Consumption Week 39

My notes from some of the media I consumed this week.

James included in category Consumption and Media

2023-10-01 2023-10-01 665 words 4 minutes

Contents

Tags: EVs

Researchers have demonstrated a material for windows which would allow building occupants to switch their windows between three modes: transparent, or “normal” windows; windows that block infrared light, helping to keep a building cool; and tinted windows that control glare while maintaining the view.
To this point, most dynamic windows were either clear or dark.

Tags: Heating, Cooling, Housing

Tags: Heating, Cooling, Housing

Spider silk [has] exceptionally high mechanical performance. This type of fiber can be utilized as surgical sutures, addressing a global demand exceeding 300 million procedures annually. The [..] fibers could also be used to create more comfortable garments and innovative types of bulletproof vests, and they may have applications in smart materials, the military, aerospace technology, and biomedical engineering.
Mi and his team introduced spider silk protein genes into the DNA of silkworms so that it would be expressed in their glands using a combination of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technology and hundreds of thousands of microinjections into fertilized silkworm eggs.

Tags: Materials, Nature

The idea was to connect green spaces in the city together through avenues and streets surrounded by trees and shade.
Initially the project involved planting some 120,000 individual plants and 12,500 trees on roads and in parks, with 2.5 million new smaller plants and 880,000 trees planted across the city by 2021.
The initial investment to establish the project cost a total of $16.3m (£13.2m) and annual maintenance cost $625,000 (£504,000) in 2022, according to the local government.
A 2021 study co-authored by Correa identified Mangifera indica as the best among six plant species found in Medellin at both absorbing PM2.5 and surviving in polluted regions, due to its “biochemical and biological mechanisms”.
No overall study or review has looked at how much the green corridors project has reduced air pollution yet.
“The reduction in temperature, in some zones by more than 3C (5.4F), was bigger than we were expecting,”
“We also saw the return of animals that had not been seen here for many years.”

Tags: Climate Change, Cooling, Urban Design, Cities

The seven robotic microphones, each about an inch in diameter, will be linked to a central charging station. The robots can autonomously place themselves at various tables.
If I have one microphone a foot away from me and another two feet away, my voice will arrive at the microphone that’s a foot away first. If someone else is closer to the microphone that’s two feet away, their voice will arrive there first. We developed neural networks that use these time-delayed signals to separate what each person is saying and track their positions in a space. So you can have four people having two conversations and isolate any of the four voices and locate each of the voices in a room.
[The] microphones strategically placed near loud individuals can emit sound waves with an opposite phase (referred to as “anti-noise”) to effectively neutralize or cancel out the noise.

Tags: Innovation, Noise, Sound

Don’t be scattered. Do the same thing every day. Repetition. If nothing else, it gets the ball rolling, removes the friction to starting.

Tags: Learning, Art, Skills, Drawing

Don’t specialise too early - explore first
Unstructured play (i.e. not following the rules)
Learn implicitly - it shouldn’t feel like learning/studying (e.g. kids and languages)
Repetition and drilling - but it should be done for fun
Successful people question the rules and don’t follow ones they disagree with - coaches and teachers dislike them
Rage to master + ability to learn quickly

Tags: Success, Learning, Mastery, Skills