C137

Finding a Black Holes "Kick".

Wed, 13 May 2026 05:37:18 -0700

With all the stupid things going on in the world, yet we still can do something amazing occasionally:

Tom Lehrer passes away at 97

Mon, 28 Jul 2025 06:09:19 -0700

My dad used to play Tom Lehrer when I was a kid. It was something I grew up on. I just recently found he had relinquished his copyrights, so I downloaded his music. If you have not heard his stuff before, it’s worth a listen (assuming you’re at an age where you would like this kind of thing..)

Source: Associated Press

Listen to Tom Lehrer

Daniel Kleppner, Physicist Who Brought Precision to GPS, Dies at 92

Sun, 13 Jul 2025 07:03:58 -0700

It is impossible to overstate the extent of his influence on our society and the fact that individuals worldwide utilize technology bearing his fingerprints on a daily basis.

Source: Times

Fry's in Burbank says goodbye

Thu, 17 Apr 2025 05:57:58 -0700

The end of an era indeed. The old Fry’s in Burbank was just demolished:

www.latimes.com/00000196-…

iPhone 16 and Bluetooth problems

Thu, 06 Feb 2025 09:57:20 -0700

Well, it finally happened. After 17 iPhone over a 20-year period, I finally got one I/O components. Bluetooth just died. A first for me, anyway.

AI Avatars on Meta

Sat, 04 Jan 2025 06:37:43 -0700

There is no way any good can come of this. Allison Morrow writing for CNN:

They'll have bios and profile pictures and be able to generate and share content powered by AI on the platform... that's where we see all of this going.

Uh yea no, that will be a hard pass.

Source: RNZ

Of a Fermion

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 06:23:28 -0700

Researchers have discovered a predicted type of fermion that has mass in only one direction.

From the article:

Scientists have made a satisfying and intriguing physics discovery some 16 years after it was first predicted to be a possibility: a quasiparticle (a group of particles behaving as one) that only has an effective mass when moving in one direction.

In physics, mass generally refers to a property of particles that relates to things like their energy and resistance to movement. Yet not all mass is built the same – some describes the energy of a particle at rest, for example, while mass may also take into account the energy of a particle's motion.

In this case, the effective mass describes the quasiparticle's response to forces, which varies depending on whether the movement through the material is up and down, or back and forth.

Whereas regular quasiparticles have the same mass no matter what their direction of travel, the semi-Dirac fermion (to give it its technical name) being studied here doesn't seem to play by the normal rules.

Source: Science Alert

Author: David Nield

Researchers spot black hole feeding at 40x its theoretical limit

Sat, 23 Nov 2024 07:27:27 -0700

A great article from John Timmer at Ars Technica I highly encourage taking a moment to read. We need more science now more than ever.

Source: Researchers spot black hole feeding at 40x its theoretical limit

Why the Windows 95 setup process used 3 different OS's

Mon, 18 Nov 2024 08:56:33 -0700

I probably installed Windows 95 hundreds of times over my career and never knew this. Makes sense once you know.

Why Win 95 uses three different operating systems

Time to Give AI a Rest

Fri, 27 Sep 2024 07:15:53 -0700

Like a lot of people, I too am sick of AI in everything. It’s a useful tool that’s degenerated into nothing more than every company in the world trying to jam the LLM down our thoughts as the next big thing (aka the game change).

I am not alone. See here

Cause of Lupus Found

Thu, 11 Jul 2024 08:52:46 -0700

Very impressive work by a team of doctors finding cause of the disease Lupus.

We’ve identified a fundamental imbalance in the immune responses that patients with lupus make, and we’ve defined specific mediators that can correct this imbalance to dampen the pathologic autoimmune response,” said co-corresponding author Deepak Rao, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a rheumatologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and co-director of its Center for Cellular Profiling.

In the study, the scientists reported a new pathway that drives disease in lupus. There are disease-associated changes in multiple molecules in the blood of patients with lupus. Ultimately, these changes lead to insufficient activation of a pathway controlled by the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR), which regulates cells’ response to environmental pollutants, bacteria or metabolites. Insufficient activation of AHR results in too many disease-promoting immune cells, called the T peripheral helper cells, that promote the production of disease-causing autoantibodies.

To show this discovery can be leveraged for treatments, the investigators returned the aryl hydrocarbon receptor-activating molecules to blood samples from lupus patients. This seemed to reprogram these lupus-causing cells into a cell called a Th22 cell that may promote wound healing from the damage caused by this autoimmune disease.

Obvious caveats. Any type of drugs to reverse Lupus are a long ways off. What is great is that they landed in Nature which may spark more interest in this area of study.

Source: Northwestern Medicine

New Drug for Alzheimer's Nears Wider Market Approval

Fri, 21 Jun 2024 08:58:56 -0700

A bit of good news for a Friday

On Monday, the panel unanimously voted that the medicine, developed by Eli Lilly and known as donanemab, appears to be an effective treatment for certain Alzheimer’s patients. The experts also concluded, by an 11-0 vote, that the drug’s benefits outweigh its risks, despite some safety concerns.

Source: Biopharmadive

New Way to Grow Human Liver Being Trialed

Wed, 03 Apr 2024 07:47:33 -0700

Well this is just down right extraordinary. It would be amazing if this works!

The approach is unusual: researchers injected healthy liver cells from a donor into a lymph node in the upper abdomen of the person with liver failure. The idea is that in several months, the cells will multiply and take over the lymph node to form a structure that can perform the blood-filtering duties of the person’s failing liver.

Source: Max Kozlov writing for Nature

Vernor Vinge has passed away

Thu, 21 Mar 2024 08:39:14 -0700

One of my favorite authors has moved on to what’s next (honestly nobody knows).

A Fire Upon the Deep remains one of my favorite stories written by him.

He will be missed on this side for sure.

Vernor Vinge (1944-2024)

Whats in a Copy?

Mon, 11 Mar 2024 07:31:09 -0700

Well this certainly does not strike confidence in medical device development. I would think this would be a fixable issue but the fact it’s still present certainly seems like it's being exploited at some level.

Source: William Edmisten Blog

The Hacker News comments are also worth a read: Hacker News

And Now DOOM....running on a Toothbrush

Thu, 29 Feb 2024 05:54:51 -0700

Well the train keeps chugging along the “what exactly can we get Doom to run on next tracks…."

Doom Running no a Toothbrush

Battery Passports

Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:29:37 -0700

While I doubt this would ever take off in the US it’s interesting to see.

The digital documents will be linked to the VIN and a QR code that, when scanned with a digital device, will reveal detailed information about the sources and nature of the raw materials prior to manufacturing, along with post-manufacturing details, such as capacity and condition

Source: Autocar

Insight into Lupus

Sun, 14 Jan 2024 08:07:50 -0700

Researchers have found what can cause Lupus in children. From the article:

Sometimes a single mutation in our genetic make-up is enough to cause disease. This is also the case with the autoimmune disease lupus. Lupus causes severe inflammation throughout the body and can have a serious impact on the lives of those affected. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin have now discovered a mechanism that can trigger lupus in children. This mechanism regulates the amount of a specific immune receptor that normally recognizes the genetic material of pathogens. If this mechanism is disrupted, receptors accumulate in the immune cells leading to the recognition of the body's own genetic material. As a result, the immune system turns against its own body and causes the systemic inflammation of lupus.

Source: Max-Plance-Gesellschaft

Finally - What's in Pee

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 08:03:10 -0700

Our long national nightmare is over. Researchers have determined an enzyme is responsible for making our urine yellow.

From the article:

Gut microbes encode the enzyme bilirubin reductase that converts bilirubin into a colorless byproduct called urobilinogen," explained Hall, who has a joint appointment in the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies. "Urobilinogen then spontaneously degrades into a molecule called urobilin, which is responsible for the yellow color we are all familiar with.

Source: Phys.org

Cause of Fatigue in Long Covid Patients Found

Thu, 04 Jan 2024 08:54:03 -0700

Well this is some good news. Via the article:

We saw various abnormalities in the muscle tissue of the patients. At the cellular level, we saw that the mitochondria of the muscle, also known as the energy factories of the cell, function less well and that they produce less energy," says Rob Wüst, Assistant Professor at Department of Human Movement Sciences at the VU University. "So, the cause of the fatigue is really biological. The brain needs energy to think. Muscles need energy to move. This discovery means we can now start to research an appropriate treatment for those with long-COVID

Source: Amsterdam UMC

Phenylephrine determined not to work

Fri, 22 Dec 2023 08:43:10 -0700

Interesting to see this kind of science. A rare win in todays medical landscape for consumers.

Schering-Plough, the maker of Claritin D (loratadine and pseudoephedrine), was already studying phenylephrine as an alternative oral decongestant. In addition to funding two studies that found phenylephrine was no better than placebo when patients with seasonal allergies were exposed to allergens (grass and ragweed) in a controlled chamber, they funded additional research.

Source: Scientific American

Space 1999 - The Catacombs - Comprehensive guides to Space 1999

Fri, 03 Nov 2023 10:42:49 -0700

Whilst tunneling on the Internets (a series of tubes), I came across The Catacombs - Comprehensive guides to Space 1999. A breakout of all things Space 1999. I loved the series as a kid. I have even purchased the remastered BlueRay versions. If you have not checked it out I recommend it. Its campy and worth your time if you like science fiction.

Source: The Catacombs - Comprehensive guides to Space 1999

The Death of Microwaves and the Instapot

Fri, 27 Oct 2023 11:19:07 -0700

Some very interesting facts on why microwaves are terrible these days along with the death of the maker of InstaPots.

Source: Moth.Monster

Insanity of Airbnb

Fri, 20 Oct 2023 08:11:04 -0700

Now I realize there are always two sides to every story and don’t believe everything you read on the internet. With that said I have read more and more of these stories.

If this is even remotely true, this is utter and totally insanity and should be a huge red flag for Airbnb would be hosts.

Here's the story of how I ended up pregnant and homeless and in over $300,000 of debt after Airbnb guests flooded my home

Source: Coach Erika on X

Graham Chapman's Eulogy by Sir John Cleese

Wed, 04 Oct 2023 14:31:39 -0700

Came across this in my digital travels. It's stuff like this that will forever make them legends.