runs the internet"

Deep Space Medicine

"Solving astronauts' health challenges in deep space could have payoffs on Earth"

Light Posting

Admin note: Posting will be light for a few days due to external obligations.

Professional Bridesmaids

"The surreal life of a professional bridesmaid"

Responsible AI (Satire)

Video: "World's Most Responsible AI Model" (Satire)

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"

Mandelbrot Decoded

"The Quest to Decode the Mandelbrot Set, Math's Famed Fractal"

Fusion Update

"Fusion research facility's final tritium experiments yield new energy record"

Urban On Vision Pro

Tim Urban: "All My Thoughts After 40 Hours in the Vision Pro"

No More Google Page Caches

"Google will no longer back up the Internet: Cached webpages are dead"

Art And BS

"A journalist goes undercover to reveal the absurdity of the art scene"

Modern Fake IDs

"Inside the Underground Site Where 'Neural Networks' Churn Out Fake IDs"

Unseen Innovation

Donald Boudreaux: "Unseen Innovation"

NBA Chess

"Inside the NBA's Chess Club"

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.”

VF On Apple Vision Pro

Vanity Fair: "Why Tim Cook Is Going All In on the Apple Vision Pro"

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": 

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.”

Bitcoin Electricity Use

Ars Technica: "Over 2 percent of the US's electricity generation now goes to bitcoin"

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...

 

2024 Robotaxis

"What's next for robotaxis in 2024"

Repeating Patterns In Conway's Game Of Life

"Math's 'Game of Life' Reveals Long-Sought Repeating Patterns"

Huemer On The Infinite

Michael Huemer: "Virtue and Vice Among the Infinite"