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Article suggestions are welcome. They can be about anything, and don't necessarily have to be academic in nature.

Here is a a lesson plan with visual aids and activities for kids grade 3-5 on flavor profiles and common combinations in foods associated with different cultures.

That's like an article, right?

Well at any rate I think it would be educational for you.

Sure. I'll add it to the list.

"the"

Acute.

You can find my list of curated articles as well as links/sources to them [here].

Lol, you don't have to actually do the lesson plan.

http://theeditorsblog.net/2010/12/08/punctuation-in-dialogue/

It is a good article.

Reading Gower's articles on punctuation (and other English things) is a good idea as well.

This all applies even if you've read them already, since then it can be a refresher or something.

Here's a thing about Quasar Tsunamis, which would be a good name for a band.

Very neat! Once had a sci-fi plotted of. Universe wide competition where teens would compete surfing the twisted gravitational fields around micro black holes - but this has so much more potential. If those forces could be manipulated or weaponizef it could make for an epic multi-galactic battle.

You can read my full notes/rough draft [here].

Design of DNA Digital Circuits

The article starts well, with a basic explanation of both logic gates and DNA (but obviously going much further into DNA). The structure of DNA is largely unimportant throughout the article, but it's helpful to know that DNA has ultra-high data density - it can store a fuckload of information in a very tiny energy efficient space.

My initial concerns while reading were the high cost of both energy and time to perform a read-write operation on DNA, and the slow performance of DNA computing (on the order of seconds, minutes, hours where digital computers operate around nanoseconds). The costly operation to read from or write to DNA is still a problem - but apparently it's getting better over recent years. It will still require specialized instrumentation regardless. The deal with speed is that DNA computing is not meant to be used in parallel with electronic inorganic computing devices, it's meant to provide a super dense computer within the confines of a single cell that can perform some operation like disease diagnostic or signal processing within the organism.

All the logic operations and circuits are performed through a reaction known as DNA-strand-displacement or DSD for short. This is surprisingly appropriately named given that we're dealing with biologists here. The details of how it works are given in the article, but are too complicated and biology-y for me to understand properly. They also describe how you can do all this in a lab. I didn't care.

The meat:

Two primary architectures are used: one that uses the concentration of certain DNA strands to determine a logic high (1) or logic low (0) with predefined threshhold values and one that uses an origami-like structure within the cell to hole individual strands separate from each other (like a matrix) and if a strand is in one of these little pockets then it's a logic high and if a strand isn't in one of the pockets it's a logic 0. In electrical computing we do this via voltages, usually from 0 to 1.5V is a logic low (0) and a voltage from 3 to 5V is a logic high (1).

We can use these logical operations based on concentration of strands to make analog circuits - which is where DNA computing is really going to shine. Things like amplifiers, timers, and arithmetic operations which are the base of most analog computing can be done. With these, we can automate CRISPR-like operations within cells themselves.

I mentioned disease diagnostic and signal processing earlier, here's an application we can use to visualize both: say a disease is present in a single cell, the DNA we've put in can detect that and release strands of DNA which would be recognized as a logic 1. Thus we've amplified the presence of a disease and have made diagnosis easier. But what about signal processing? Well, the nucleic acid translators can be used as sensors that produce certain strands, increasing the concentration of those, which can in turn be used to actuate some operation similar to CRISPR automatically within the body and in a fully organic computational process.

The speed of DSD is dependent on a lot of things, and I was skeptical when the article mentioned solving hard mathematical problems using DNA computation faster than a regular computer. It was when I realized there could be trillions of DNA cell computers going at once solving the same problem such that even if it takes each one a full second to compute one piece of the problem, the other trillion have done their part and all of it put together is a full solution. The parallelism ability for DNA computing just within a cell is astounding and the track record includes solving some NP-complete and 3-SAT problems which is quite impressive.

I actually hadn't realized you had another article on DNA storage already picked out. The Microsoft one was something I randomly came across and will probably just be a much less detailed retread.

https://corporate.ford.com/articles/sustainability/ford-mcdonalds-coffee-bean-car-parts-collaboration.html

This is for laughs, but it is actually a pretty interesting article. Sorry for my bad humor.

(Since it's an article about Ford... and McDonald's)

Architectural and Integration Options for 3D NANDFlash Memories

An amazingly boring article about the workarounds developed for NAND memory architectures of all types (SSD, Flash, etc). From the bounds, physical and manufactural, of planar memory cell architecture births a more historical text than a science text wherein the actual terms and descriptions are of no interest but the focus seems to be on how the solutions came about and what makes them dope. Several architectures are reviewed in series, the next more complicated than the last, and descriptions on manufacturing techniques almost becomes a tutorial for those of us with spare 10nm steppers lying about in the garage.

I give this article 2/8.

Storage Briefings Roundup: Computational Storage, Micro Edge

This short article covers four technologies in three industry-related categories: computational storage, software-defined servers, and hyperconverged computing.

In computational storage the article dives into NDG Systems and ScaleFlux’s new technologies which offer computation directly on the SSD in order to decrease load on the CPU but more importantly decrease bus load.

For those not in the know, a bus is a collection of wires which transmit data - the simplest bus being a single wire. If you wanted to transmit an 8-bit binary number, like 10001000 then 8 wires would do that most efficiently because you would only need one clock cycle or “tick” to read all 8 at once, whereas one wire would need at least 8 cycles to transfer that same data. Busses are always the limiting factor of memory storage and computational technology. Their length (physical distance away from connected components) and width (number of wires) are primary qualities that affect the speed of data transfer. Anyways, back to the article.

The company NGD Systems puts a processor right in their storage device running linux so they can run linux-based applications. The vendor boasts a 10x traffic reduction on the data bus during a typical search operation. The key words being “typical” and “search operation” here because a search operation requires some algorithm to find the correct data while typical can mean whatever they want it to mean. Say you want to access a file on your SSD (that was made by these people), when you open your file explorer the SSD has a processor in it that will optimize your search so that the CPU doesn’t have to deal with it. All the CPU has to do is request the data of a folder and the SSD does the work - thus decreasing what has to be transferred via the bus and also decreasing the number of cycles needed to do the task. Saving computing power, electrical energy, and making storage more efficient.

Granted, the ScaleFlux solution does the same - except instead of a processor they have an FPGA that is programmed to do one thing (usually the most computationally expensive thing) such as erasure coding, compression/decompression, or sorting. The downside being that each SSD has one FPGA with one function - so if you were going to be compressing and decompressing a lot more than sorting your SSD files, you’d buy an SSD from ScaleFlux that had a compressing/decompressing optimized FPGA in it and the sorting would be done through the CPU. It’s more efficient for specific applications than the NGD Systems solution of a general processor but less efficient than a general processor solution outside of the specific application.

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In software-defined servers, the author focuses on virtual servers and particularly the TidalScale solution of using a “hyperkernel” software to interconnect many physical servers to create one giant server with multi-server storage and computational power. The kernel also manages computational resources between the servers, using each one almost like how your own PC might use multiple cores to its processor. It uses some machine learning algorithms to do the load balancing in the background and run applications that are too resource heavy for one server to do alone.

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In hyperconverged computing, the article delves into the logistics of Hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and Scale Computing’s solution of a 4”x4”x1.5” box that runs the Intel NUC10 microcomputer with the HyperCore OS. The HCI nodes are used to move applications away from a data center and closer to where the data is generated or collected to increase the response time and speed of things like IoT devices or remote testing.

Imagine there was a tiny computer at every telephone pole transformer - that would be a “micro edge node” in this analogy, and the system/protocol that allows all these edge nodes to communicate is what they would call the “edge fabric.” This is helpful if you have an IoT household - you could tell your toaster or whatever to do something and it would interpret and send out the data but instead of sending the data to the nearest data center (usually the closest large city or metro area) it would only have to send it just outside to the nearest node where the node would then do all the things, completing the operation prior to sending the data to a data center. So everything works a bit faster the more of these “edge” nodes exist; and don’t worry - they won’t be on every telephone pole or anything ridiculously close like that. They’d be centered at places like businesses or other places with secure technological infrastructure.

The HCI the article focuses on is the HE150 which, for those who can read computer specs and be impressed, has a 64TB DRAM max, 6-core CPU, 2TD SSD, and only requires one ethernet connection. Scale Computing also provides software for the “edge fabric” and a couple API’s and such to make everything go a lot smoother.

Solid State Storage Advances with Intel's New High-Density, High-Performance SSD

Intel made a 32TB SSD the size of an old-fashioned ruler such that you can fit 32 side-by-side to fit a petabyte into a single server slot. This advancement is made possible through 3D V-NAND architecture set 64 layers of memory cells deep. It’s 10x more power efficient and 20x more space efficient while also using the usual high-performance buses of SSDs.

Short article, fairly to the point. Last one about SSD technology for a while. 4/8.

Personality Type Effects on Perceptions of Online Credit Card Payment Services

A study was performed on a large set of people who took a personality test with the ultimate goal of determining how personality types react to Ecommerce systems. For this they used online credit card payment services known under the abbreviation CC-OPS.

This is the worst table they could possibly use to describe their demographic set:



This table gave me a headache. If you’re also confused about why all the male participants are under 29 years old and why all the female participants make over 20k/yr, I feel your pain. The key is that the columns, though they exist and are properly aligned, do not matter. I think this data would have been better represented in almost any other way imaginable.

They used MBTI which could be an essay of complaints on its own so we’ll gloss over their amateur choice of personality categorization scheme.

Anyways the survey determined that gender did not matter. It also used some unique statistical methods I’m unfamiliar with but I gathered they were determining meaningful results from an ultimately normal (not the statistical version of “normal”) dataset. Income also does not seem to play a large role in people's perception of CC-OPS. A couple participants said social media influenced their perception but the vast majority of the participants made objective decisions because paying one's credit card online is not exactly a social endeavor and is more of a personal well-being endeavor.

Unsurprisingly, people who do not use CC-OPS don’t care if it’s secure or not. What I can take away from their process and data is that personality type also doesn’t seem to matter much and the primary factors are whether you use CC-OPS or not, and those who use it like security, easiness, and quick process. An unexpectedly large amount of people would prefer a notification of completed payment - which leads me to believe people pay online and are for some reason not notified if it went through? This seems like quite the downfall but ultimately I too would use a CC-OPS because I’m definitely not going to figure out snail-mail.

Automated STEM/EDS Metrology Characterization of 3D NAND Devices

This article describes an automated system that categorizes 3D-NAND devices by their feature sizes using Energy Dispersive X-ray Spectroscopy (EDS) and Scanning Transmission Electron Microscopy (STEM) [collectively STEM/EDS].

For people who don’t want to understand any of those words: there’s a program that uses special tools to scan electronics at the nano-meter level and sort them based on features it recognizes.

Thankfully this “article” is like a page long with the second page being pictures of how the program determines what an “edge” is and how it measures between these edges (metrology) to categorize the electronics.

3D NAND Flash Based on Planar Cells

This article is a godsend. It covers almost everything the last few articles related to 3D V-NAND SSD technology cover (not the metrology one) while also providing a quality reading experience and great visuals.

The article goes in depth on three architectures and even provides a table at the end comparing 3D NAND flash types. It goes through the limits of CT vs FG structures and expresses 3D VNAND limitations with the GAA structures requiring a minimum 0.12um bore (very large) for the lines involved. It clearly describes not only the advantages of PBiCS over BiCS structure but delves into the advances from that standpoint where VG architectures may take over in the future.

Unfortunately I am too busy today to write up this article as well as the others, but I enjoyed it moreso than most on this topic so I will rate it a 6/8 and recommend it for those interested in this technology.

A dozen new moons of Jupiter discovered, including one “oddball”

The oddball is a 1km wide “moon” orbiting in a cross-sectional way to a collection of the other discovered moons that are likely broken pieces of bigger moons that collided due to the cross orbiting. There’s a couple other moons they discovered that aren’t as interesting. They are also thinking of naming the tiny cross-orbiter oddball moon Valetudo “after the Roman god Jupiter’s great-granddaughter.” An observatory in my town and some people in the astronomy department of my university were in some way involved with this.

I’ve never been a fan of geology but rocks in outer space are kind of cool. So I’ll give this article a 4/8 for being well-written and not boring.

More article recommendations welcome. The term article is treated very loosely here. Thanks.

A Brief (and Biased) History of Flavor

As interesting as it is to find out the political history of ancient china revolved around food, the first quarter of the article seems to not go about flavor too much. What odd philosophies are presented in the article are quite fascinating and would make for a good set of central ideas for a story. Whether the culture believes food to have healing properties on par with medicine or is treated as a metaphor for the society it is in, there’s a collective mix of ideas about food stemming from these ancient cultures and societies that could be utilized as a replacement for direct exposition in a story.

Instead of a random npc saying “the people of this town value the simple things and focus within the confines of our community” one could say “our food may seem bland, root vegetables and milky soups define us after all, but the care each mother takes to bring the flavor out of each ingredient is something to behold.” bringing to light the idea that although these are rural people, they are expertly intertwined with the land and find value in digging deep both in food and in people. The philosophies presented in the article can be used in this way - providing further levels of depth to the culture and morals of townsfolk in this example; but I digress.

The article continues, making ancient cooks out to be alchemists and potion sellers; and rightly so - the cultures do not seem to deviate so far as we have today and they use fragrant concoctions for all manner of perfume, food, or hygiene. It most reminds me of how we use mint in modern society. The intricacy of the use of ingredients and their instruction is a large point in this article, and shows that humans were no dumber than they are now - but had different specializations. Food has been a craft since the agricultural age and perhaps sometime before. In those ages just the same as ours, there is always someone out there dedicating their life’s hours to beating on their craft; food, fragrance, drug, it’s all an attractive and easily available form of craftsmanship.

I don’t like the random hyphens in words throughout the article. “Em- pire,” “voy- ages,” and “in- cense” to name a few that occur mid-paragraph and the words are used elsewhere without the hyphen.

Modern english food is so bland because some french royal preferred subtle flavors as opposed to strong ones and then that trend got out of hand when restaurants became a thing. The English seem to have taken this to an entirely different level, almost worshipping bland food.

The 1% of the time also didn’t like spices much because they were widely available due to trade and therefore they were for poor people. I take back what I said about people not being dumber back then.

The article’s final act is fairly boring as it pertains to the modern culinary world but seems to only complain about how processed and terrible food is nowadays and how the FDA is involved. Very boring stuff.

Because the article was 3/4ths interesting and fairly educational and inspiring, I’ll give it a 6/8.

I think the hyphens are because it was an actual introduction to a printed book and they probably just got carried over.

This reminds me that I intended to buy that book, but I suppose I should continue not spending money until the apocalypse lets up a little.

Here is some guy named Brad Hunter's analysis and summary of The Tipping Point, an amazing book that talks about how social epidemics come to be. 

I don't know if this counts as an article, but you could label it that way and it's certainly informative:

https://web.stanford.edu/class/symbsys205/tipping_point.html

Punctuation in Dialogue

Right off the bat this article starts with a lot of rules and I feel like it’s not going to stop throwing rules at me about punctuation and dialogue. They mention dialogue tags which I’m intuitively led to believe is an HTML term but I know this person could not possibly be talking about something like “<dialogue></dialogue>” and me putting quotations around that is probably incorrect. Maybe I need to capitalize the word dialogue there.

I guess I’m supposed to just know all the terminology right away and this article is more of a review for people who already know what they’re doing. The article is just a list of examples that I don’t understand because it doesn’t explain what the fuck a dialogue tag is and a lot of the examples have exceptions. I think I prefer gower’s article about dialogue punctuation even though I haven’t read it.

I think I’ll stick to the school of thought defined as “If it makes sense to the audience in the context, then it’s fine.” Just as I’ve done for those quotes, which undoubtebly break several of the arbitrary stupid rules in the article.

2/8.

Quasar Tsunamis Rip Across Galaxies

Quasars rip apart galaxies with fuckloads of energy - I’m not surprised they are highly remote objects. Anything that gets near these dense balls of supermassive black holes gets fucked. Fun fact: the biggest black hole we know of is 78 billion miles across and since most people can’t comprehend that number, we say it can roughly consume 40% of our solar system and since most people can’t comprehend that properly we say if the sun was a baseball in the center of one of those big sportsball stadiums the black hole would cover the green easily and leave only the stands while having more mass than several million suns. Anyways, back to quasars.

Quasars are basically blakc holes that suck hard but can’t quite get it all so a lot of the surviving matter just gets crushed and heated near the black hole and shoots away via gravity shot. The ensuing heat awesomely emits light and other EM frequencies. The article says the mechanical energy created by these things could definitely overpower, break, and probably melt a 2008 hyundai elantra engine.

In conclusion, the article would agree that quasars are probably derived from gigantic galaxies that got too fat for their own good and ended up dummy thicc obvious as shit slapping out massive hot matter at over 2 speed across the universe.

Good article. Fairly educational, but not inaccessible. Not very deep into the science. 6/8.

All the NASA articles there are more accessible than deep, that's what makes them actually readable.

It's a double-edged blade for me because I would like to know the deeper science/math but at the same time I respect making it accessible to a wider audience and enjoy the simplistic descriptions of phenomena.

Microsoft Has a Plan to Add DNA Data Storage to Its Cloud

Microsoft is researching DNA storage and coming out with statistics to make it a viable storage medium. For now they’ve said some interesting things like all the movies ever made could be stored in a sugar cube worth of DNA strands and that they stored 200MB in DNA at 400bps - which, using the sugar cube analogy, is like a fine grain of sand in terms of size. Indeed DNA is the ultimate high density storage medium but there’s concerning statistics surrounding the cost of it all. Things need to get a lot cheaper by several orders of magnitude in order for DNA storage to be commercially viable - and MS thinks if the industry wants it, it’ll happen. The problem with that is that it won’t happen because the industry doesn’t want a thing that costs so much. It’s a cool idea though, and MS says they’ll probably just show it off in a sort of promotional way without committing to any technology.

They use a sequencing machine on steroids to do read operations but my concern there is that they’re using an electronic device, with data memory, to read DNA that stores data. It’s not a particularly efficient system. DNA is also fucking expensive as hell so that would need to go down in cost or manufacturability by a fuckton to be economically viable as well.

I was surprised, as the “semiconductor experts” were, to find that DNA will outlast a silicon device by two or three orders of magnitude. The density is the real advantage though. Until we figure out quantum limits and begin working towards quantum storage - DNA is the best we got for keeping data. It’s just not economically feasible right now.

5/8 article. Good overview, kind of meh rounded statistics.

Can I recommend you hilarious articles from flat earth belivers and people that don't believe in Evolution so you can explain how fags they are?

I don't know. Can you?

This is a retarded one  lol https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/04/did-my-fundamentalist-upbringing-prepare-me-for-coronavirus.html

I've always wanted that stuff to be true. Life would be so much easier if it was all so simple. Who cares if the world is ending if you know the End isn't really the end? Give me some Revelation. I'll take 7 years of suffering for an epic battle between good and evil any day. Revelation 19:11- the end of Revelation would make a great CYS, and would be a fitting ending to Earth. If only...

Superfluid Vacuum Theory

An area of physics which seeks to explain quantum gravity by describing background vacuum as a superfluid. The article goes into several areas of physics, some of which I am more familiar with than others such as the curvature of space-time, gravitons, higgs fields, and relative QFT but each has their own very long articles so it’s not within the scope of this writeup to explain these things.

Interesting read-more articles are linked like analog gravity, mass generation, and dimensional analysis (probably for the string-theorists out there). Overall, it wasn’t very well written but had some links and hints towards the necessary information to understand the theory in full and begin studying. 4/8.

Vickers range clock

The range clock is one of the earliest analog computers. Through a complicated series of dials, gears, and pointers one could track and determine the distance to an enemy ship. Later revisions of the range clock included more pointers for corrective measurements to be employed, giving a much more accurate range to the target. Unfortunately the article is lacking details about the mechanisms and how they are used specifically. External research has not given much better information as of yet.

Cool analog computational device, but article ultimately lacking love. 3/8.

Resistive random-access memory

RRAM is a type of Non-volatile RAM that uses solid state dielectric material called a memristor to store bits. Similar to how DRAM is 1T1C, RRAM is 1T1R in the same configuration. The resistor doesn’t need to be cycled like the capacitor in DRAM though due to its nonvolatile nature. I’m somewhat familiar with the creation of memristor channels for use in cryptography applications creating PUFs on femto-amp magnitudes. The article describe the various enterprise applications and experiments that made head-way in the RRAM technology. Some impressive electrical power savings are certainly possible given the technology’s affinity for small current applications. The future applications of RRAM are almost endless, as the technology only needs to become more economically viable to be used extensively in all our computers as an extremely fast non-volatile memory solution. I wonder what kind of shielding it will need in space. I know ionizing radiation is a problem up there, and DRAM is far too susceptible to it so often a sort of SDRAM or MRAM is used afaik. SEAKR works on that type of thing, if you’re an aspiring engineer looking for work related to thermal analysis, space conditions, and electrical components used in satellites.

The article was not very well written. It was fairly educational, but ultimately did not dive deep enough to be satisfactory. 3/8.

Chicken Hypnotism

A chicken can be easily "hypnotized" into a trance by various means. Described in the article is a method where one can ensure the chicken is looking at the ground and draw a line using their finger or a stick from the beak of the chicken onward. It will then stop in its tracks and idle. Other methods are described in this very short article which leads to other interesting articles such as trout tickling, snake charming, noodling, etc.

Very educational. Quite fun to read. 5/8.

Entropic Gravity

“At its simplest, the theory holds that when gravity becomes vanishingly weak—levels seen only at interstellar distances—it diverges from its classically understood nature and its strength begins to decay linearly with distance from a mass.”

Basically this theory says gravity is caused by quantum entanglement and because quantum entanglement is tied to the entropy of a system and gravity goes on forever between all masses (which are all quantumly entangled) and entropy also goes out forever based on the control volume of the universe gravity is not an interaction between objects but a side-effect of an underlying excessive quantum entanglement process.

The only thing it doesn’t really account for is dark matter but attempts to rectify this by theorizing that dark matter is just positive dark energy that takes the vacuum energy of space from its ground state, leading to complicated things I can’t explain or currently understand.

Thermodynamics and gravity appear to be related in some way from Hawking and Bekenstein’s research from the late 20th century. The most recent solid theory for it unfortunately depends on string theory and the holographic principle which, given our current popular quantum mechanical view of physics, does not make me confident in this theory. The article derives the law of gravitation from the holographic principle to demonstrate some connection certainly exists.

Experiments are basically impossible on Earth and difficult/expensive in space because you’d need to operate in a lagrange point. Lots of people are thinking about this in an agreeing or disagreeing way. I personally enjoy the idea of entropic gravity but ultimately any further understanding of gravity would make life easier for humanity in the long run.

Lots of links to articles that lead to rabbit holes. Highly interesting. 7/8.

Curvature

The article defines curvature as a deviation from planar or linear space by a surface or curve respectively. The bit of interest here is that curvature can be measured and is measured very simply by osculating circles or spheres (for 2D and 3D space respectively). That is to say that the curvature of a sphere or circle is the reciprocal of its radius, thinking about the radius of a sphere and then saying 1/r is its curvature is very simple. Thus smaller circles have more curvature.

If we fit a circle into a bump on a graph we can then say the curvature of that section of the line is one over the radius of that circle.

The article goes through many ways to get the curvature of common surfaces, shapes, and functional defects either by approximation or exact equation if available.

In higher dimensions, curvature can be thought of as a tidal force - that is you can think of particles having some effect on each other through this space and that effect can be represented by a jacobi field where you have multidimensional vectors defining the effect and thus the curvature (deviation from the higher dimensions version of “planar”) of the higher dimensional object. Those who have an interest in mathematics may find manifolds are a topic to explore further, given this knowledge of curvature.

A very intuitively described article for a basic principle of higher mathematics that is not often explained well. Would be a 7 if not for the excess examples that only make sense to people who already know this subject very well. 4/8. [Edit: was 6/8 until I read the smoothness article.]

Thanks for single handedly keeping the Reading Corner on life support.

yw

Smoothness

For those that read my curvature article review, smoothness is similar in concept. Where smoothness deviates though, is in measurement. Curvature is measured using the inverse of a circles’ radius where it fits along a curved line such that straight lines have curvature 1/∞ or 0 and points have curvature of 1/0 which is infinity or a singularity. (A breathtaking animated video by Eugene Khutoryansky describes this in an accessible way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dl6-5qDifrs)

Smoothness is measured by derivatives, some of you may recall that is the slope at a point along some line. If you can take the derivative of any point along the function it is said to be continuous. Smoothness depends on this continuity in order for the measurement to take place. If the function is differentiable everywhere, it is continuous, and therefore “smooth.” But that is the most minimal definition of smoothness provided by the article.

The article details several concepts around reparameterization such that the calculus works out. What we’re interested in is geometric continuity - which is used in real life. The article states an interesting definition for smoothness in this case.

Remember when I said curvature was similar? It’s revealed to be directly related in geometric continuity applications. Osculating circles are used here as well in the context of a smoothness measurement: G^n where n increases with how smooth the thing is. G^0 has no smoothness, but the curve in question touches a join point. G^1 is the minimum viable smoothness where the curve is tangent to the osculating circle. G^2 is of interest in the real world, where the curves share a common center at the join point along with meeting the requirements for G^1.

“While it may be obvious that a curve would require G1 continuity to appear smooth, for good aesthetics, such as those aspired to in architecture and sports car design, higher levels of geometric continuity are required. For example, reflections in a car body will not appear smooth unless the body has G2 continuity.”

A better example of the difference between G1 and G2 continuity is provided: a rounded cube with octants of a sphere at the corners and quarter-cylinders at the edges is only G1 continuous but not G2.

The article goes on to describe uses in higher mathematics such as the smoothness of manifolds, topological unity, and analytic continuations.

Like the curvature article, it’s not for everyone; however, if you ignore the math and just stick with a layman's understanding of “It’s related to this or that through some math.” you can get through the articles pretty well with a decent conceptual understanding. I’d give it 6/8 for its examples and being well-written.

Flow

Psychological flow is the state we know as being in the zone. The article makes a point to distinguish this from hyperfocus, where hyperfocus can be a negative trait like playing too many video games or starting too many projects and completing few.

The article lists these attributes to a state of flow:

• Intense and focused concentration on the present moment
• Merging of action and awareness
• A loss of reflective self-consciousness
• A sense of personal control or agency over the situation or activity
• A distortion of temporal experience, one's subjective experience of time is altered
• Experience of the activity as intrinsically rewarding, also referred to as autotelic experience

and three extra:

• Immediate feedback
• Feeling the potential to succeed
• Feeling so engrossed in the experience, that other needs become negligible

It notes these can be independent, but all must be present to be considered in the flow state.

The history of studying this phenomena is of some interest, the psychologist was attentive to how artists get so absorbed in their work that they disregard food, water, and sleep. Of course businesses and schools wanted to know more about this state for their use in productivity and advancement.

Observations such as “being in the zone and completing a task makes people happy” have been made. Of slight interest is the approximation that the human mind operates around 110 bits per second and speech is somehow approximated to taking 60 of those 110, showing basic tasks take more computation than one might expect.

It’s apparent that there’s more than a few ways to measure flow but the best way is to use some standardized scale by Jackson and Eklund who keep to the main psychologist guys’ classification of flow.



I like the diagram but apparently there’s conflicting views with the traits to what defines flow. This is the part of psychology I most dislike: arbitrary rules based on the psychologists’ opinion which may or may not be based on observation of people (for those not in the know: people are not a great source for consistency in most cases). Anyways there’s a lot more people with a lot more different bullet point lists on what counts and what doesn’t count presented in the article.

Several applications are discussed. I find the patent for an analog computer which essentially does a little pRNG game (from what I gathered looking at the circuits) to keep people actively focused on the device as a very interesting attempt to get people into the zone. In music, more studies were done and found performance quality increases in a flow state while muscles relax and heart rate decreases. Bass guitarists and drummers seem to feel it really well when the beats match up perfectly and they describe it using terms like “getting in the groove” and “in the pocket.” People in sports feel it as well, and often achieve their personal bests or world records while experiencing flow.

A martial artist does some meditation techniques before matches to allegedly achieve flow. If it’s found to be achievable and trainable, there’s a high possibility it will engrain itself into cultures forever such that humans will always try to be in a flow state - possibly for the whole day, or entire working period.

The article goes through gaming applications and religious stuff too. The section on workplace is a bit difficult. The barriers seem to stem from working with others, who would easily disrupt someone’s flow and decrease productivity. There’s few reliable ways of getting around working with others in a high productivity workplace, so even if flow is achieved as a sort of trainable skill or talent it may not be applicable in most workplaces.

The downsides to flow are touched upon at the end of the article. The addictiveness of the activities and becoming more disappointed in the outside world than before due to its ambiguity and stuff.

As a student, I think flow can be ticked over from anxiety - procrastination seems to be a pathway for many to experience flow as the deadline approaches and becomes exceedingly close. Throughout the normal day though, I use peppermint altoids and silence to help me focus. It’s worked well in the last month or two I’ve been doing it. I suspect they did not mention ways to help focus because focus is a different article - and perhaps I’ll read it one day and it’ll mention that mint has a focusing property to it.

A good article. Some parts weren’t very well written or explained, but it presented some interesting facts, applications, and opinions. It didn’t touch on practices that one can do to attempt to induce a state of flow - maybe we’re not there yet, but I’d like to see some stuff about that as it’s obviously a very useful state of mind. 7/8.

Spectral Density

I first came across the term spectral density in numerical analysis to describe some complicated thing about a matrix which, as students, we would not understand and the book would not delve very deep into. The first bit of the article seems to focus on the typical application that one would expect seeing the term spectral density (aside from ghostly aberrations) such as optical light being broken into constituent frequencies and graphing those to accurately depict atomic energy bands.

The mathematical definitions for the use of spectral density in various fields appears to make sense. Statistical variance can be derived this way, while it can be used in tandem with a fourier transform in electrical engineering to discern signals and help with signal processing. I have not gotten into signals yet, my signals class is next semester - but I do understand most of the basics and some transforms (just don’t ask me to make a bode plot).

Not a poorly written article - the math and higher concepts in waveforms makes it a little less accessible to the layman, and everything mentioned has its own main article that delves I’m sure excessively deep into the topic. My numerical analysis teacher had it right though - this would’ve definitely confused most of the class, particularly since the majority of the class was mechanical engineering students and not electrical.

4/8.

How do touch screens actually work?

I noticed a drop of water on my phone would count as a touch sometimes, and the question has been on my mind for a while. How do touchscreens work? My hypothesis was that there was some dielectric layer underneath the glass, which when touched somehow changed the voltage on that spot and depending on the resolution of the sensors it would register as a touch at that point on the screen. However I recognize there are many different types of touch screens - the ones at the self-checkout line at walmart are not the same as the one for my phone which is not the same as the touch buttons for my wireless headphones.

Turns out I'm not super far off. The article is severely dumbed down to thte point of mentioning that people are made of atoms. I sort of randomly clicked it off google so the quality isn't really vetted. The article is also extremely short and from 2012. It's definitely for people who don't know much about the technology - or don't want to.

In light of this, I pulled up the wikipedia article for touchscreens and this more recent article from 2019 that has a lot of pretty and simple pictures.

If you really want to go deep into the science, wikipedia is for you. Each touchscreen technology is more interesting than the last - the optical ones are of particular interest to me because my semiconductor device teacher was on NASA's JPL team for making the first optical CMOS sensors. The technologies that use ultrasonic or acoustic waveforms seem power heavy to me, and not viable for applications with small batteries or power restrictions - but I'd have to look at them in further detail to know for sure.

Anyways, the not-wikipedia article was much easier to understand and really hit the bases in all the key sciences while explaining it very well. The format of the article leaves something to be desired, as the writing is not particularly well done at the beginning or end - but the meat of it really shines. It gets a 6/8 for sure.

This primary article shows a high level overview of keyboards to introduce the idea of touch technology and follows up with the simplest touch screen out there: the resistive touch screen. It's the kind you use at walmart or the bank and sign your name on with a plastic pen (the original Nintendo DS used this IIRC). It bends inward - connecting the screen to a charged backing, creating a resistance at that point ("point" being quite inaccurate).

Capacitive touch screens are the most popular - and fit with my original hypothesis the best. Your finger, or a drop of water, creates a distrubance in either an electric field generated at the corners of the screen (projective capacitance) or a capacitive load behind the screen at particular points (you ever see a touch screen with little dots on it about the size of a pixel but separated every half centimeter or so? that's an old capacitive touch screen). This means plastic won't work nor will fabric unless it has a conductive parts woven in (touch-screen compatible gloves).

Infrared screens make a grid of lazers just below the surface of the glass and when your finger touches it intereferes with the lasers. Oddly enough, this seems to be one of the oldest touch screen technologies - dating bcak to the late 80s and early 90s. Though light pens date back to the 70s and would be connected to the computer using positional data and some other EM waves would determine a touch.

First article from 2012: 2/8
Wikipedia article: 5/8
2019 Article: 6/8

SR-72

The Lockheed Martin SR-72 is the successor to the famed SR-71 and will have a top speed over twice as fast (M6 > M3 which is hypersonic [faster than Mach 5]) and have many interesting engineering design choices. At the moment, the rendering looks like the Tesla cybertruck (read: ugly) and will be a UAV which does not produce cool pilot stories like the SR-71 does.

Composite heat materials will be used in tandem with 3D printed metal parts to create some of the most innovative engine design around. Skunk works (Lockheed's most interesting department) is at the head of this project just as they have been for most top-level military innovations through the company and I might write up an article about them or their copy-cat departments from other companies like Boeing or NASA KSP.

I said something interesting there which could be an article on its own, "3D printed metal parts" for aerospace applications. At high speeds, air friction becomes a huge heat problem. A much bigger problem than the heat of the sun on the aircraft such that black paint is actually beneficial to radiate some of the heat off (see: SR-71). Solid metal will absolutely melt which is why the SR-71 was made of titanium (good heat resistance) and the SR-72 will likely have a high heat polycarbonate (educated guess) at the forefront of its wings. But the entire plane can't be made of the heat-resistant polymer, it's not structurally good enough. So the rest seems like it'll be some advanced titanium alloy and this alloy will be 3D printed. Why? Because you can print hollow structures. Hollow structures means that you don't have a solid piece of metal heating up, and a lot of that heat can be transferred away by airflow or coolant flow through the hollow metal - something that can't be done or made using traditional manufacturing techniques. This allows the SR-72 to use the full force of its engines and achieve a top speed of around Mach 6. Very cool.

Interesting piece. 6/8 for the article alone, 7/8 for all it leads to.

Skunk Works

I mentioned in my SR-72 writeup the most interesting department of Lockheed-Martin. It's real name is the Advanced Development Programs department but the pseudonym is trademarked and even has a proprietary skunk logo. The name came from some old comic back in the mid 20th ccentury and the department was created to basically skip bureaucracy and get to work right away on military projects with an essentially unlimited budget. It's a dreamworld for an engineer like me - someone brings your team/department a project, you shake hands, and get started that day researching and building and testing without need for approval to slow you down.

It reminds me of the story of the ENIAC (best told through the book Turings Cathedral in my opinion) where scientists and engineers are gathered to focus on one project with only the speed of their ideas to slow them down. This rapid scientific advancement has led to magnificent leaps in technology. They often have to overcome extreme challenges in engineering to design and produce a working device (mostly aircraft in this case).

NASA KSP has Swamp Works and Boeing has Phantom Works both similar to Skunk Works in form and function.

MIMO

Multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO) basically takes advantage of a thing called multipath propogation to make radio towers and their respective linkages more efficient amidst a noisy or busy signal environment. Recall that we don't shoot lasers directly at radio towers from our phones to connect to them or watch youtube. Remote controls do this at very low distances like 10ft. Bluetooth does not do this. Radio and microwave, which is what most of our technology runs on for signal, does not do this (though location tech can help aim a bit better and save some power).

If you imagine the signals throughout the world to be an ocean - it is unsteady due to natural noise created by jutting rocks and islands on this oean, and unsteady due to man-made noise created by metaphorical boats. Your phone is like a dripping faucet over this ocean. It drips very fast such that your tiny drop waves go over the big waves and they go on forever essentially not dying out until they reach the edge of this metaphorical ocean. A radio tower is like a buoy taking in all these little waves and ignoring the big ones so you can send a message to it via a certain frequency of drops. Here's the problem: waves reflect off things. You send a signal out via water drop and it goes in all directions, the nearest buoy will pick it up but a short time later it will pick up the same message echoed back off some rock or boat and becomes confused.

MIMO is a way of getting around this, using the propogation of your wave off random things (out of the metaphor now) like mountains, lakes, planes, etc that can bounce back your signal to the same tower with a slight delay it uses lots of tiny recieving parts to simply get all of your signal in parallel and so instead of one long skinny beam it recieves and processes a big fat short beam all at once.

The technical details of how it does this are slightly beyond me, but I understand the gist behing the tx:rx stuff and the diagrams provided in many articles helped greatly to simplify my explanation slightly. Now you maybe have a general idea of how signals work in a practical sense. Think about your WIFI router at home, and where it's positioned - knowing that walls generally block and reflect signal. Maybe you should put it somewhere the droplet waves will have a direct reach to your buoy.

Not a bad article. 5/8.

Nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy

What a mouthful. Some people shorten it to NMR Spectroscopy or magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) but I think we'll go with NMRS because that's easier to read.

First: spectroscopy, you've probably done it in a highschool chemistry or physics lab before using a liquid sample and a machine with a quartz rectangle (crystal) to get some reading about the purity of a sample by knowing the electromagnetic spectrum of the elements in it (ie color of light it is with nanometer accuracy). Sometimes you see those chemical test charts that have the big pointy bits surrounded by little pointy bits and a percentage of purity at the top.

There's a lot of ways to do this through NMRS and various things to look for. The article describes these ways in quite some detail given how many methods there are. Essentially you subject a sample to a really powerful magnetic field and watch how its natural vibration changes as the magnetic field changes. This tells you how much of what elements you have in the sample. For example, if you subject a sample of some chemical to 21 Teslas of magnetic energy and get a large frequency response of 900MHz back, you have a lot of hydrogen atoms. Like many spectroscopic techniques, NMRS is very accurate. I'd have to look into the other spectroscopy methods before determining how applicable NMRS is but I would imagine it's both highly accurate by comparison and highly expensive. Special applications may require it.

4/8.

Z-pinch





A Z-pinch. It comes from the field of fusion power research and the name is relative to the direction of electric current. A sufficient current running through the Z-axis along some plasma will create a magnetic field (via that one Maxwell equation but instead of wire it's plasma) and that magnetic field will compress the plasma or "pinch" it. It's actually the Lorentz force doing its magic in extreme circumstances. It's a great way to control fusion, a nuclear power source which has yet to be mastered and used properly. If we master fusion nuclear power gets a lot more, well, powerful. The soviets used this pinching to make some really stable fusion reactor, which will have its own writeup soon.

An unfortunately disappointing article. The topic is cool but the writing is fairly boring. 3/8.

Reversed Field Pinch

If you vaguely understood the Z-pinch writeup this one is similar, but a more novel approach to the magnetic topology.



The same principle is used as in Z-pinch, it magnetically traps near-thermonuclear plasma but instead of a simple line it traps a toroidal configuration. The RFP is great to study non-ideal magnetohydrodynamics like the sun or other planetary bodies (note: you may be aware that the sun is a fusion reactor of sorts, and its large magnetic field is what keeps that fusion controlled. The study of this is magnetohydrodynamics and the sun is not a very well understood system in this field of study).

The big advantage presented about RFP's in fusion research is cost - it doesn't usually require superconducting magnets and it's possible one would not need to do a complicated plasma-physics process known as electron cyclotron resonance (ECR) but instead it's possible to just run current through to light it up though the problem with this is it's unstable.

There are two primary disadvantages to this system: you need a really precisely made container that holds the plasma with very close tolerances and you need lots of electrical current to get an appropriately sized magnetic field for the pinch.



We may come back to plasma physics...as there is much to learn about nuclear fusion.

4/8.

Enterpride's drug essay he left as a comment on Down the Rabbithole.

I don't see a comment by enter. it's just orange, you, mara, and camelon. With yours being hella essay long asf.

Modifying Wire-Array Z-Pinch Ablation Structureand Implosion Dynamics Using Coiled Wires

This article explores the effects of coiled wire on the magnetic field involved in Z-pinch experiments. The magnetic field, as mentioned, is necessary for a pinch phenomena to happen and in this case the researchers look to develop reliable x-ray emission from the plasma pinch, and perhaps seek a “golden ratio” of sorts between coils of wire and the magnetic field is produces to purity and intensity of x-ray emission. One would not be able to tell this is what the papers’ aim is by reading the abstract or the first paragraphs. Comparing this with other research papers, the abstracts are often very bad with flow and this particular source is not very accessible to a reader only moderately curious about plasma physics and the pinch effect.

They present the initial problem very well, keeping the scope of the paper within the title and avoiding the mention of Maxwell’s law which, from an electrical engineering standpoint, would be relevant; but from a physics standpoint and the goal of increasing x-ray emission they comment only on the fundamental wavelength being directly related to the coil of wire creating the magnetic field. The problem is clear: the coil of wire producing the magnetic field is slightly imperfect, and this creates a noticeable inefficiency in x-ray emission from the heated plasma. In order to control and better this, they present a method to change the root of the problem: the fundamental wavelength of the material used in coiled wire electromagnetics.

The researchers go on to describe various attempts to mitigate the ablation of x-ray emissions through the plasma using differing wire geometries and carefully measuring the plasma and ablation waves from the simplest z-pinch experiment: gas puff. The research presented doesn’t describe the gas puff experiment very well, but with the embedded pictures, I can imagine it would not be difficult for someone who did not know much about it to guess what is happening. The diagrams improve flow greatly, and accessibility is well met for one who has perhaps read the wikipedia page for pinch phenomena, that is to say “light handed” research. The avoidance of heavy mathematical functions is a major plus to readability and flow. Their pictures are engaging and informative, with no fluff or complicated figures. Simple drawings have been overlaid to describe ideal conditions and better outline what is happening in the experimental process.

Around the fourth page or so the article takes a dip in readability, but I find this acceptable as they are increasing the depth of detail presented by explaining the effects of wavelength constants and how wire coil geometry has affected the experiment greatly. These two qualitative criteria often oppose each other, and I find it acceptable when readability goes down for the sake of depth into the subject. Even as this goes, they maintain flow with greater frequency of diagrams and images to help intuitively aid the understanding of the experiment and its results. Upon the conclusion they explore theoretical applications for their experimental results, and the coiled arrays of wires to better control MHD instability in pinch experiments. Upon this new geometry of the coiled wire arrays, they have shown a large and significant increase in x-ray emission through this simple plasma pinch research.

By my criteria, the paper is a superior resource for the subject. The scope lacks in some places, where some explanation of the basics is necessary to better follow the researchers’ train of thought, but the readability makes it highly enjoyable and informative despite that. A significantly better abstract and the paper could easily be golden in terms of quality. Looking into their references a bit I find that a large portion of the literature used for their research is unavailable through online academic sources.

An Experimental Study of the Effect of Rayleigh–Taylor Instabilities on the Energy Deposition Into the Plasma of a Z Pinch

Right off the bat this article’s abstract and first page has terrible readability and lost me at least twice in their attempt to tell me that the heating of the plasma in a z-pinch and its relation to the magnetic field containing the plasma are researched experimentally. Their experimental setup is fairly detailed but they do not go into enough detail for others to duplicate the experiment reliably. I find this is an annoying problem with many papers these days not providing enough detail about their equipment and processes for others to replicate the experiment and confirm the results. In this case, they gave specifications for their laser probe and how it was going to be used to get a shadowgram of the plasma at particular instances at defined nanosecond intervals but the type and source for the laser are unknown. The lack of readability does not help this papers’ rough start into the subject of heated plasma MHD.

Ultimately the shadowgrams and interferometry pay off with beautiful pictures of the plasma with very defined structures to determine the flow as the gas puff emerges and dissipates. The source then goes on to ruin this by presenting high level mathematical formula in batches of five or six fractioned double-integral constant-saturated matrix-defined equations which decrease the readability and flow significantly to the point of it being worthwhile to skip entire paragraphs as the equations themselves take up such an explanation and derivation. All under the labels of “results” and not under a more appropriate label of “governing equations.” Statistical models are presented with a scatter of experimental data to show correlation between the MHD instabilities and the heat/energy of the plasma system. Their results are somewhat promising, as the best fit lines appear to closely approximate the ideal conditions likely set out by the equations presented earlier in the paper.

A saving grace for this source is its final page and conclusion, which both provides a fundamental intuitive inequality and a short-but-sweet conclusion about the magnetic fields generated within heated plasma and its effects on the energy in the systems. Their experimental processes very closely approximated fundamental constants expected.

I would not use this source for my research unless absolutely necessary. The graphs towards the end are nice, and the shadowgrams are impressively detailed, but the paper does not present anything new or imply any significant applications of their research. It is a low quality paper, hindered by the ego of a mathematician at the back of it and a lack of accessible language. The scope is well managed and the conclusion is well written, the depth is too deep if one considers the equations presented and too shallow if skipped.

Chaos Theory

Chaos theory is a very popular branch of mathematics which deals with systems in which small differences in initial conditions makes large differences in later conditions. "Chaos: When the present determines the future, but the approximate present does not approximately determine the future." - E. Lorenz describes it well.

There's many chaotic systems but what I find most interesting is attractors born of chaotic systems. The initial conditions of some systems create similar shapes and these similarities are attractors where the system tends to go. Famous attractor systems often overlap in some way with famous fractal sets. The article goes through many of the various types of chaotic systems and briefly describes their applications in areas like cryptography and chemistry. I Appreciate that the article also recommends textbooks on chaos theory.

I'll be revisiting the finer topics within chaos theory at a later date.

4/8.

Differential Geometry

In the realm of higher mathematics we find subjects introductory to manifolds and topological mysteries. Differential geometry is the boring part that bridges the gap between topology and more advanced systems at the edge of modern mathematics such as reimann manifolds. Differential geometry is not like the geometry you probably know, it deals with shapes - sure, but generally not on a planar surface. It describes a study of twisted and warped spaces to find how shapes project and move through these complicated spaces. It's the least abstract of the abstract higher maths I know of, and its applications are somewhat rooted in my study of electrical engineering. The field space of electromagnetic systems with moving things throughout creates a differential geometry problem that warps and twists the field as the object of a known shape moves through it.

The article itself is fairly barren, but the subjects it touches on have their own articles so I suppose it's expansive in that way. 3/8.

Tokamak



We're back into nuclear fusion with the most famous and widely used (~28 in the world) reactor design: the TOKAMAK. Like the other pinch systems we use a magnetic field generated by the surrounding core structure to concentrate and light up the plasma. It's very useful for studying fusion disruptions as they can be controlled. We can model pieces of real life disruptions to better understand the larger systems sch as the sun in real life. I kind of think of it like how every electrical signal can be modeled with a combination of sine waves - any fusion disruption can be represented by a combination of basic disruptions. The TOKAMAK design allows for control and classification of these. It's a very safe stable system by comparison to other methods which makes it a valuable fusion power research design.

The article is very well written, and covers everything in a neat way that stays concise and readable. 6/8.

corgi213

The name is not only all lowercase but includes numbers as well. A double whammy of malpractice among usernames. The entire thing is just misc quotes aligned with a pitiful sidebar where five years are shown to have gone by yet less than a thousand points or posts to show for it. I'm sure the two storygames make up for the lack--I mean, rarity, of activity.

3/8.

another one for my collecton 19229288

You know, some people would be impressed a dog could use a computer at all.

Francis Turbine

The most common water turbine in use today, the Francis turbine is shaped such that the inward flow of high pressure water drives the trubine and loses almost all its energy in the process. The turbine itself is usually hollowed on the middle of the shaft so that the low-energy water can flow and the pressure can be preserved from the process.

It's highly efficient design for optimal flow make it a staple in water energy systems. Now you know why the blades and housing are shaped in that weird bottom-conic shape with the spiral casting center.

The article has a good depth into the efficiency of the turbine but is severely lacking the applications section. Overall, it was mediocre. 3/8.

Potatoes

Starting off at number 2 because the editor isn't a math person, potato pancakes look pretty good. Maybe they're like hash browns but less grated?

3. Potato hash - looks tasty. I like dishes that are as easy as throwing all of it in a hot pan and its done.

4. Potato gnocchi - I don't speak german, but these potatoes kind of look weird. It's apparently some sort of pasta but potato.

5. Baked potato wedges - hell yes.

6. Potatoes are great - some foreign casserole thing. Not a fan of the gooey texture.

7. Potato bread - na.

8. Fries - ye boi. gonna get me some fries on the way home.

9. Tater tots - I probably haven't had them since I was 13 or so, and it was either at school or at sonic. Both kind of suck. Maybe I need to try some better ones, but for now I prefer fries.

10. Roasted potatoes with herbs - aren't these baked potato wedges but smaller?

11. Mashed potatoes - I wish they were easier to make cause I can eat fuckloads of mash all day every day.

12. Garlic mashed potatoes - alright at least space out the same dish from itself. Is this list just going to repeat the same dishes?

13. Barf - no thank you.

14. Potato crocs - they look like hush puppies but less fried and more soft. I'd eat em.

15. Potato salad - thats just cole slaw with sour cream instead of mayo. Both 0/10 would not eat.

16. Potato salad but warm - bruh, its the garlic mash all over again.

17. Potato filling - their pic makes me hungry as fuck, looks spicy and shit. I'd definitely eat a fuckload of this stuff, burrito or not.

18. Potato soup - I'm not much of a soup person, I guess this soup looks fine.

19. Tater skins - I like mine with jalapenos and more meaty than cheesy but really any are good.

20. Chips - maybe I'll get some chips on the way home too.

21. Potato curry - thats just any curry with a potato mixed in. I bet the rest of this "article" is gonna be various dishes but with potato on them to make them potato dishes. Or maybe they'll say curry again.

22. Hasselback potatoes - a baked potato but sliced. I'll take two.

23. Potato waffles - The shape doesn't matter, it's a potato pancake.

24. Spanish omelet - its a omelet but with a potato mixed in.

25. baked potato - feel like this should've been earlier on the list. Super easy to make a few minutes in the microwave and boom - baked potato.

26. Potato pizza - ehhh idk. Maybe fries on pizza but a pizza made of potatoes? Not sure.

27. Potato leek soup - it's leek soup but with a potato in it

28. Sweet potato pie - surprised there weren't more sweet potatoes on the list. I don't like sweet potatoes though so I'll pass on this one.

4/8.

It's OK to Fuck Dogs If You're Bipolar, aka, "Don't Do Meth, Kids".

Looking forward to the scholarly review.

I know you aren't doing this anymore, but this was cool and I wanted somewhere to put it. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/milky-way-flash-implicates-magnetars-source-fast-radio-bursts

I hope you find this one interesting.

Does Time Really Flow? New Clues Come From a Century-Old Approach to Math

hmm this seems the perfect moment to revive this dead thread of empty promises