I'm Just Putting This Here for Reference

Whenever I need a short refresher on the fundamental particles of the standard model, I always have to track down this video. Now I'll have it until it scrolls off my backlog.

One of the Best Explanations and Demonstrations of the Double Slit Experiment

His description of superposition and the 'wave function collapse' finally explained in a way that doesn't defy reason. The wave function is a prediction, and a prediction is pointless after the fact. It doesn't mean physics or reality has changed.

 

This Will Blow Your Mind. And Then AI Will Read It

Remember George Harrison's song from Yellow Submarine, "It's All Too Much"? Well, this is all too much. I didn't think I would like this, and I still don't, totally. But the technology really is interesting.

Brain and brain! What is brain?

A Day Late, and a Dollar Short

How many of you have grabbed a handful of CD jewel cases to go in the car, and when you open them up, one or more of them are empty? So annoying. My invention would be to have some kind of window in the cover art, so you can tell at a glance if your CD case has a CD in it. 

This didn't seem to be as much of a problem with record albums, perhaps because vinyl records were less portable in the first place, and a record sitting on your turntable was pretty obvious. But a CD pretty much disappears into your CD player drawer. 

It's too late now, since CDs have become more or less obsolete anyway, and millions of CD cases already don't have my brilliant invention. Too bad. So sad.

Tau Day 2021

If you've ever struggled with trigonometry, or wondered why we always use 2π for engineering, physics and calculus, it's because π is half as big as it needs to be. We used the wrong definition for the circle constant. If you haven't seen this video before, you're in for a treat.

 

His coverage of Euler's identity actually brings tears to my eyes. It is so elegant. Okay, I'm a geek.

All joking aside, I think the choice of π=C/D is one of the worst and most profound cock-ups in all of mathematics and geometry. And the reason is simple. Diameter is not a fundamental property of the circle. The radius is. 

Most Annoying Computing Things

 I think this guy hits the nail on the head, although I would add two more.

1. Micro HDMI is bad enough, but micro USB is at least as bad. You can lose the function of an entire smartphone if your phones micro USB socket goes bad. 
2. Those infernal pop-over pop-ups on websites. You know the ones: you start reading the article you came to read, and about ten seconds in, the screen darkens, and some bloody annoying advert, or sign-up, or rating form pops up, obscuring your view of the content you're in the market for. This one's a deal breaker for me. I invariably dismiss the dialog while deliberately not reading it, and sometimes, I'll simply hit the back arrow, or close the tab entirely. They have actively lost at least one pair of eyes.