motd - 02/##/2024
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02/29/2024 The longest year in history:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240227-how-julius-caesar-made-the-longest-year-in-history-and-brought-us-leap-years
"Caesar added another two never-before-seen months to the
year 46BC, one of 33 days and one 34, to bring the
calendar in line with the Sun. The additions made the year
the longest in history at 445 days long, with 15 months."
02/16/2024 Better Sonoma:
https://basicappleguy.com/basicappleblog/better-sonoma
"I didn't care for Apple's abstract take on the rolling
hills of Sonoma, so I made my own."
02/16/2024 Protons are complicated:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/inside-the-proton-the-most-complicated-thing-imaginable-20221019/
"Recently, a team led by Juan Rojo of the National
Institute for Subatomic Physics in the Netherlands and VU
University Amsterdam analyzed more than 5,000 proton
snapshots taken over the last 50 years, using machine
learning to infer the motions of quarks and gluons inside
the proton in a way that sidesteps theoretical guesswork.
The new scrutiny picked up a background blur in the images
that had escaped past researchers. In relatively soft
collisions just barely breaking the proton open, most of
the momentum was locked up in the usual three quarks: two
ups and a down. But a small amount of momentum appeared to
come from a 'charm' quark and charm antiquark - colossal
elementary particles that each outweigh the entire proton
by more than one-third."
02/14/2024 Using lasers to build heavy elements:
https://physics.aps.org/articles/v17/s17
"Generating neutrons using lasers typically involves two
stages: first, a laser pulse ionizes hydrogen atoms in a
thin foil and accelerates them to MeV energies; then,
these hydrogen nuclei trigger neutron-generating nuclear
reactions in a high-atomic-number material. ...
[C]alculations indicate[] that a desirable isotope count
could be achieved by slowing the neutrons to very low
energies (to boost their capture cross sections) and by
pulsing the laser at a sustained 100 Hz. While the
necessary neutron energies can be achieved using
present-day techniques, the laser pulse rates required for
this scheme will only be possible using next-generation
devices."
02/14/2024 Time zones:
https://hackaday.com/2024/02/14/how-many-time-zones-are-there-anyway/
https://www.zainrizvi.io/blog/falsehoods-programmers-believe-about-time-zones/
02/13/2024 arkenfox v122:
https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/releases/tag/122.0
02/13/2024 Debian 12.5 released:
https://www.debian.org/News/2024/20240210
02/13/2024 The appendix may not be useless:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/02/02/1228474984/appendix-function-appendicitis-gut-health
"It turns out that the appendix appears to have two
related functions. The first function is supporting the
immune system. The appendix has a high concentration of
immune tissue, so it's acting to help the immune system
fight any bad things in the gut.
The second function that it serves is what we refer to as
the safe house. ... During times of gastrointestinal
distress - you know, a diarrhea episode where all of your
good gut bacteria is getting kind of flushed out of the
system - the appendix is kind of this blind tube with a
very narrow diameter and narrow lumen, so the good
bacteria doesn't get flushed out of the appendix. The idea
is it's safe during this time of gastrointestinal distress
and it can then exit the appendix and recolonize this good
bacteria throughout the rest of the gut."
02/13/2024 Another lockable bike helmet:
https://www.core77.com/posts/128416/A-Smarter-Design-Approach-to-the-Lockable-Bike-Helmet
02/13/2024 Things to never do in C++:
https://www.logikalsolutions.com/wordpress/information-technology/never/
I particularly agree with never omitting {} around a
single statement condition, never putting { on the same
line as code, never butting more than 130 characters on a
line (though I normally still try to keep it below 75,
except for URLs), and never putting local includes before
global includes.
02/13/2024 Stop notifications about updating to Sonoma:
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/2024/2/2.html
$ defaults write com.apple.SoftwareUpdate MajorOSUserNotificationDate -date "2025-02-07 23:22:47 +0000"
Older
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01/##/2024 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/01/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2024/01/index.html
##/##/2023 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2023/index.html
##/##/2022 https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2022/motd.txt
https://srirangav.github.io/motd/2022/index.html
Links
-----
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