Featured Links - September 16, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

The entrance to Frenchman's Bay

Why Does The Fibonacci Sequence Appear So Frequently In Nature? "The rationale behind irrationality." A good explanation of a simple mathematic sequence that has hidden complexities.

650-Foot High Megatsunami in Greenland Sends Seismic Waves Worldwide. "In September 2023, a megatsunami in Greenland triggered seismic waves worldwide, caused by a landslide in Dickson Fjord. The event generated two seismic signals: a high-energy signal from the landslide and a long-lasting VLP signal from a seiche in the fjord. The findings offer new insights into the risks posed by climate change and landslides in Greenland."

Inside Iron Mountain: It’s Time to Talk About Hard Drives. "Iron Mountain Media and Archive Services sounds the alarm: Aging tracks created through an all-digital workflow aren't guaranteed to play back." This has been a known issue with recording tape for many years and now it's happening with hard drives and optical media. We need a long-term (hundreds of years or more) storage media for digital data.  

When bats were wiped out, more human babies died, a study found. Here's why. "Researchers find infant deaths increased after farmers used more pesticides to compensate for rise of pests." Unintended consequences are killing children.

AI can now replicate the human brain to solve the 'cocktail party problem' – and it has led to criminal convictions. "The human brain can single out noises in a busy room, but technology can't, which makes using recordings as proof tricky."

Brick and Roses: How Community-Led Development Shapes Design. "Across North America and the U.K., community land trusts, co-ops and co-housing groups are nourishing bold, aspirational design paradigms — and a new generation of urban advocacy." High-density developments don't have to be ugly and soulless.

An AI May Have Just Invented "Alternative" Physics. "An AI shown videos of physical phenomena and instructed to identify the variables involved produced answers different from our own." This is really interesting and brings to mind a number of science fiction stories with exactly that idea. 

The 2024 Worldcon in Glasgow: Some Thoughts. A report on the Glasgow Worldcon by Abigail Nussbaun. Wish I could have been there.