I love technology (and science)
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Television was made possible due to the invention of the cathode receptor. It was a remarkable discovery at the time. A guy named Philo Farnsworth came up with the design. And he did so at a time when transmitting moving pictures and sound over-the-air seemed more like fiction than non-ficiton.
Philo’s brother-in-law was a guy named Cliff Gardner. Philo knew how this contraption should work, but had no idea how to industrialize it. A key component was glass tubes. Glass tubes were not commercially available in any form at this time, so Cliff Gardner taught himself how to be a glass blower. And he provided Philo as many glass tubes as he needed to make the television a reality.
What prompted me to think about this was a recent trip to visit my parents. I am sure I was told this before my visit, but I learned my grandfather was a Seabee during World War 2. Seabees were construction crews that, among other things, built airports in countries that the US needed a military presence. So they enabled tanks and planes and all the things to get to where they needed to go.
This is my token of gratitude to all the behind-the-scenes folks that get things done. The Cliff Gardner’s and Seabee’s of the world who get very little fanfare, yet enable some pretty great things.
P.S. I possess three things with any sentimental value. One is a “bullet” the size of my head that the Seabees used to ward off enemies while constructing a runway for an airport. I hate most things used to cause death. I love this. -M
Issue 87
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I'm low key fascinated by pre-transistor technology. I mean mankind figured out how to do some STUFF man with electricity and levers and ladder logic and bits of tin. I mean look at this thing. This was the first satellite tv antenna and it looks like Dr. Emmett Brown made it in his hoarder garage. -B
Issue 85
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Art of Manliness – A Beginner’s Guide to Soldering
The year is 2005 and I am in my 3rd year at Ole Miss. After months of trying to gain the affections of a delightful young woman, I finally succeeded after inviting her to dinner at a place that helps you succeed with those types of things.
A few hours before I was supposed to pick her up, she called me saying we would have to postpone. Apparently, her curling iron (maybe, I don’t know) stopped working. It was her first time going to this restaurant. She bought a new dress, new shoes, and was overwhelmed with the night not going to plan.
I offered to buy her a new one, but neither of us lived close to town, and it would be a stretch to do this and still make our reservation. I was an engineering major and enjoyed doing engineer-y things. In a last-ditch attempt, I grabbed a soldering iron I had and headed to her apartment uninvited. She let me in, and I proceeded to fix a loose wire in the electrical cord of whatever device it was that I was fixing.
Within an hour, we were on our way. Her hair looked amazing. And neither the restaurant nor the night disappointed (for either of us).
So, I offer to you, a beginner’s guide to soldering.
-Michael H.
Issue 83
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Wireless Professional Weather Station
Did you know you could have your own weather station on your roof? Thanks to Patrick and Caitlin, now I can pass along this important knowledge to you, dear reader. -C
Issue 78
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How a ‘fatally, tragically flawed’ paradigm has derailed the science of obesity
I appreciate all the amazing feedback we received on our previous issue on obesity. I was exhausted after the process of creating it and needed some sort of recovery period before I was ready to write words to share with other people again that weren't directly tied to the commission of my day job.
I still have a lot more thoughts on this topic and zero additional clarity or conclusions to share. Maybe at some point in the future we will come back to the topic more fully but in the short term I have two dots of an ellipsis to put out there.
1) (H/T Joe D) The attached link is to an amazing article that you should read if this topic is at all interesting. I've emailed a little with the author who I think is very smart but who is also clearly selling something so probably this is all snake oil nonsense. I trust you to use your brain as an adult to discriminate.
“Even when maintained on 50 percent of normal food intake,” Coleman reported in 1985, “mutants still become obese.”
2) (H/T Wes B) Below is a random picture of a random group of people at Woodstock in 1969. I want you to think about how many people you know, maybe the best 5 athletes you personally know, and whether or not they have a six pack. What does a random group of people at a music festival today look like?
-Brian
Issue 78
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No One Can Explain Why Planes Stay in the Air
If someone close to you is afraid of flying, this article will not comfort them so keep it to yourself. -C
Issue 78
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Kids who grew up with search engines could change STEM education forever
Kids who grew up with search engines apparently don't know how to use a file tree because they just search a giant virtual space full of ALL THE FILES and the algorithm magically retrieves what they need which they use then just throw back into the mystery space.
Relatedly: Calvin you should show everyone a picture of your computer desktop and the millions of files piled up on top of each other. I'll show them a picture of my clean desktop and file storage system that makes it easy to navigate to anything you need. I promise this is a judgment free zone.
Less Relatedly: I'm in a fantasy football league with a bunch of whippersnappers and we use an app they love called Sleeper that has zero logic or structure and it makes me want to throw my phone across the room. Nothing is linear and random swipes in random directions send you to different chat rooms and hashtags and blockchains or something. What was wrong with Yahoo (says the guy who makes fun of people with AOL emails)?
Is all this similar to the aliens in Star Wars (e.g. Admiral Ackbar) who were from aquatic planets and so were uniquely evolved to win space battles because of their intuitive grasp of the 3rd dimension? -B
K, here's my desktop. It's fine. I never see it because Alfred finds everything for me. 😝 -C
Issue 77
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Why Apocalyptic Claims About Climate Change Are Wrong
Since we're getting into crypto this week (see section below), it seemed tangentially relevant to include a semi heterodox take on climate change. If you don't know why that's tangentially relevant then go down the rabbit hole that is googling "Tesla and Bitcoin" or maybe we'll find a fun article detailing that drama in a future issue. -C
Issue 73
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The World Needs Nuclear Power, And We Shouldn’t Be Afraid Of It
My personal hot take on clean energy is that a key piece of the climate change puzzle or whatever we want to call that fuzzy collection of issues has to be the clean, reliable, and safe new nuclear reactors that have been developed in the last 20 years, amongst many other things. This is to me obvious when you realize that China is still building dozens of coal plants every year which desperately need to be nuclear plants instead and have zero chance of being solar panels or wind mills. -B
Issue 72
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America Is Bad at Building Power Lines. We Can Fix That.
...or can we? Good ideas here about something I never think about, or notice as I'm driving my fossil fueled vehicle down the road. But alas, ancient rules and disincentivized lawmakers may mean we keep on doing nothing. I guess maybe someone could make a movie? Transmission Curmudgeons Go To Washington by the Cohen Brothers sounds right. -C
Issue 72