motd - 10/##/2023
-----------------
10/21/2023 Neutrinos and Guarantees:
https://4gravitons.com/2023/10/20/neutrinos-and-guarantees/
10/18/2023 42 really might be the answer ;-):
https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/42-answer-fundamental-questions/
10/18/2023 arkenfox v118:
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/releases/tag/118.0
New settings:
user_pref("browser.download.start_downloads_in_tmp_dir", true);
user_pref("browser.shopping.experience2023.enabled", false);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.addons.featureGate", false);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.mdn.featureGate", false);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.pocket.featureGate", false);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.trending.featureGate", false);
user_pref("browser.urlbar.weather.featureGate", false);
New, but inactive, settings:
// user_pref("browser.urlbar.clipboard.featureGate", false);
// user_pref("network.trr.bootstrapAddr", "10.0.0.1");
// user_pref("privacy.fingerprintingProtection", true);
Removed and deprecated settings:
// user_pref("accessibility.force_disabled", "");
// user_pref("browser.fixup.alternate.enabled", "");
// user_pref("browser.urlbar.dnsResolveSingleWordsAfterSearch", "");
// user_pref("privacy.partition.always_partition_third_party_non_cookie_storage", "");
// user_pref("privacy.partition.always_partition_third_party_non_cookie_storage.exempt_sessionstorage", "");
// user_pref("privacy.partition.serviceWorkers", "");
// user_pref("layout.css.font-visibility.private", 1);
// user_pref("layout.css.font-visibility.standard", 1);
// user_pref("layout.css.font-visibility.trackingprotection", 1);
// user_pref("permissions.delegation.enabled", false);
I've updated my personal user.js accordingly:
https://github.com/srirangav/srirangav.github.io/blob/master/pgms/conf/Firefox/user.js
10/18/2023 Pepper X - the new hottest pepper in the world:
https://www.npr.org/2023/10/17/1206450553/worlds-hottest-pepper-guinness-record-pepper-x
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-world-has-a-new-hottest-pepper-180983099/
"Spiciness - or pepper heat - is measured using the Scoville scale
and recorded in units called Scoville heat units (SHU). The units
are based on levels of a chemical compound called capsaicin, the
main ingredient that makes chili peppers hot. Pure capsaicin has a
measurement of 16 million SHU while bell peppers, which contain no
spice, measure at 0 SHU. Pepper X measures in at an average of
2.69 million units[.] ... In comparison, standard pepper spray
averages 1 million SHU, while bear spray is advertised around 3
million SHU. The [prior record holder, the] Carolina Reaper
measures about 1.64 million SHU."
10/18/2023 CrossOvers 23.6:
https://www.codeweavers.com/support/forums/announce/?t=24;mhl=290508;msg=290508#msg290508
10/17/2023 New Initial D Movie:
https://www.thedrive.com/news/sung-kang-is-directing-a-live-action-initial-d-movie
10/17/2023 Paris Baguette in Paris:
https://www.ncartron.org/paris-baguette-in-paris-france.html
10/17/2023 Shades of Mospeada:
https://global.yamaha-motor.com/showroom/event/japan-mobilityshow-2023/motoroid2/
10/16/2023 Lawsuit might reveal Banksy's true identity:
https://hyperallergic.com/849611/sports-betting-websites-wager-on-banksys-real-identity/
"Despite maintaining anonymity for over three decades now,
Banksy could finally have his identity exposed in light of
a lawsuit against the world-famous street artist and his
art management and authentication company Pest Control
Ltd."
Sometimes the mystery is part of the fun - like with the
Stig.
10/16/2023 Average human body temp may be slightly lower than 98.6 F:
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/article-abstract/2809098
"In this cross-sectional study, machine learning was applied
to 618,306 adult outpatient encounters to define the usual
or mean "normal" temperature as 36.64 C [97.95 F]. Using
individual and temporal characteristics, the range of mean
temperatures for the coolest to the warmest individuals was
36.24 C [97.23 F] to 36.89 C [98.4 F]."
10/16/2023 Coin flips are slightly biased:
https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.04153
"[W]e collected 350,757 coin flips to test the counterintuitive
prediction from a physics model of human coin tossing developed
by Diaconis, Holmes, and Montgomery ... [which] asserts that
when people flip an ordinary coin, it tends to land on the same
side it started -- D-H-M estimated the probability of a same-side
outcome to be about 51%. Our data lend strong support to this
precise prediction[.]"
10/16/2023 Recent search for light dark matter at CERN turns up empty:
https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.131.161801
"Thermal dark matter models with particle X masses below
the electroweak scale can provide an explanation for the
observed relic dark matter density. This would imply the
existence of a new feeble interaction between the dark and
ordinary matter. We report on a new search for the sub-GeV
X production through the interaction mediated by a new
vector boson, called the dark photon A', in collisions of
100 GeV electrons with the active target of the NA64
experiment at the CERN SPS. ... No evidence for dark
matter production has been found."
10/16/2023 Disable search highlights in Windows 10/11:
Windows 10:
https://www.ghacks.net/2022/03/17/how-to-disable-search-highlights-on-windows-10/
1. Right-click on Windows 10 task bar
2. Select Search
3. Turn off "Show Search Highlights"
Windows 11:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/10/16/how-to-remove-news-and-trending-content-from-windows-11s-search/
1. Start->Settings->Privacy & Search
2. Click on "Search Permissions" and scroll to "More
settings"
3. Turn off "Show Search Highlights"
10/14/2023 Materials harder than diamond:
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/is-anything-harder-than-a-diamond
"A prime contender for a material harder than diamond is
lonsdaleite. Like diamond, lonsdaleite is made up of
carbon atoms, but they are arranged into a hexagonal
crystal structure instead of a cubic one.
...
Playing with diamond's nanoscale structure can also make a
material that's harder than a regular diamond. A material
that's made up of many tiny diamond crystals will be
harder than a gem-quality diamond that's a single crystal,
because the nanoscale grains lock up instead of moving
past one another. "Nanotwinned" diamonds, in which the
grains form mirror-image patterns of each other, are
reportedly double the hardness of regular diamonds."
10/14/2023 Cold blooded goat:
https://phys.org/news/2009-11-extinct-goat-cold-blooded.html
"Paleontologists studying fossilized Myotragus bones
compared them to bones of reptiles living in the same
region at the same time, and found surprising
similarities. The bones of warm-blooded animals show
uninterrupted fast growth, while the bones of cold-blooded
animals have parallel growth lines showing interrupted
growth corresponding to growth cycles[.] ... Growth
and metabolism rates are adjusted to suit the amount
of food available, whereas warm-blooded animals require
food to be available continuously. The Myotragus bones
showed the same interrupted growth as reptiles."
10/14/2023 How long to the next town? It depends ;-)
https://forestfolkcomic.tumblr.com/post/731156157901766656/forest-folk-372-101423
10/14/2023 What are AKAuthorizationRemoteView and akd:
https://osxdaily.com/2023/10/14/what-is-akauthorizationremoteview-and-akd-process-on-mac/
10/14/2023 Disabling lock screen ads on Win11:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/10/14/how-to-disable-lock-screen-ads-on-windows-11/
1. Goto Start->Settings->Personalization->Lock Screen
2. Uncheck "Get fun facts, tips, tricks, and more on
your lock screen"
10/11/2023 The Elgin Marble's original colors discovered:
www.livescience.com/archaeology/hidden-colors-and-intricate-patterns-discovered-on-the-2500-year-old-parthenon-marbles-from-ancient-greece
"To investigate the statues' past, archaeologists used
luminescent imaging, a technique that causes trace
chemical elements from hidden paint on the sculptures'
surfaces to glow. The team quickly discovered hidden
patterns emerging on the statues' surfaces, revealing
floral designs and smudged figurative depictions.
Four pigments were primarily found: [1] a blue that was
first created by the Egyptians and was the main color used
by ancient Greeks and Romans, [2] a purple tint made
according to an unknown recipe (most purple was made with
shellfish from the ancient Mediterranean, but this one
wasn't), [3] two whites likely derived from the mineral
gypsum and [4] bone white, a pigment made from bone ash."
10/11/2023 Simpson's Paradox:
https://robertheaton.com/2019/02/24/making-peace-with-simpsons-paradox/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simpson's_paradox
a1 / A1 < b1 / B1
a2 / A2 < b2 / B2
(a1 + a2) / (A1 + A2) > (b1 + b2) / (B1 + B2)
10/06/2023 Requiem for DEC:
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/10/long-gone-dec-is-still-powering-the-world-of-computing/
10/06/2023 Solar panels would work at Proxima Centauri, but not as well:
https://phys.org/news/2023-10-solar-panels-proxima-centauri.html
"The team found that while a wider band gap works well for
sunlight, the light of Proxima Centauri would require a
narrow band gap. For example, a simulated wide band gap
solar cell has a theoretical efficiency of 18.9% for
sunlight, but only 0.9% for Proxima Centauri. In contrast,
a narrow band gap model has a theoretical efficiency of
12.6% for Proxima Centauri.
So solar panels could generate electricity from red dwarf
stars [e.g. Proxima Centauri]. But one major disadvantage
remains. Since red dwarfs produce much less light than the
sun, even with a good efficiency individual solar cells
wouldn't produce nearly the amount of energy we can gather
from the sun.
Interstellar solar panels would need to be significantly
larger, which would greatly increase their weight and
cost."
10/06/2023 All objects in the Universe:
https://pubs.aip.org/aapt/ajp/article/91/10/819/2911822/All-objects-and-some-questions
"In Fig. 2, we plot all the composite objects in the
Universe: protons, atoms, life forms, asteroids, moons,
planets, stars, galaxies, galaxy clusters, giant voids,
and the Universe itself. Humans are represented by a mass
of 70 kg and a radius of 50 cm (we assume sphericity),
while whales are represented by a mass of 105 kg and a
radius of 7 m."
10/04/2023 FreeBSD wallpapers:
https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2023/10/04/freebsd-unix-wallpapers/
https://github.com/vermaden/scripts/blob/master/distfiles/wallpapers-freebsd.tar.gz
Old school computer wallpapers:
https://vermaden.wordpress.com/2018/08/15/wallpapers-from-tech-pron/
https://github.com/vermaden/scripts/blob/master/distfiles/wallpapers-oldschool-machines.tar.gz
https://github.com/vermaden/scripts/blob/master/distfiles/wallpapers-oldschool-machines-other.tar.gz
I like the two "Use BSD" wallpapers, the "Run BSD" (in the style
of Run DMC), the two Unix 50 wallpapers, and most of the old
school computer wallpapers (especially the HP 9000, which I
used). I'd like to find some wallpapers like this with Sun's
(SS2, SS10, Ultra 1, etc.) and SGI's (Indigo 2 and O2).
10/03/2023 History of the First Monday in October:
https://stevevladeck.substack.com/p/47-the-first-monday-in-october
10/01/2023 Open Source Game Clones:
https://osgameclones.com/
Older
-----
09/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/09/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/09/index.html
08/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/08/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/08/index.html
07/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/07/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/07/index.html
06/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/06/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/06/index.html
05/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/05/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/05/index.html
04/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/04/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/04/index.html
03/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/03/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/03/index.html
02/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/02/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/02/index.html
01/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/01/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/01/index.html
##/##/2022 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2022/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2022/index.html
Links
-----
Text: https://srirangav.github.io/motd/motd.txt
HTML: https://srirangav.github.io/motd/index.html
RSS (all entries):
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/rss.xml
RSS (current month's entries only):
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/rss-cur.xml
RSS (current year's entries only):
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/rss-ytd.xml