Explorations #2

7 minute read

Welcome back, Curious minds!

This is the 2nd post in the series My explorations, where I list out places of the internet I found interesting over the week. Limiting myself to what I found this week is making the list news-y, so I will occasionally add other stuff as well.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated to any of the websites/services mentioned below.

Let’s get started:

➡   [YouTube, Entertainment] Super Science Friends (4 episodes 20 mins each): It is about a squad of scientific superheroes (Einstein who can run at speed of light, Tesla who can electrocute, Darwin transforming into various species) fighting their arch-enemies (Edison, Pope) or saving their idols (Newton). The number of references thrown made me stick with it.

➡   [News, Science] Birds Can See Earth’s Magnetic Fields: How do we observe magnetic field? Simple, keep a piece of Iron and see how it moves. That is exactly how we thought birds sense the magnetic field, they probably just have some iron in their beaks for navigation! But, recent studies convince that birds actually see the magnetic field with their eyes. They base it on an argument that birds can only sense the magnetic field in the presence of light (blue, to be specific). Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if we humans, could see magnetic fields soon!

➡   [Tools, Desktop] Nylas mail: Though the development is discontinued, it is my best choice for desktop email client because of its clean UI and tracking feature. Its successor, Mailspring has more features but needs premium to track emails.

➡  [Video, Visualization] Media For Thinking The Unthinkable (video) With Silicon Valley giants like Apple and Google (well, not Mark) focussing on education through new iPad and Chromebooks, there are going to be important changes in the visual display of information. Bret Victor (his portfolio websites is the coolest looking) hints on how it is going to be, trivial looking yet mind-boggling. This makes me want to go back to schooling again.

➡  [Science, Views] What news have you seen from CERN after Higgs Boson? Not much, right? Well, is it time for a new particle accelerator then? Here are some thoughts from Stephen Hawking about building one in China. And there are arguments against accelerators too.

➡   [Youtube, Philosophy] WiseCrack: Watching a couple of their videos made me love them, but I will have to check more of their content before I add them to My favourite websites list. As a start check out: Is Black Panther’s Killmonger the Best Villain Since the Joker? or The Science of One Punch Man where they discuss biological correlations with challenges in life.

➡   [News, Science] This Supposed Dark Matter Evidence Won’t Seem to Go Away: DAMA/LIBRA, 500 pounds of a specially fabricated crystal buried in an Italian mountain seemed to glow just a little brighter, which some scientists believe to be a sign of Dark matter. It wasn’t the first time, nor the last—every year, the signal seems to increase and decrease like clockwork as the Earth orbits the Sun. But the reason we cannot approve of it yet is reproducibility. There are a lot more detectors out there but none of them sees this signal. In this sense, it was amazing that both LIGO observatories at Hanford and Livingston observed gravitational waves simultaneously.

➡   [Games, Math Puzzle] 4D toys: In case you have difficulties understanding four dimensions (no, I didn’t say visualizing), this sandbox/tool provides over 100 interactive scenes to learn/enjoy. I am eagerly waiting for their 4D puzzle game Miegakure which resembles my all-time-favourite mobile game Monument Valley.

➡    [Cool Github Projects, Tools] Python package to schedule an email report: You can use this to get regular emails about your computer’s performance, or the run percentage of your new ML code. Coupled with a python keylogger (ping me for it) you can get emails of all the keypresses on your kid’s computer.

Honourable mentions:

300 years of element discovery in 99 seconds;

The Webby Award public votings are happening;

YouTube’s biggest videos have been hacked;

I am not very sure if you are benefited by this, but I am, I have cleaner Bookmarks! I am looking forward to knowing what places (on the internet, obviously) you’ve explored recently, put ’em in comments below ⬇️.

Sharing is Caring. See ya next week, the same place.  👉😎👉