I disagree with your point #2 as it is written. You want to keep you battery close to the temperature at which it is rated. Cycling below that also harms batteries and shortens their life. If you really want to geek out about that, I can recommend for example a talk [1] that was given last week (you can jump to slide 15). The presentation has nice electron microscopy images of the cracking this type of abuse causes in batteries.
Incredibly, this site is still being updated and added to. The site owner as been at it for over 20 years.
If you are in California or the US, enter your town's name in the search bar and you will be surprised by what you learn about buildings you have noticed in your daily life.
One reproduces the sky as seen from Earth (planets, stars, galaxies, etc), while the other is a model of the solar system. The Zeiss device will let you see the sky as it is at different dates, from different places on Earth, will let you see the sky as if the Sun was not shining during daytime (so you can see the other objects). It is unfair to discount it as just a new way of presenting what that other machine was showing. They are in fact very different in what they can do.
Yes I do, all the time. Your post and the comments it elicited reminded me of the excerpt from Adam Smith's Weath Of Nations about the Woolen Coat. It is given as an example of what can be achieved thanks to the division of labor. I took pleasure in re-reading it so I copy it here:
"The woolen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool-comber or carder, the dryer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very distant part of the country! how much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world!... Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next to his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on... the kitchen grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage...; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided... the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be tue, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many of African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages."
Only the market could possibly create the magic of modern society. Countless independent firms operating with knowledge only of their inputs and outputs, adjusting prices and wages based upon their unique window of the larger economy.
Somehow every time I go to buy something there are hidden qualities I lack the information or skills to judge.
Clothesline Pegs: I've made some effort here because I like functionally good design. Currently own "pink pegs" but half of those have broken (fragile plastic over time - not sure if brand changed or I didn't get original brand). Bought some stainless steel pegs - threw first lot away because they get tangled. Bought second lot but they appear to be getting rust spots. My parents have some 45 year old plastic pegs that still work great!
Appliances: broken Miele about 5 years old. Luckily discovered one model of Microwave with a good UI (so good I got my parents the same model). Struggled to find an induction hob/stovetop with actual knobs: current fashion is touch-sensitive buttons and they all have UI faults that fail for my elderly mum. Touch-UI fails for me too - I fucking hate my stovetop UI and just yesterday my friend struggled to use it).
iPhone: I discover a new bug in the UI all the time. Some are subtle and you would only notice if you really care and are knowledgeable about UI. Some you find workarounds for (Getting to the "Select All" menu). Helping mum with her iPad discovers a whole new set of serious UI flaws. Frustration for mum then too much time out of my day because a number field gets screwed up by her typing in a comma. If you have a phone call and go to the Home Screen, then tap the phone icon why are we not returned to the current phone call screen?
The market for disabled equipment is completely screwed. Spent days trying to find a usable wheelchair. Rollators with brakes that don't work. Hard rubber tyres that get stuck on small surface variations. It's a nightmare: the only thing that helps is that I have the time and skills to find something that almost works (usually with glaring usability faults). Often unobvious dangerous faults remain like the rollator that scratched my mum's ankle badly and required doctors and months of recovery and heartache for my dear mum.
Products and services are fractally complex and there seems to be no solution to the problems for an average person.
Obligatory critique of the division of labour from that same book:
> In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding,or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become.
I think you are up for a surprise if you read the Wealth of nations. Adam Smith was a moral philosopher and was pretty preoccupied by the negative consequences of the division of labor.
Yeah, I've found other surprising passages in it before (I don't think I ever read it right through though). This was published before the French revolution, and a year before the United States happened, so it's cutting edge stuff.
If I remember correctly, Smith was concerned that the mercantile, feudalistic economies of his time was the source of poverty and inequality, and that free market economics would bring more prosperity to society.
Having so much success with "The Things That Worked" that we used some of the excess bounty to allow testing "The Things That Might Not Work" until we found more of "The Things That Worked" was one of the best parts of the enlightenment age to the industrial age.
I am surprised there is on mention of rubber bulbs. If the main concern is safety, as the beginning of the article seems to imply, the rubber bulb would have been enough of a solution. The micropipette solves mostly all the other concerns: speed, repeatability, avoidance of contamination, ease of use one-handed. A great invention for sure. Why would they even mouth pipette if they can use a rubber bulb? Is it that the rubber bulb was somehow invented later? Did you encounter anything about that when researching this topic?
OK, I see. I still find that surprising because I would imagine having the pipette hanging from your mouth doesn't allow ou to really see what is going on if you are really trying to hit a target volume. I would have thought the feedback you need is visual.
Oh. I'm actually looking at the pipette tip under a microscope (in my case it's clear glass that I pulled to a fine tip using heat) and I can see the tardigrade get sucked into the tip when I gently pull with my mouth. And then I can see it whoosh back out when I push. The actual volume doesn't matter, just that I pick a single tardigrade and place it where it needs to go.
The other folks pipetting by mouth are actually looking down at the tube and see the fluid volume reaches a particular well-defined line on the glass pipette.
If you can taste the fluid, you've gone too far.
Can you elaborate: why are the rings not visible on that image? Is it because they are outside the frame, or too faint, or don't appear in the visible spectrum? Something else?
The rings are extremely dark, reflecting only 2% of incoming light. The James Webb image is an infrared photo, and doesn't show what the planet looks like.
I don't quite believe the dice roll metaphor tells the whole story. It is not all or nothing, it is not how it is done. On that subject, I recommend reading the book by Ed Viesturs [1], first American to ascend all 14 highest mountains (summits > 8000m) without oxygen. His take is: to do all 14, you need to come back alive every time. So knowing when to give up on an attempt and turn back is key. Above 8000m (reasoning impaired by lack of oxygen), when the weather is still good, when you are so close to the top, and knowing you will have to wait years perhaps for the next opportunity it can be really hard to make that decision correctly. And picking a partner with not just all the skills bit also the same risk tolerance is vital.
[1]: No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (October 2006)
Apple, software side. I use Apple Notes on my macbook, phone and windows machine through the browser. One day, an important (to me) functionality had stopped working in the browser version only. I knew it should be there and thought they must have updated something and broken that in the process. It happens. I was bugged more than I should have been so I filed a request on the Apple website. Less than an hour later, I get a phone call. When the person on the phone understands they are looking at something real, they ask if they can connect me to an engineer. I talked to some engineer, walked them through the issue. The issue was fixed in the same day. It was so easy. I was shocked a company so big could function on such a personal level. To me that is the mark of great customer service.
