motd - 11/##/2023 ----------------- 11/30/2023 Advice for a calmer digital life: https://www.datagubbe.se/sage/ 11/29/2023 African penguins identify their mates based chest patterns: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/african-penguins-tell-each-other-apart-by-their-polka-dot-patterns-180983327/ 11/29/2023 20th Anniversary edition of Beyond Good & Evil is coming: https://www.engadget.com/beyond-good--evil-is-getting-a-20th-anniversary-edition-in-early-2024-183535329.html 11/28/2023 Applying Si to olive leaves promotes their growth: https://phys.org/news/2023-11-laboratory-silicon-olive-growth.html "The results showed that a foliar application of silicon of between 10 and 20 milligrams per liter favored growth, as the plants increased in size and grew more shoots, as well as exhibiting leaf stomata of greater density. As indicated by the research team, these beneficial effects may be associated with an increase in the absorption of nutrients, such as potassium, an element that the plant needs to grow." 11/28/2023 New model for superconductivity: https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/s170 "The researchers found that the order parameter in each case is determined by the effective repulsion energy between two electrons located at the same atomic site in the crystal divided by the electron kinetic energy. This suggests that materials exhibiting stronger electron-electron repulsion should sustain larger superconducting currents and have higher Tc's. It also supports a particular mechanism for electron pairing that leads to superconductivity -a counterintuitive concept known as attraction by repulsion." 11/28/2023 Disable SharePlay on iOS: 1. Goto Setting->FaceTime 2. Turn off "SharePlay" From: https://osxdaily.com/2023/11/28/how-to-turn-off-shareplay-on-iphone/ 11/28/2023 How to delete live wallpapers in MacOS Sonoma: https://appleinsider.com/inside/macos-sonoma/tips/how-to-delete-macos-sonomas-live-wallpapers 11/27/2023 Updated qlZipInfo to Google Toolbox for Mac v.4.0.0, and libarchive v.3.7.2 (includes some uudecode and 7zip fixes). Also added support for some IPSW files: https://github.com/srirangav/qlZipInfo/releases/tag/v.1.2.6 11/27/2023 Why low dose aspirin is 81 mg: https://www.clinicalcorrelations.org/2019/02/22/the-history-behind-aspirin-81/ 11/27/2023 Disable NameDrop on iOS 17: 1. Goto Settings->Generally->AirDrop 2. Turn off "Bringing Devices Together" From: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/11/27/iphone-namedrop-warning-mdp/ 11/22/2023 Bacteria may be one of the causes of itching: https://www.statnews.com/2023/11/22/mystery-scratch-itch-staphylococcus-aureus-bacterium/ "[R]esearch showed that when [the bacteria] S. aureus invades the skin, it releases 10 different enzymes, or proteases. One of them, called V8, latches on to a protein on nerve cells called proteinase-activated receptor 1, or PAR1. The scientists said they believe this starts a chain reaction from the skin neurons, to the spinal cord, and to the brain, which then triggers the urge to itch." 11/17/2023 Materials scientists: https://xkcd.com/2856/ 11/17/2023 Closed-caption audio descriptions that sound like band names: https://wronghands1.com/2023/11/17/closed-caption-audio-descriptions-that-sound-like-band-names/ 11/14/2023 Jim Burke's Connections Returns: https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/11/fans-of-connections-rejoice-rebooted-classic-sci-doc-series-returns-with-original-host/ 11/13/2023 Reasons to prefer Blake3 over SHA256: https://peergos.org/posts/blake3 Hash (https://github.com/srirangav/Hash) supports both. 11/13/2023 The myth and reality of Snow Leopard (MacOSX 10.6.x): https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2023/11/5.html Some of the fond recollections for Snow Leopard are probably also due Lion (MacOSX 10.7.x) dropping Rosetta. Tiger (MacOSX 10.4.x) is also probably remembered fondly because it was the last version to include Classic. 11/13/2023 Sandisk Extreme Portable SSD failures may be hardware related: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/sandisk-extreme-pro-failures-are-due-to-design-flaw https://www.extremetech.com/computing/sandisk-ssd-failures-are-due-to-hardware-flaw-says-data-recovery-expert https://futurezone.at/produkte/sandisk-ssd-ausfaelle-western-digital-attingo-datenrettung-problem-hardware/402664391 11/13/2023 Ouch: https://www.hedgerhumor.com/ouch-4/ 11/13/2023 Fiber-based, biodegradable six-pack rings: https://www.core77.com/posts/126244/The-Eco-Six-Pack-Ring 11/10/2023 Four Nancy Drew games now work on ScummVM: https://www.scummvm.org/news/20231110/ 11/10/2023 Staedtler wooden e-stylus with an eraser: https://goodereader.com/blog/technology/new-staedtler-lumograph-mars-jumbo-has-an-eraser 11/10/2023 Dinky's "moon" is actual a two bodies: https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/newfound-moon-around-asteroid-dinkinesh-is-actually-two-tiny-moons-touching "On its first asteroid flyby on Nov. 1, NASA's Lucy mission discovered that the main belt asteroid Dinkinesh has a small moon orbiting it. Now, additional images have revealed another surprise: Dinkinesh's moon is not one, but two small satellites. The twin moons initially appeared as one because they are so close together, they touch as they orbit." 11/06/2023 Shortcut for extra low brightness on iOS: https://practicalbetterments.com/create-a-shortcut-for-even-lower-phone-brightness/ Settings->Accessibility->Accessibility shortcut->Reduce White Point 11/06/2023 Elgato is printing the bandwidth and USB type on its cables: https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/6/23948486/usb-c-cables-marking-speed-power-delivery-elgato "I wish all manufacturers did this." 11/05/2023 Starfish are mostly head: https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/02/world/starfish-head-body-plan-scn/index.html "[N]ew genetic research suggests ... that sea stars are largely heads that lack torsos or tails and likely lost those features evolutionarily over time. The researchers said the bizarre fossils of sea star ancestors, which appeared to have a kind of torso, make a lot more sense in evolutionary terms in light of the new findings. ... 'When we compared the expression of genes in a starfish to other groups of animals, like vertebrates, it appeared that a crucial part of the body plan was missing,' [one of the researchers] said. 'The genes that are typically involved in the patterning of the trunk of the animal weren't expressed in the ectoderm. It seems the whole echinoderm body plan is roughly equivalent to the head in other groups of animals.'" 11/05/2023 Othello has been solved: https://arxiv.org/abs/2310.19387 11/03/2023 Dinky has a "moon": https://www.livescience.com/space/asteroids/nasa-finds-hidden-asteroid-swirling-around-another-one 11/02/2023 IJBOL: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=61137 11/02/2023 Nice short summary of isolated, closed, and open systems: https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/entropy-closed-system-increase/ 11/02/2023 Missing 4:3 and 16:10: https://rubenerd.com/i-miss-4-by-3-and-16-by-10/ 11/02/2023 comm(1): https://www.johndcook.com/blog/2019/11/24/comm-set-theory/ https://man.openbsd.org/comm.1 comm(1) showed up in Version 4 AT&T UNIX. I can't believe I didn't know about this until recently. 11/02/2023 N-9? https://physics.aps.org/articles/v16/186 https://www.sciencenews.org/article/physicists-elusive-isotope-nitrogen-9 "With seven protons and two neutrons, the lopsided atomic nucleus of nitrogen-9 pushes the limits of what can even be considered a nucleus at all. ... Protons and neutrons, the subatomic particles that make up atomic nuclei, are essentially glued together by the strong nuclear force ...[, b]ut the force can't hold together nuclei that have wildly skewed ratios of protons to neutrons. Too many of either particle - especially protons, which repel each other due to their positive charge - and the nuclear bucket starts to overflow. Beyond this overflow point, which physicists call the 'drip line,' nuclei cannot fully bind their particles. ... Finding a nucleus as far beyond the drip line as nitrogen-9 - five protons beyond - was surprising ... [because, u]ntil now, scientists had only ever found isotopes up to four protons beyond the drip line." 11/02/2023 Windows 9x/ME patch for emulation issues: https://github.com/JHRobotics/patcher9x 11/02/2023 iOS 17 supports visual lookup for laundry symbols: https://osxdaily.com/2023/11/01/what-do-laundry-symbols-mean-your-iphone-will-tell-you/ Older ----- 10/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/10/motd.txt https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/10/index.html 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