tingilinde

lots of torx screws

A teardown of Apple's updated HomePod.  He doesn't show the logic board (it uses the S7 - also used in the Series 7 Apple Watch), but these things are often fascinating.  I'd like to see re-assembly videos..

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on patriotism

 

"When stupidity is considered patriotism, it is unsafe to be intelligent.”

                    ― Issac Asimov

 

diseases that could become major issues

Nine interesting diseases to worry about.

snip

...

Just three years ago, on Jan. 30, 2020, the head of the World Health Organization made a landmark declaration: A "novel coronavirus" that had first been identified in China had spread to a degree where it was now a "Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)."

The virus now known as SARS-CoV-2 — which causes the disease COVID-19 — is still spreading. But for those who study infectious diseases, talking about possible next pandemics is a necessity.

...

a tip of the hat to Sukie

And here's Zeynep on H5N1 specifically mammal to mammal transmission...

 

 

already..

 

 

 

Of course the real Winnie was Canadian

 

 

when navy ships could fly

current work on long covid

Andy Slavitt chats with Eric Topol about the latest information.  Long Covid as a chronic illness.  

on reducing emissions from gas stoves

They exist and aren't always vented properly.  Apparently cleaner burners exist.

But by turning it into a culture war issue .. an area where a large percentage of the population doesn't care about their or their children's health..

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

 

before the u-2

Surveillance balloons - also part of UFO reports. The US flew many over Russia in the 50s, but with little success. 

snip

...

Behind their facade of official silence, the Soviets were not so easily deceived. They undoubtedly knew that the balloons were coming, but even so, it took time to devise effective tactics for engaging the high-flying intruders. The US had given them one out: at the last minute, the maximum altitude of the WS-119Ls was set at 55,000 feet, and minimum altitude, at which ballast would be automatically dropped to prevent further descent, was programmed at about 49,000 feet. This was at least 15,000 feet below the operating altitudes that the devices were capable of reaching. A MiG-15 fighter straining at full power in the thin air above 50,000 feet would therefore have a brief opportunity to shoot down a Genetrix. The Soviets also had heavy antiaircraft artillery pieces that were capable of lobbing shells to those heights. (Ironically, the Fire Can radars guiding the interceptors and guns were based on Lend-Lease models of the old US SCR-584, the same type used by the Sunset Project to combat the Japanese Fu-Go balloons a decade before, and the same type widely used in the US to track weather balloon RAWIN targets). The Soviets undoubtedly faced the same difficulties as the US Air Force had in detecting and tracking the Japanese Fu-Go and its own plastic balloons, but they quickly realized that the WS-119s were at their most vulnerable minimum altitude when their lifting gas was coolest -- just after dawn and just before sunset, the same hours when low sun angles made their glistening envelopes most conspicuous. The reason for the low cruise altitude setting is unknown. Perhaps Eisenhower felt that the Genetrix overflights would seem less provocative if the Soviets had at least a fighting chance of shooting the devices down.

...

 

better coronavirus vaccines

What we have now is estimated to have saved about 20 million lives.  But the virus mutates and better vaccines, along with trust in public health and better ventilation.  Here's a look at what's possible.  

a tip of the hat to Sukie

 

911 calls and wearables

There's a hole in the usage model for Apple watches.

snip

...

As of September, these devices have come equipped with technology meant to detect car crashes and alert 911 dispatchers. It is a more sensitive upgrade to software on Apple devices, now several years old, that can detect when a user falls and then dial for help. But the latest innovation appears to send the device into overdrive: It keeps mistaking skiers, and some other fitness enthusiasts, for car-wreck victims.

Lately, emergency call centers in some ski regions have been inundated with inadvertent, automated calls, dozens or more a week. Phone operators often must put other calls, including real emergencies, on hold to clarify whether the latest siren has been prompted by a human at risk or an overzealous device.

“My whole day is managing crash notifications,” said Trina Dummer, interim director of Summit County’s emergency services, which received 185 such calls in the week from Jan. 13 to Jan. 22. (In winters past, the typical call volume on a busy day was roughly half that.) Ms. Dummer said that the onslaught was threatening to desensitize dispatchers and divert limited resources from true emergencies.

...

 

 

 

lowering the risk of new epidemics

Studying fruit bats.

snip

...

That’s why Montana State University immunologist Agnieszka Rynda-Apple plans to bring the Jamaican fruit bats to Bozeman this winter to start a breeding colony and accelerate her lab’s work as part of a team of 70 researchers in seven countries. The group, called BatOneHealth — founded by Plowright — hopes to find ways to predict where the next deadly virus might make the leap from bats to people.

“We’re collaborating on the question of why bats are such a fantastic vector,” said Rynda-Apple. “We’re trying to understand what is it about their immune systems that makes them retain the virus, and what is the situation in which they shed the virus.”

...

 

 

for that exotic hobby

amateur radio astronomy

life on snowball earth

How did life make it though the frigid period from 720 to 580 My ago?

Life must have been pretty tough.

snip

...

Planet Earth used to be something like a cross between a deep freeze and a car crusher. During vast stretches of the planet’s history, everything from pole to pole was squashed beneath a blanket of ice a kilometer or more thick. Scientists call this snowball Earth.

Some early animals managed to endure this frigid era from roughly 720 to 580 million years ago, but they had their work cut out for them. Despite their valiant successes, the repeated expansion and contraction of giant ice sheets pulverized the hardy extremophiles’ remains leaving almost no trace of them in the fossil record and scientists with little to no idea of how they managed to survive.

...

 

strange new york weather

The Mount Washington weather station offers some of the  if not the most, extreme weather in the continental US.

From Friday evening as the cold front moved in,

 

 

 

 

harvard is shutting down one of their most important projects

Joan Donovan's Technology and Social Change Project does seriously good work.  So Harvard's shutting it down before the 2024 election. Joan is one of the best in the country in the field.

She's ruffled feathers of a few large donors with some very honest work, but surely Harvard's above that.