Innovation is about finding a better way of doing something. Like many of the new development buzzwords (which many of them are over-used on many business documents), the concept of innovation originates from the world of business. It refers to the generation of new products through the process of creative entrepreneurship, putting it into production, and diffusing it more widely through increased sales. Innovation can be viewed as t he application of better solutions that meet new requirements, in-articulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as a consequence, new, that “breaks into” the market or society.
Innoveracy: Misunderstanding Innovation article points out that there is a form of ignorance which seems to be universal: the inability to understand the concept and role of innovation. The way this is exhibited is in the misuse of the term and the inability to discern the difference between novelty, creation, invention and innovation. The result is a failure to understand the causes of success and failure in business and hence the conditions that lead to economic growth. The definition of innovation is easy to find but it seems to be hard to understand. Here is a simple taxonomy of related activities that put innovation in context:
- Novelty: Something new
- Creation: Something new and valuable
- Invention: Something new, having potential value through utility
- Innovation: Something new and uniquely useful
The taxonomy is illustrated with the following diagram.
The differences are also evident in the mechanisms that exist to protect the works: Novelties are usually not protectable, Creations are protected by copyright or trademark, Inventions can be protected for a limited time through patents (or kept secret) and Innovations can be protected through market competition but are not defensible through legal means.
Innovation is a lot of talked about nowdays as essential to businesses to do. Is innovation essential for development work? article tells that innovation has become central to the way development organisations go about their work. In November 2011, Bill Gates told the G20 that innovation was the key to development. Donors increasingly stress innovation as a key condition for funding, and many civil society organisations emphasise that innovation is central to the work they do.
Some innovation ideas are pretty simple, and some are much more complicated and even sound crazy when heard first. The is place for crazy sounding ideas: venture capitalists are gravely concerned that the tech startups they’re investing in just aren’t crazy enough:
Not all development problems require new solutions, sometimes you just need to use old things in a slightly new way. Development innovations may involve devising technology (such as a nanotech water treatment kit), creating a new approach (such as microfinance), finding a better way of delivering public services (such as one-stop egovernment service centres), identifying ways of working with communities (such as participation), or generating a management technique (such as organisation learning).
Theorists of innovation identify innovation itself as a brief moment of creativity, to be followed by the main routine work of producing and selling the innovation. When it comes to development, things are more complicated. Innovation needs to be viewed as tool, not master. Innovation is a process, not a one time event. Genuine innovation is valuable but rare.
There are many views on the innovation and innvation process. I try to collect together there some views I have found on-line. Hopefully they help you more than confuze. Managing complexity and reducing risk article has this drawing which I think pretty well describes innovation as done in product development:
8 essential practices of successful innovation from The Innovator’s Way shows essential practices in innovation process. Those practices are all integrated into a non-sequential, coherent whole and style in the person of the innovator.
In the IT work there is lots of work where a little thinking can be a source of innovation. Automating IT processes can be a huge time saver or it can fail depending on situation. XKCD comic strip Automation as illustrates this:
System integration is a critical element in project design article has an interesting project cost influence graphic. The recommendation is to involve a system integrator early in project design to help ensure high-quality projects that satisfy project requirements. Of course this article tries to market system integration services, but has also valid points to consider.
Core Contributor Loop (CTTDC) from Art Journal blog posting Blog Is The New Black tries to link inventing an idea to theory of entrepreneurship. It is essential to tune the engine by making improvements in product, marketing, code, design and operations.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Your Nonstick Pan Could Be Harmful. Try These Alternatives
The EPA will declare components of many Teflon coatings hazardous. Can a ceramic coating—or even none at all—cut it?
https://www.wired.com/story/ceramic-carbon-steel-nonstick/#intcid=_wired-right-rail_785acfe1-46d7-4f7d-9359-8d7a8938628d_popular4-1-reranked-by-vidi
Soon after I spoke with the PR rep at the end of August, word came from the US Environmental Protection Agency that PFAS—perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, such as those commonly found in traditional nonstick pans—are slated to be labeled as hazardous substances.
“It’s a good idea,” says Catherine Karr, an environmental health researcher at the University of Washington, citing a list of potential negative health effects that can also depend on individual genetic risk.
“If you want to have no exposure to PFAS from your pans, use alternatives. You can’t remove your genetic risk, but in this case, you can remove an exposure,” Karr says, listing cast iron, stainless steel, and ceramic as options. The EPA announcement, “will likely motivate industries to move away from this class of chemicals that we call ‘forever chemicals’ because they are so persistent.”
According to a spokesperson, Oxo’s outgoing nonstick pans contain PFAS, but the company’s new ceramic pans have none. The only problem there is that ceramic pans have a mixed track record on the stove, as they are known for not being as durable as traditional nonstick pans. Their not-always-great durability comes up often in reviews and when I speak with friends who have tried them.
As my pro-level-home-cook friend Shannon says, “I can’t imagine doing serious stuff in ceramic.”
Carbon steel isn’t new at all, but while it’s the darling of chefs and line cooks everywhere, it has never caught on for home cooking like its close cousin cast iron.
It makes for a great skillet. It’s durable, pleasingly inexpensive, and excellent at searing, just like cast iron. Carbon steel is by no means light, but pans made with it weigh less than cast-iron pans of similar size and tend to have a desirably smoother surface, leaving little for food to cling to. The downsides are that carbon steel needs to be seasoned—a potentially labor-intensive job that involves cooking thin layers of oil onto the surface—and cannot be put in the dishwasher.
Tomi Engdahl says:
The 50-year-old problem that eludes theoretical computer science
A solution to P vs NP could unlock countless computational problems—or keep them forever out of reach.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/10/27/1037123/p-np-theoretical-computer-science/
1. On Monday, July 19, 2021, in the middle of another strange pandemic summer, a leading computer scientist in the field of complexity theory tweeted out a public service message about an administrative snafu at a journal. He signed off with a very loaded
“Happy Monday.”
In a parallel universe, it might have been a very happy Monday indeed. A proof had appeared online at the esteemed journal ACM Transactions on Computational Theory, which trades in “outstanding original research exploring the limits of feasible computation.” The result purported to solve the problem of all problems—the Holy Grail of theoretical computer science, worth a $1 million prize and fame rivaling Aristotle’s forevermore.
This treasured problem—known as “P versus NP”—is considered at once the most important in theoretical computer science and mathematics and completely out of reach. It addresses questions central to the promise, limits, and ambitions of computation,
One way to think of this story’s protagonists is as follows:
“P” represents problems that a computer can handily solve.
“NP” represents problems that, once solved, are easy to check—like jigsaw puzzles, or Sudoku. Many NP problems correspond to some of the most stubborn and urgent problems society faces.
The million-dollar question posed by P vs. NP is this: Are these two classes of problems one and the same?
Testing whether a number is prime, for instance, has been known to be in the class NP since the mid-1970s. But in 2002, three computer scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur devised an unconditional proof and a clever algorithm that finally confirmed the problem was also in P.
If all the tricky problems could be transformed with such algorithmic sleight of hand, the consequences for society—for humanity and our planet—would be enormous.
For starters, encryption systems, most of which are based on NP problems, would be cracked. We’d need to find a completely different approach to sending secure communications.
P is “the class that started it all.” It is the class of problems that can be solved by a computer in a reasonable amount of time. More specifically, P problems are those for which the time it takes to find a solution can be described by a polynomial function, such as n^2. In polynomial-time algorithms, n is the size of the input, and growth against that input occurs at a reasonable rate (in this case, to the power of two).
By contrast, some hard NP problems might only be solvable by algorithms with run times defined by an exponential function, such as 2^n—producing an exponential growth rate (as with the spread of covid). NP, as Aaronson describes it, is “the class of dashed hopes and idle dreams.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
Silicon-Germanium Bonding Breakthrough Could Lead to More Powerful, Higher-Efficiency Chips
Solving a major problem with high-germanium-content semiconductors, this work could boost future electronics considerably.
https://www.hackster.io/news/silicon-germanium-bonding-breakthrough-could-lead-to-more-powerful-higher-efficiency-chips-7ba37bd52f52
Tomi Engdahl says:
Clever method for separating nano-components
https://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news2/newsid=61795.php
(Nanowerk News) Physicists from Friedrich Schiller University Jena, together with colleagues from Düsseldorf, Gothenburg, Lyngby and Trieste have developed an ingenious solution for separating bonded nano-components.
Their idea is to immerse the nano-components in a solvent near its critical point. In the experimental setup, they succeeded in separating the components in a controllable fashion by only changing the temperature of the solvent.
The authors present their successful experiment in the scientific journal Nature Physics (“Tunable critical Casimir forces counteract Casimir-Lifshitz attraction”).
Tomi Engdahl says:
A Technologically Advanced Society Is Choosing To Destroy Itself. It’s Both Fascinating And Horrifying To Watch
How is it that a technologically advanced society could choose to destroy itself by failing to act to avert a climate catastrophe?
https://www.iflscience.com/a-technologically-advanced-society-is-choosing-to-destroy-itself-it-s-both-fascinating-and-horrifying-to-watch-66116
Tomi Engdahl says:
Now You See Me, Now You Don’t
A swarm of robots can rapidly reconfigure the layout of an entire workspace using an interactive partitioning system.
https://www.hackster.io/news/now-you-see-me-now-you-don-t-594b9e833ea7
Tomi Engdahl says:
The (open) source of cutting-edge innovation
https://research.redhat.com/blog/2022/10/27/the-open-source-of-cutting-edge-innovation/
Where do people come together to make cutting-edge invention and innovation happen?
Tomi Engdahl says:
Maan ydin ei ole puhdasta rautaa – uusi teoria Maan magneettikentän synnystä
Tuomas Kangasniemi6.11.202223:05TIEDEYMPÄRISTÖ
Syy pyörrevirtauksiin ei olisikaan lämpötilaero sisä- ja ulkoytimen välillä, vaan kemialliset erot, joita tasainen jäähtyminen synnyttää.
https://www.tivi.fi/uutiset/maan-ydin-ei-ole-puhdasta-rautaa-uusi-teoria-maan-magneettikentan-synnysta/947c235d-c805-472e-84a0-f775886e856d
Tomi Engdahl says:
Future humans will have deformed bodies and ‘second eyelid’ due to overuse of tech
https://metro.co.uk/2022/11/03/humans-will-have-deformed-bodies-and-second-eyelid-from-tech-overuse-17691609/
Cramped fingers? Crooked neck? Aching elbows?
You, my friend, are using too much technology.
It’s time to put down the smartphone, game controller or TV remote and step away from the screen.
Or else, you could end up looking like Mindy here
Tomi Engdahl says:
If IPv4 is a thing, where is IPv3, IPv2, and IPv1?
https://www.quora.com/What-happened-to-IPv1-IPv2-IPv3-and-IPv5
IP version 5 was assigned to Internet Stream Protocol.
But IP versions actually start at 0, not 1. IPv0 was described in IEN 2. What might be called IPv1 was described in IEN 26. It called for a one-bit version field, which seems shortsighted today. IPv2 was described in IEN 28. These IP versions were experimental and never gained wide use.
What may also surprise you is that IP versions 7 through 9 have also already been defined. These were three other competing protocols, TP/IX, PIP and TUBA, respectively, which were invented around the same time as what became IPv6 and also intended to replace IPv4. If IPv6 ever needs to be replaced, we’ll start at IPv10.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Scientists Just Discovered an Entirely New Way of Measuring Time
https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-just-discovered-an-entirely-new-way-of-measuring-time
Marking the passage of time in a world of ticking clocks and swinging pendulums is a simple case of counting the seconds between ‘then’ and ‘now’.
Down at the quantum scale of buzzing electrons, however, ‘then’ can’t always be anticipated. Worse still, ‘now’ often blurs into a haze of uncertainty. A stopwatch simply isn’t going to cut it for some scenarios.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computers will be transformed by alternative materials and approaches—maybe sooner than you think
https://www.technologyreview.com/2022/06/28/1054169/2022-innovators-computing-internet/
This year’s 35 Innovators honorees are helping to make cutting-edge tech like 2D semiconductors and optical computing a reality.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Weird quantum effect that can turn matter invisible finally demonstrated
By Ben Turner published November 22, 2021
The technique could be used to stop information loss from quantum computers.
https://www.livescience.com/gas-made-so-cold-invisible
Tomi Engdahl says:
Biblical Battle Tales Confirmed Using Variations In Earth’s Magnetic Field
Brief changes in the strength of Earth’s magnetic field have been used to provide more precise dates for the destruction of Middle Eastern cities, concurring with Biblical accounts.
https://www.iflscience.com/biblical-battle-tales-confirmed-using-variations-in-earth-s-magnetic-field-65904
Tomi Engdahl says:
Take Precise Measurements with Comparatron
Comparatron is a DIY digital optical comparator that makes it easy to take precise measurements of objects as small as a grain of rice.
https://www.hackster.io/news/take-precise-measurements-with-comparatron-6eeeb7fb4de2
Tomi Engdahl says:
Kids who play video games score higher on brain function tests / A new study can’t say if video games caused any improvements in brain function but added more data showing that kids who play video games have brains that behave differently
https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/24/23420502/video-game-kid-brain-function-fmri
Tomi Engdahl says:
Hiukkasen outo kvanttimekaniikka − Nobel-palkitut tutkijat selvittivät: Hiukkasilla ei ole tiettyä tilaa, ennen kuin joku katsoo niitä
https://www.apu.fi/artikkelit/nobel-palkitut-2022-fyysikot-kvanttimekaniikan-vallankumous
Tomi Engdahl says:
Micro 4D Printing Builds on Programmable Matter These dynamic microstructures, courtesy of some clever chemistry, can be adapted on demand
https://spectrum.ieee.org/4d-printing-microscale
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://boingboing.net/2022/10/27/kids-who-play-video-games-at-least-three-hours-a-day-show-better-cognitive-performance.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Study Suggests Spins of ‘Brain Water’ Could Mean Our Minds Use Quantum Computation
https://www.sciencealert.com/study-suggests-spins-of-brain-water-could-mean-our-minds-use-quantum-computation
In the ongoing work to realize the full potential of quantum computing, scientists could perhaps try peering into our own brains to see what’s possible: A new study suggests that the brain actually has a lot in common with a quantum computer.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Why talking to strangers can make us smarter
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20221026-why-talking-to-strangers-can-make-us-happier
In a suspicious world, many of us are reluctant to interact with strangers. But talking to people we’ve never met before, even in passing interactions, can make us wiser and happier.
Some social scientists believe teaching kids that literally everyone in the world they hadn’t met is dangerous may have been actively harmful. The political scientist Dietlind Stolle, from McGill University in Canada, argued that decades of this messaging may have damaged a whole generation’s ability to trust other people. This is problematic – trust being key to the functioning of many societies.
“How many social or economic opportunities do we miss by simply being afraid of strangers?” Stolle wondered. While I am not advocating for strangers to approach children, or vice versa, I do believe, as adults, we should think again about the benefits of safely speaking to strangers.
What I learned was this: we miss a lot by being afraid of strangers. Talking to strangers – under the right conditions – is good for us, good for our neighborhoods, our towns and cities, our nations, and our world. Talking to strangers can teach you things, deepen you, make you a better citizen, a better thinker, and a better person. It’s a good way to live. But it’s more than that. In a rapidly changing, infinitely complex, furiously polarised world, it’s a way to survive.
For more than 6,000 years, humans have lived in cities – a form of social organisation characterised by a superabundance of strangers. But only recently have psychologists begun studying what happens when we talk to all these faceless strangers we’re surrounded by every day.
Humans may be social animals but may not always be social enough for their own well-being – Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder
When the participants went out and actually engaged with people, however, they found the strangers were surprisingly receptive, curious and pleasant. “Commuters appeared to think that talking to a stranger posed a meaningful risk of social rejection,” Epley and Schroeder wrote. “As far as we can tell, it posed no risk at all.”
On the contrary, the participants who talked to strangers reported the conversations were enjoyable, interesting and lasted longer than they had predicted, and made their commutes more enjoyable. Epley and Schroeder add that this suggests a “profound misunderstanding of social interactions”, concluding “humans may be social animals but may not always be social enough for their own well-being”.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Record-breaking chip can transmit entire internet’s traffic per second
https://newatlas.com/telecommunications/optical-chip-fastest-data-transmission-record-entire-internet-traffic/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.hackster.io/news/the-stickbot-is-exactly-what-it-sounds-like-a-robot-made-out-of-sticks-9c1a9cb03750
Tomi Engdahl says:
Teeny-Tiny Spectrometer Sensor Could Supercharge Smartphones to Drive Citizen Science
Taking today’s expensive and bulky technology and making it cheaper and smaller, this “lab on a chip” promises a wealth of potential.
https://www.hackster.io/news/teeny-tiny-spectrometer-sensor-could-supercharge-smartphones-to-drive-citizen-science-7b48ee5cfd97
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.boredpanda.com/transparent-animals/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Neural Acoustic Fields Let You Map How the World Sounds — and Simulate Listening From Anywhere
Based on techniques used in visual processing, NAFs can simulate how sound is perceived from any location — or build maps of areas.
https://www.hackster.io/news/neural-acoustic-fields-let-you-map-how-the-world-sounds-and-simulate-listening-from-anywhere-f26f429218a7
Tomi Engdahl says:
Windell Oskay and Eric Schlaepfer’s Open Circuits Digs Into the Hidden Design of Electronic Parts
Grinding over 130 components down to reveal their innards makes for an eye-catching and educational coffee table tome.
https://www.hackster.io/news/windell-oskay-and-eric-schlaepfer-s-open-circuits-digs-into-the-hidden-design-of-electronic-parts-faa6d90f897a
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://www.iflscience.com/scientists-have-discovered-how-the-clitoris-generates-so-much-pleasure-65967
Tomi Engdahl says:
Which do you think is more important — teaching future skills or teaching STEAM skills?
Find out what we think, and let us know if you agree in the comments! https://www.arduino.cc/education/teaching-future-skills-vs-teaching-steam
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/15/the-blood-factory-new-research-may-open-the-door-to-artificial-blood/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/02/in-a-way-3d-scanning-is-over-a-century-old/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/10/01/dreemwork-lets-you-code-morse-from-inside-your-dream/
Tomi Engdahl says:
On Tuesday, MIT researchers announced that they have devised a solution to a vexing computational bottleneck, not by widening the data pipeline, but by solving a differential equation that has stumped mathematicians since 1907.
MIT solved a century-old differential equation to break ‘liquid’ AI’s computational bottleneck
https://www.engadget.com/mit-century-old-differential-equation-liquid-ai-computational-bottleneck-160035555.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9sbS5mYWNlYm9vay5jb20v&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAG32pzjsgwWKv0EOpYUuZaIx5oK4tFs5pJD6bJtwJNbwfuYKLfYDZmuTa-WkYYQQs8NK-B9a49kbJjjdHYBReY4hsV6as0YX7jPmszertE8UaoWYWfpqcULPXDhGn-rkTgd3lGJMJ3PlPeq5bIA1cae04542MLxzqdyeGDPP0E0T
The discovery could usher in a new generation of weather forecasting and autonomous vehicle driving virtual agents.
Last year, MIT developed an AI/ML algorithm capable of learning and adapting to new information while on the job, not just during its initial training phase. These “liquid” neural networks (in the Bruce Lee sense) literally play 4D chess — their models requiring time-series data to operate — which makes them ideal for use in time-sensitive tasks like pacemaker monitoring, weather forecasting, investment forecasting, or autonomous vehicle navigation. But, the problem is that data throughput has become a bottleneck, and scaling these systems has become prohibitively expensive, computationally speaking.
On Tuesday, MIT researchers announced that they have devised a solution to that restriction, not by widening the data pipeline but by solving a differential equation that has stumped mathematicians since 1907. Specifically, the team solved, “the differential equation behind the interaction of two neurons through synapses… to unlock a new type of fast and efficient artificial intelligence algorithms.”
“The new machine learning models we call ‘CfC’s’ [closed-form Continuous-time] replace the differential equation defining the computation of the neuron with a closed form approximation, preserving the beautiful properties of liquid networks without the need for numerical integration,” MIT professor and CSAIL Director Daniela Rus said in a Tuesday press statement. “CfC models are causal, compact, explainable, and efficient to train and predict. They open the way to trustworthy machine learning for safety-critical applications.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Species Of Tardigrade Found Clawing Through Sand Dunes In Finland
Move aside, sandworms. Arrakis belongs to tardigrades now.
https://www.iflscience.com/new-species-of-tardigrade-found-clawing-through-sand-dunes-in-finland-66206
A new species of tardigrade, everybody’s favorite extremophiles, has been discovered in sand dunes in Rokua National Park in Finland. It joins a rare elite of tardigrades that contains just four other known species and is characterized by reduced legs and claws that are adaptations for sand and soil living.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Researchers Build Disposable Sensors With Organic Circuitry The proof-of-concept semiconductor and battery combo aims to be biodegradable and non-toxic
https://spectrum.ieee.org/organic-semiconductors
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/17/tv-repair-by-mail/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/17/simple-plywood-lamp-has-neat-hidden-switch/
Tomi Engdahl says:
https://hackaday.com/2022/11/17/logic-via-dna/
Tomi Engdahl says:
A nanoscale view of bubble formation: New model describes the boiling process with much greater precision
https://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology-news2/newsid=61867.php
Tomi Engdahl says:
Yksi yleinen tapa lisää ”aivosumun” määrää – asiantuntija suosittelee lopettamaan heti: ”Kuuntelen kauhulla” https://www.is.fi/menaiset/hyva-fiilis/art-2000009164676.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Computer Proof ‘Blows Up’ Centuries-Old Fluid Equations
By
JORDANA CEPELEWICZ
November 16, 2022
https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-helps-prove-long-sought-fluid-equation-singularity-20221116/
For more than 250 years, mathematicians have wondered if the Euler equations might sometimes fail to describe a fluid’s flow. A new computer-assisted proof marks a major breakthrough in that quest.
Tomi Engdahl says:
If We’re Living In A Simulation, A Computer Scientist Has A Plan To Escape
If we’re in a simulation, there are ways we can escape.
https://www.iflscience.com/if-we-re-living-in-a-simulation-a-computer-scientist-has-a-plan-to-escape-66235
Tomi Engdahl says:
Life In Our Solar System May Have Started On Mars, Not Earth
Mars was the place to be way back when the rock was young.
https://www.iflscience.com/life-in-our-solar-system-may-have-started-on-mars-not-earth-66275
The organic molecules that enabled life to emerge were present on Mars around 4.5 billion years ago, new research suggests. And while these critical components may have hitched a ride to Earth around the same time, it was on the Red Planet that life found the most hospitable conditions.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Muovipussilapset
Keinokohtu voi tulevaisuudessa antaa pikkukeskosille elintärkeää lisäaikaa kypsymiseen. Sitä ennen on ratkottava isoja eettisiä kysymyksiä. Kasvaako keinokohdussa sikiö vai vauva? Kuka sen elämästä päättää? Mitä abortti tarkoittaa?
https://suomenkuvalehti.fi/paajutut/kasvaako-keinokohdussa-sikio-vai-vauva-keinokohtu-ei-ole-enaa-tieteisfiktiota-eettisia-kysymyksia-on-pohdittava-jo-nyt/
Tomi Engdahl says:
Toisen planeetan mies https://www.is.fi/taloussanomat/art-2000009207789.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
Using machine vision, a neural network, and a pair of industrial arms, this robot can fold 30 to 40 randomly positioned garments per hour, usually finishing each within two minutes.
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/tired-of-laundry-folding-ai-breaks-the-robot-folding-speed-record/?utm_medium=social&utm_brand=ars&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=facebook
Tomi Engdahl says:
The foundations of mathematics are unproven
Philosopher and logician Kurt Gödel upended our understanding of mathematics and truth.
https://bigthink.com/hard-science/kurt-godel-foundations-mathematics-unproven/#Echobox=1668921386
Tomi Engdahl says:
An Introduction to Lagrangians and the Principle of Stationary Action
https://medium.com/@nawaffalbalushi/an-introduction-to-the-calculus-of-variations-and-the-principle-of-stationary-action-efe82d38473
In 1687, Newton published his Principia Mathematica, revealing his three laws of motion along with his development of calculus. After that, many scientists, including Newton, came up with a series of problems that are in the field of what would become the calculus of variations, but at the time, their solutions were not straightforward.
Then in the 1750s, Leonhard Euler and Joseph-Louis Lagrange release their Euler-Lagrange equations; a huge advance in the calculus of variations and made these types of problems much easier to solve. This would lead to the concepts such as the Lagrangian and the principle of stationary action, which are indispensable tools in modern physics, as shown by Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman in their theories of general relativity and path integrals respectively.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A silly tomato timer came in clutch after grief and a global pandemic destroyed my attention span.
How a Pomodoro timer app helped me regain my focus / A silly tomato timer came in clutch after grief and a global pandemic destroyed my attention span.
https://www.theverge.com/23466074/pomodoro-timers-focus-productivity-app
Pomodoro timers are a tool used with the Pomodoro Technique. Developed in the 1980s by Francesco Cirillo, the idea is to devote 25 uninterrupted minutes to a task. When you’re done, you can take a five- to 10-minute break. Each 25-minute interval is called a Pomodoro, and after four Pomodoros, you can take a longer 15–30 minute break. If you finish early, you use the remaining time to either review your work or plan upcoming Pomodoros. You can also tweak the length of intervals and breaks to what works best for you.
I’ve used Pomodoro timers off and on for the past decade (perhaps longer),
Worst of all, I could barely focus on anything for more than a few minutes at a time. What I needed was a Pomodoro timer with a built-in to-do list.
After poking around the internet, I landed on Focus To-Do. I didn’t expect much — it’d never stuck before, so why would it now? I messed up a bunch, but at the end of the first week, I noticed one small improvement: I was a lot better at getting little things done. You know, the tiny annoying tasks that need to get done but constantly get put on the back burner. Those tasks always leave me anxious, but that week I felt immense relief.
The Focus To-Do app gives you an estimate of how many hours your list will take. That, in turn, helped me to better visualize what I could reasonably get done today and what had to be moved to the next day. It also taught me how long I spent on recurring tasks.
Meanwhile, my little breaks were a chance to steal back some time for myself. Instead of browsing Twitter to acquire more brain worms, I forced myself to leave my desk. My rule was I could do anything I wanted so long as I wasn’t chained to my keyboard. I’d pick up packages, water my plants, or declutter my kitchen counter.
Tomi Engdahl says:
A miniature antenna can transmit data from inside cells without using damaging microwaves
Tiny ‘Rover’ Explores Cells without Harming Them
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tiny-rover-explores-cells-without-harming-them/?utm_term=Autofeed&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1669032361
A miniature antenna can transmit data from inside cells without using damaging microwaves
Recent engineering advances have enabled scientists to shrink electronics down to the cellular scale—with hopes of potentially using them to explore and manipulate the innards of individual cells. But such a rover would need to receive instructions and transmit information—and communicating with devices this small can be extremely difficult. “Miniaturizing an antenna to fit inside the cell is a key challenge,”
Unfortunately, subcellular antennas have to be so tiny that they require frequencies in the microwave range. And like the beams in a kitchen microwave, these signals “just fry up the cells,” Sarkar says. But she and her colleagues think they have a solution. In a Nature Communications paper, they describe a new antenna design that can operate safely inside cells by resonating with acoustic rather than electromagnetic waves. A functioning antenna could help scientists power, and communicate with, tiny roving sensors within the cell, helping them better understand these building blocks and perhaps leading to new medical treatments.
Sarkar and her team machined their experimental antenna from a “magnetostrictive” material—one that changes shape when exposed to a magnetic field. The researchers chose a widely available alloy of iron, nickel, boron and molybdenum, a combination already used in other kinds of sensors. When an alternating-current magnetic field is applied to this magnetostrictive antenna, the north and south poles of its molecules align themselves with the changing magnetic field, flipping back and forth, which stretches the material. This motion makes the antenna vibrate like a tiny tuning fork.
Like any magnetic material, the antenna produces its own magnetic field in response to the external one, but because it is vibrating, its motion alters its new magnetic field in ways that a receiver can detect. This allows for two-way communication.
The key difference between a conventional antenna and the Cell Rover is the translation of electromagnetic waves into acoustic waves. “Their antenna resonates not based on the wavelength of light, but on the wavelength of sound,”
The researchers first tested the Cell Rover in air and water, and they found that the antenna’s frequency of operation was 10,000 times smaller than that of an equivalent electromagnetic antenna—low enough to avoid killing live cells. Next the team tested the device within a living system: the egg cell of the African clawed frog, a model organism. Since the Cell Rover was made from a magnetic material, the researchers could use a magnet to pull it into each test cell. After these insertions, the egg cells looked healthy under a microscope and had not sprung any leaks. While inside the egg cell, the Cell Rover was able to receive an electromagnetic transmission and send a responding signal outward, up to a distance of one centimeter. The researchers also added multiple different-sized Cell Rovers to a single cell, and found they could distinguish the transmission signals of individual rovers.
Despite the progress in shrinking the Cell Rover, the prototypes themselves were still relatively large. At just over 400 micrometers (0.4 millimeters) long, they were too sizeable to fit inside many cell types. So the scientists computationally simulated the operation of an antenna about 20 times smaller than the ones they tested. They found these hypothetical rovers could retain a similar communication range—but they have yet to build them.
So far the scientists have only showed that the Cell Rover can work in principle, using it to send empty signals; this type of transmission can be thought of as being a little like static on a TV. Next they will try to determine what kind of “shows” they can watch by outfitting the rover with tiny instruments that could collect and convey information about the rover’s surroundings. For instance, they might add a simple polymer coating that would bind to nearby ions or proteins. When these substances stick to the polymer they would change the Cell Rover’s mass, and this in turn would alter the acoustic vibrations it produces. By measuring these changes, researchers could assess a cell’s protein or ion levels.
Cell Rover might also be adapted for more complex applications. It might be possible to someday use such devices to destroy cancer cells, to electrically alter signaling pathways in order to influence cell division or differentiation, or even to serve as a power source for other miniature devices. “We can not only do intracellular sensing and modulate the intracellular activities, but we can power nanoelectronic circuits,”