From chimps that wage war over territory to parrots that outperform Harvard students on memory tests, many other members of the animal kingdom demonstrate surprisingly human-like behavior. | Continue reading
"These are historic, extraordinary moments for the country." Government greenlights collaborations with China on clean energy developments: '[It will] maximize our competitiveness' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
If the COVID-19 vaccines were the most significant FDA approvals of the 2020s so far, GLP-1 agonists to treat obesity are a strong runner up. Though these drugs have been used to treat type 2 diabetes for nearly two decades, it wasn’t until 2021 that the FDA approved one of them … | Continue reading
…or maybe I should say, "is deeply stupid, so far". At least, that's the verdict from my first encounter with this heralded innovation. I updated a Chromebook, re-installed Linux, and thought (incorrectly) that I might need to add repositories in order to install some non-standar … | Continue reading
Approach to electrification targets: Honda has not changed its belief that EVs are the most effective solution in the area of small mobility products such as motorcycles and automobiles, and Honda’s electrification target to make EVs and FCEVs represent 100% of its global vehicle … | Continue reading
Do it once and you'll rely on it forever. READ MORE... | Continue reading
Unionization was in full force throughout the entertainment industry in 2023, particularly over at Disney. VFX artists across several in-house teams—including those for the MCU and the Avatar franchise—successfully unionized, a trend that’s now continuing in the corporation’s the … | Continue reading
Battery prices have continued to plummet, frankly faster than even battery optimists such as myself dreamed of. We’re seeing commercial, scaled, price points that we didn’t expect to see until 2030 or later. That has big implications for electric trucking. In 2022, a kilowatthour … | Continue reading
First installation The BirdNET-Pi system aims to provide out-of-the-box bird identification. It's slightly more awkward than that, but still pretty straightforward to get up and running. My first hardware plan was to use a Raspberry Pi Zero as the compute host with a Waveshare WM … | Continue reading
Ruth Marcus in The Washington Post: The upside-down U.S. flag flying at the home of Supreme Court Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. — only days after the Trump-inspired insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021 — shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. After all, Alito has been doing the moral equiva … | Continue reading
Edd Gent in Singularity Hub: Getting microbes to eat plastic is a frequently touted solution to our growing waste problem, but making the approach practical is tricky. A new technique that impregnates plastic with the spores of plastic-eating bacteria could make the idea a realit … | Continue reading
"Good for you!!" Shopper shares astonishing value of unassuming ring picked up at thrift shop: 'I likely would have walked right past it' first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
William H. Janeway at Project Syndicate: Whether mobilizing for war or (re)constructing advanced manufacturing capabilities in peacetime, success turns on the functioning of complex supply chains. But this truth was long forgotten – or at least under-appreciated. Not until recent … | Continue reading
Eric B. Schnurer in The Hedgehog Review: For thousands of years, humankind has fancied itself the apex of creation and the dominant force in the world. Yet humans are now gripped by the fear that yet another species of our own creation—artificially intelligent machines—will prese … | Continue reading
Raymond Offenheiser in The Conversation: I spent 20 years as the president of Oxfam America, an international humanitarian organization, and have overseen humanitarian responses to some of the biggest crises of the past three decades, from the war in Kosovo to the conflicts in Ir … | Continue reading
Michael Erard in the European Review of Books: Language as self, language learning as magic, the mortifications of the flesh: these themes run through The Centre, a debut novel by British-Pakistani writer and translator Ayesha Manazir Siddiqi. Its narrator, Anisa, is a Pakistani … | Continue reading
Fast groq-hosted LLMs vs browser jank Groq is now serving LLMs such as Llama 3 so quickly that JavaScript which attempts to render Markdown strings on every new token can cause performance issues in browsers. Taras Glek's solution was to move the rendering to a requestAnimationFr … | Continue reading
Jeep does not want to sacrifice speed when going electric. Jeep to release its first all-electric model this fall with promising all-terrain feature — here's what we know first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
Dean Eckles writes: I thought this NPR report was an interesting example of how demand for life advice seems closely connected to low standards of evidence. Like if this didn’t supposedly tell how to live longer, lose weight etc., would … Continue reading → | Continue reading
It’s so beautiful! READ MORE... | Continue reading
The weekend Bonus Drop covers various AI-centric tools like llamafile, whisperfile, and Firecrawl. llamafile simplifies the deployment of LLM/GPT models for local use, while whisperfile focuses on converting audio files. Firecrawl is a tool for crawling web content and converting … | Continue reading
The oil and gas industry has reaped profits without ensuring there will be money to plug and clean up their wells. In Oklahoma, that work could cost more than $7 billion if it falls to the state. | Continue reading
My friend Aimee has been celebrating "Tiara Tuesdays" for about a month now - by wearing a tiara around the house every Tuesday. Which is pretty fabulous. So when I read that Friday is International Tiara Day, I realized the one thing Tiara Tuesday is missing: Sunday Sweets! ( Th … | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, but the fundamentals of how this influential new technology works can be confusing. Two of the most important fields in AI development are “machine learning” and its sub-field, “deep learning.” Here’s a quick explanation of what t … | Continue reading
BRB, immediately adding to cart. READ MORE... | Continue reading
Acadian Lane Indigo against ocher, Atlantic Blue abutting shore cliffs, bluffs, and sand, All of the earth on Prince Edward Island The red of dry blood, of weather-worn brick, Of the rutted, twisting road leading down Through the fishing village to the harbor Where lobster boats … | Continue reading
I got on a plane for the first time in about 6 years this week, and about 11 years since my first solo trip. Not a huge amount has changed; the local airport is slightly nicer, and its security is less burdensome, but it’s still akin to cramming into an aluminium tube and taking … | Continue reading
The perfect summer snack! READ MORE... | Continue reading
Where it all began, for some of us... | Continue reading
"The resulting home is proof that families do not need to compromise on style, space, or comfort." Family's home produces more energy than it uses and offers flexible lifestyle — here's how they do it first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
Ryugu's parent body appears to have had a fair amount of water present, too. | Continue reading
After a short break, I’m happy to resume my weekly creative summaries! This one is about a trip, a new iPad and processing images and my job. | Continue reading
I've got about another 10 months left at my current job and after that... I don't know what I'll do. I've already moved down to 4 days a week in an effort to glide down to FIRE. Do I really want to go back up to 5 days? Could I find somewhere that would be […] | Continue reading
California is considering a law that would require warning labels on gas stoves. | Continue reading
Into the 20th century, fog became a popular compositional device. Examples from Monet, Pissarro, Vallotton, Hodler and others. | Continue reading
When I first started keeping a diary, I did it mostly out of imitation. Isaac Asimov kept one, and I liked the idea. As he [...] | Continue reading
Overcast and cool. A pair of love-struck squirrels appear to have designs on my house, climbing the red cedar, peering in the windows. | Continue reading
In my Sunday Musings today, I mentioned that there was no photo of the Coconut and Jam cakes that Julie baked yesterday. It turns out that there was a photo after all. Pastry cases lined with jam, and coconut sponge filling. Really delicious! | Continue reading
There are times when we find ourselveson colder than usual morningsand the summer is supposedly on its way. But where’s the sun? And there are times when we findourselves in front of the windowand watching the rain as it drizzles,because plans changedwhen the sky became gray,and … | Continue reading
I started this one with a grid of squares. I imagined an invisible circle growing from the centre of the grid, and the squares changing size depending on their closeness to the circle. First I drew the grid, and also the circle just so I could visualise its placement. See the Pen … | Continue reading
Read to the end for an important statement about X… or Twitter? | Continue reading
The situation with Fluent Models and Sendable warnings | Continue reading
A new theory of quantum gravity, which attempts to unite quantum physics with Einstein's relativity, could help solve the puzzle of the universe's expansion, a theoretical paper suggests. | Continue reading
"Our main goal is to convert ground trips involving four- to eight-hour drives [into sub-regional flights]." Aerospace startup makes major strides toward producing all-electric aircraft with eye-catching features — here's a closer look first appeared on The Cool Down. | Continue reading
Challengers was definitely a movie. I enjoyed watching it; it was fun. I enjoyed the slow-motion scenes, especially while the characters stood in serve positions, accompanied by the thumping club music. It made those scenes seem more exciting? That got me a message from my wife d … | Continue reading
Cluvens' 2024 model J20 Gatling Workstation has broken cover and it is both bigger and stronger than the first model. Most importantly, it offers a fully adjustable three-screen computer workstation (with attitude) for just USD $4200. Continue Reading Category: Computers, Technol … | Continue reading
This is the final part of a fiction serial, in 850 words. After two years in the cottage, Hettie used a little of her savings to have a bathroom built on the back. Other people in the street had done the same, and losing most of the outside space was compensated by being able to … | Continue reading
Over a hundred years ago, J.M. Barrie told the graduating class of St. Andrews never to lose heart—even in the face of death. | Continue reading