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Satellogic's Open Satellite Feed
Benchmarks & Tips for Big Data, Hadoop, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, Spark, Python & More...
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The latest blog posts to take off on Hacker News. 2,038 posts.
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GLP-1 drugs: An economic disruptor? (2024)
While Silicon Valley obsesses over AI, a weight-loss drug is quietly becoming the biggest economic disruptor since the internet. Here's why your job, investments, and future depend on understanding it
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Why it's so hard to build a jet engine
Civilization's toughest technical challenges are those that require extraordinary (and constantly improving) performance to be delivered at a low cost.
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Bifurcation: The secret giant islands formed when rivers split
As I’m sure you’re aware, rivers usually combine together to make larger and larger rivers until they reach the sea.However, there are some exceptions: rivers do sometimes split up and flow in separate directions. These splits are called “bifurcations” (bi” meaning “two”, and “furcations” being the forks). They happen…
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Closing the “green gap”: energy savings from the math of the landscape function
I recently returned from the 2025 Annual Meeting of the “Localization of Waves” collaboration (supported by the Simons Foundation, with additional related support from the NSF), where I…
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Google Co-Scientist AI fed previous paper with the answer in it
The hype cycle for Google’s fabulous new AI Co-Scientist tool, based on the Gemini LLM, includes a BBC headline about how José Penadés’ team at Imperial College asked the tool about a problem…
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Is Ketamine Neurotoxic?
It is clear that ketamine at a sufficient dose & frequency can and does kill neurons through NMDA-driven excitotoxicity. However, what does a sufficient dose & frequency mean? There is a common myth that ketamine is “neurogenetic”. This is mostly false. While it does increase neurogenesis in the only two places in the…
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But good sir, what is electricity?
A quick look at the physics of conductors, insulators, and electric charges.
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The Shape of a Mars Mission
“From a mathematics and trajectory standpoint and with a certain kind of technology, there’s not too many different ways to go to Mars. It’s been pretty well figured out. You can adjust the decimal places here and there, but basically if you're talking about chemical rockets, there's a certain way you're going to go…
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FAQ on Microsoft's topological qubit thing
Q1. Did you see Microsoft’s announcement?A. Yes, thanks, you can stop emailing to ask! Microsoft’s Chetan Nayak was even kind enough to give me a personal briefing a few weeks ago. Yest…
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Homemade polarimetric synthetic aperture radar drone
Designing a cheap synthetic aperture radar mounted on FPV drone.
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Does X cause Y? An in-depth evidence review (2021)
This summarizes the frustratingly ambiguous state of the evidence for pretty much any "Does X cause Y?" question you might have.
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Who exactly needs to get approval from an institutional review board (IRB)?
IRB you kidding me?
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CDC: Unpublished manuscripts mentioning certain topics must be pulled or revised
Any unpublished manuscript mentioning certain topics, including gender and "LGBT," must be pulled or revised.
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Visualizing all books of the world in ISBN-Space
Libraries have been trying to collect humanity’s knowledge almost since the invention of writing. In the digital age, it might actually be possible to create a comprehensive collection of all human writing that meets certain criteria. That’s what shadow libraries do - collect and share as many
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Quaternions and spherical trigonometry
Hamilton’s quaternion number system $latex {\mathbb{H}}&fg=000000$ is a non-commutative extension of the complex numbers, consisting of numbers of the form $latex {t + xi + yj + zk}&f…
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The Alpha Myth: How captive wolves led us astray
A wolf paces in captivity, teaching us all the wrong lessons about power
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Oliver Heaviside and the theory of transmission lines (2021)
(This is an adapted version of an article I wrote for the Dutch amateur radio magazine Electron , November 2021.)
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Most Influential Papers in Computer Science History
This post celebrates influential papers that shaped technology and communication. Their foundational concepts inspire continued innovation, highlighting the importance of understanding our roots fo…
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Invisible Electrostatic Wall at 3M plant (1996)
SESSION 7: SPECIAL SESSION, 17th Annual EOS/ESD Symposium THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1995, 8:00 am SESSION 7: SPECIAL SESSION: ELECTROSTATIC CONSIDERATIONS IN INDUSTRY MODERATOR: D. Swenson, 3M 7.7 CASE STUDY - LARGE PLASTIC WEB ELECTROSTATIC PROBLEMS, RESULTS, AND CURE, D. Swenson, 3M Company Tremendous static charge…
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Where do those undergraduate divisibility problems come from?
Chris Grossack's math blog and professional website.
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Tomatoes roaming the fields and canaries in the coalmine
Many publishers are getting nervous about infiltration by paper mills, who can torpedo a journal's reputation when they succeed in publis...
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Why the weak nuclear force is short range
The “range” of a force is a measure of the distance across which it can easily be effective. Some forces, including electric and magnetic forces and gravity, are long-range, able to cau…
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Very Wrong Math
The difference between misinformation and disinformation is the difference between ignorance and malice. Trolling is somewhat different, incorporating an element of provocation and narcissism. But what the hell is this?
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Predictions Scorecard, 2025 January 01
[You can follow me on social media: @rodneyabrooks.bsky.social and see my publications etc., at https://people.csail.mit.edu/brooks ]
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The engineering behind the San Antonio River Walk
[Note that this article is a transcript of the video embedded above.] I am on location in downtown San Antonio, Texas, where crews have just finished setting up this massive 650-ton crane. The counterweights are on. The outriggers are down. And the jib, an extension for the crane's telescoping boo
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Common misconceptions about the complexity in robotics vs. AI (2024)
Common misconceptions about the complexity in robotics vs AI