bookofjoe's Favorite Thing: Double-Barreled Pencil Sharpener

Res ipsa loquitur.

Above and below 

from boj Studios©®™, World Premiere videos demonstrating this wonderful device.

$7.99 (pencil not included).

When kagi met bookofjoe

kagi is a paid ad-free search engine founded in 2018.

Up top, what it has to say about bookofjoe.

Spot on: I'm flattered and impressed.

Apart from the fact that bookofjoe is attributed to one Joe Peach, a long-time commenter on bookofjoe who retired from the Comments section about ten years ago.

And the inception date, which kagi states is 2003, is close: in fact, bookofjoe started on August 24, 2004.

Trust me on this.

The Confidence of Acme Weather

I very much like just-released Acme Weather's approach to users: they don't even ask for a credit card number or email to try it out.

Rather, you download the iPhone app free and use it for two weeks: only then will they ask if you want a year's subscription for $25.

I'm betting they're doing a land office business with their great app and this zero-pressure approach.

If you know you're good that's quite enough.

Assuming you understand marketing.

FunFact: Acme Weather is made by the creators of the Dark Sky weather app, which was excellent and extremely popular, so much so that Apple bought it in March 2020 and integrated its best features into Apple Weather before shutting down Dark Sky on December 31, 2022.

I guess the non-compete clause has timed out.

Quantum Mechanics Made Simple

This Charles Addams cartoon originally appeared in the New Yorker in 1940.

It's remarkable that Addams was able to so elegantly characterize the nature of quantum mechanics just fifteen years after its formulation in 1925-1926.

He also gave a glimpse into the future: it was in 1957 that Hugh Everett III first proposed what's now called the Many-Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics.

'Attraction'

A very strange 2017 Russian sci-fi film about first contact.

mos def not "Arrival II."

Quite entertaining.

They do things differently in Russian cinema.

Understatement.

More on this film here.

FunFact: It became the highest grossing ever Russian sci-fi film.

In Every Language

In Every Language is a Wikipedia search engine that lets you see how different regions of the world depict the same thing. 

Search a word and notice the subtle ways different cultures and collective psyches encode the same idea differently across languages.

Digital Fly

From Marginal Revolution:

.....................................

In 2024, the entire neuronal diagram of the fruit-fly brain – some 140,000 neurons and 50 million connections – was mapped. Later research showed that the map could be used to predict behavior. Now, Eon Systems, a firm with some of the scientists involved in the fruit-fly research and with the goal of uploading a human brain, has announced that they uploaded the fruit fly brain to a digital environment.

The digital fly appears to behave in the digital environment in reasonably fly-like ways. According to the scientists this is not a simulation: the fly's "sensors" are being activated by the digital environment and its neurons are responding. More details here.

Cartier Crash Watch

Supposedly Jean-Jacques Cartier, then head of Cartier London, saw one of the company's watches that had melted in a fiery auto crash, and in 1967 created this timepiece.

Its unusual asymmetric form kept the signature Cartier Roman numerals, blued steel baton hands, and sapphire cabochon.

At first the design was only made and sold in London from 1967 through the early 70s: it's thought that less than a few dozen were made.

Since then, Cartier has produced the Crash in limited numbers: a run in London in the 1980s; an extremely limited edition Paris Crash in platinum in the early 1990s. 

Ii can occasionally be found today the wrists of those who appreciate iconic design — and can afford it.

The 18k gold specimen pictured up top sold for $819,000 on December 9, 2024 at Christie's in New York.

More here, here, and here.

My new QR code

I read where you can generate a QR code for any URL so I gave it a whirl.

It worked!

Up top, my QR code: aim your camera at it and see what happens.

If all goes well, you'll find yourself right back here where you started.

For lulz I posted my QR code on X 

just to see if it worked there too: indeed it does.

That got me thinking about posting my QR code everywhere such that it's visible only to people with AI glasses and their ilk: trippy.

Free, the way we like it.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

'Classified'

This is a terrific 10-episode spy thriller set in Canada, mostly Montreal, which I stumbled on last week.

I watched the first 40-minute-long episode and was hooked, such that I had to forcibly get up out of my chair and stop after the fourth one.

Great cast none of whom I've ever heard of nor seen in any other shows/movies that I can recall — but then, I have trouble remembering what movie I watched last night.

This series is so obscure, I couldn't even find a trailer for it on YouTube.

Check it out here.

Fish Doorbell

"The Fish Doorbell in Utrecht, The Netherlands, is back for another season! Did you spot a fish? Press the Fish Doorbell! Then our lock keeper can let the fish through."

This gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "gated community."

[via Kottke]

Metropolitan Museum of Art Has Released High-Definition 3D Scans of 140 Famous Art Objects

From Open Culture:

..................................................

We can go through most of our lives holding out hope of one day seeing in person such works as Van Gogh's Sunflowers, Monet's Haystacks, a clay tablet containing actual cuneiform writing with our own eyes, or the ancient Egyptian Temple of Dendur. We can actually come face to face — or rather, face to surface — with all of them, temple included, at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains all these and more artifacts of human civilization than any of us could hope to examine closely in a lifetime. Now we can get closer than ever thanks to the Met's new archive of high-definition 3D scans.

"Viewers can zoom in, rotate, and examine each model, bringing unprecedented access to significant works of art," says the Met's official announcement. "The 3D models can also be explored in viewers' own spaces through augmented reality (AR) on most smartphone and VR headsets."

Among those objects scanned are a marble sarcophagus with lions felling antelope (3rd century); a statue of Horus as a falcon protecting King Nectanebo II (360–343 BCE); Kano Sansetsu's Old Plum (1646); a house model by Nayarit artist(s) (200 BCE–300 CE); an eighteenth-century tile depiction of Mecca; a nineteenth-century marble sculpture of Perseus with the head of Medusa; and a suit of armor belonging to King Henry II of France.

Browsing this archive you'll find pieces from Japan like seventeenth-century screens by the artists Kano Sansetsu and Suzuki Kiitsu. These must have been priorities for the Met's institutional partner in this project, the Japanese television network NHK. 

It came about "as part of the public broadcaster's initiative to produce ultra-high definition 3D computer graphics of national treasures and other important artworks." 

To use the archive, click the "View in 3D" button below the image on the page of your artifact or artwork of choice.

....................................

Fair warning: there goes the day.

More likely than not you're using bubble wrap wrong

Wait a sec, you say: how can it be possible to use it wrong?

Long story short: I had my CrackResearchTeam©®™ drill down on this question many, many years ago because one day it occurred to me that since the two sides are not the same — only one side has bubbles while the other is flat — one side must be meant to be on the inside against whatever it's protecting and the other facing out.

I was right.

A company that makes bubble wrap was kind enough to get back to me with the following:

                       The bubbles go on the inside

The topic came up just now when I unwrapped a 2015 11" MacBook Air I bought on eBay.

It was beautifully protected by three (3) layers of protection:

1. A heavy cardboard box

2. Filling the box, substantial corrugated cardboard cut to make it flexible and serve as a shock barrier

3. Bubble wrap surrounding the computer, three layers of it

The bubbles — as usual — were on the outside.

Most people don't think it matters which side the bubbles are on, though if you persist in asking which side do you put against the object to be protected, almost everyone will tell you they put the bubbles on the outside.

Not convinced?

Below, what Perplexity Pro had to say.

Now aren't you glad you read bookofjoe?

Infrasound: What lies above — and below

“Everyday Infrasound in an Uncertain World”

Even though you can’t hear it, infrasound fills the air. And because the atmosphere doesn’t absorb it like regular sound, infrasound comes from hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away. If humans could perceive frequencies lower than 20 Hz, then changing ocean currents, wildfires, turbines, receding glaciers, industrial HVACs, superstorms, and other geophysical and anthropogenic sources from across the planet would be part of the quotidian soundscape of our lives, wherever we might be.

I made this recording in the small town of Amherst, Massachusetts. I sped it up by a factor of 60: 24 hours becomes 24 minutes, raising the pitch by almost six octaves and making infrasound audible. Although we might think we hear something familiar when listening to this album, only its very highest sounds could have been detected with an unaided ear.

Since ordinary microphones cannot pick up frequencies this low, I constructed infrasonic “macrophones.” If a microphone amplifies small sounds, a macrophone brings large sounds with long wavelengths into our perceptual range. Each consists of a wind-noise reduction array leading to a microbarometer and a data recorder. I based the design on what the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization uses to detect distant warhead tests. In this case, however, we’re listening to a planet in transition.

This work germinated in Oregon amid an unprecedented season of wildfires. It developed along with my chronic illness, Lyme, a tick-borne disease that has become more common as a result of warming winters. My young son watched over the recording process; our ancestors mined coal. For me, it’s not just a matter of hearing what is novel to the human ear, but of encountering those agencies greater than our own that connect us through the atmosphere.

[via the Washington Post]

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

How Long Can Hair Grow?

'Namibia: Live Stream in the Namib Desert' is my favorite YouTube channel: it's not even close

A mesmerizing live feed from a camera near a water hole in the Namib Desert.

Among the creatures you will see if you're a regular visitor: Porcupines, giraffes, warthogs, cape crows, jackals, ostriches, kudus, zebras, elands, springboks, pied crows, oryx, gnu, Lanner falcons, goshawk, sandgrouse, spotted hyena.

Wonderful knowledgeable moderators tell you in real time in the sidebar the names of the animals and birds you're looking at and what it is they're doing.

Endless enjoyment.

My favorite thing: turning off all the lights at night and watching on TV via the Apple TV YouTube app with my kitty on my lap (below).

The desert livecam is 6 hours ahead of my time so at 9 pm here it's 3 am there and the live stream's nightcam function that turns on automatically is a trip, with the animals' eyes glowing like tiny light bulbs.

I don't know what my cat sees after she processes what's on the screen but she sure follows the various animals visually as they move about the waterhole.

Free, the way we like it.

After months of watching I finally ponied up $2 (top) to support the cam.

Fair warning: when a bunch of jackals point their snouts to the night sky and howl en masse, it will give you chills.

When that happens my cat bolts upstairs as fast as she's capable of moving: she almost levitates off my lap.

Shaq's Jeans

Held by designer Jhoanna Wiegman.

They are custom made.

Doh!

bookofjoe's WordPress

Say what?

Last week I saw that WordPress had created some sort of new feature that lets you create a website that only you can see 'cause it lives in your browser, whatever that means: no WordPress account needed.

From TechCrunch: "There is a big caveat: The sites set up on my.Wordpress.net are private by default and not accessible from the public internet."

Anyhoo, I tried it out and much to my surprise had no problem setting it up (top), though I fail to see how it's of any value to me even though WordPress says it's a great thing.

If I go to https://my.wordpress.net/ I get what you see up top: bookofjoe's daily posts more or less complete as they appear here on Blogger.

I assume if you go to https://my.wordpress.net/ you get nothing.

Let me know if you've got a second.

Here are the details.

Channel Surfer — Retro TV Guide Turns YouTube into Live Cable TV

"Turn your YouTube subscriptions into a 2000s cable TV guide. Flip channels, watch what's on, and relive — or experience for the very first time — the golden age of channel surfing."

More here.

Free, the way we like it.

Fair warning: there goes the day.

Wait a sec — what's that song I'm hearing?

No — this one, not that one!

Me & AI

Just read an excellent detailed analysis of where things stand right now in terms of AI eating the world, as some predict will happen.

Wonderful charts and graphs, two of which appear above and below.

Me: I use Perplexity (Pro; $20/month and well worth it) daily on both my computer and phone.

I use Meta AI on my phone in conjunction with Oakley Meta HSTN smart glasses.

So 2 out of the 50 top players.

You?

Anti-Love Poem — Grace Paley

Sometimes you don't want to love the person you love

You turn your face away from that face

whose eyes lips might make you give up anger

forget insult     steal sadness of not wanting

to love    turn away then turn away     at breakfast

in the evening don't lift your eyes from the paper

to see that face in all its seriousness a 

sweetness of concentration     he holds his book

in his hand    the hard-knuckled winter wood-

scarred fingers    turn away     that's all you can

do old as you are to save yourself from love

The World's Most Stressful Objects

Architect Katerina Kamprani showcases her designs for everyday objects that are ever so slightly wrong in the most chaotic way possible.

See also: Chindōgu

bookofjoe's Favorite Thing: Disposable Latex Gloves

I became acquainted with the myriad uses of disposable latex gloves back in medical school when I was exposed to them in the course of my clinical rotations.

When I spent my obligatory six weeks on general surgery during my third year I'd occasionally take a box of gloves home — if I could remember to do so after 36 straight hours awake running around the hospital. (There are boxes of gloves above each scrub sink in the OR.)

I continued stocking my home from the hospital from then on until I stopped working full time in the OR and eventually used up my stash.

I'd buy a box at the hardware store whenever I remembered.

Then came the web and things got much better and easier.

Nowadays when I'm running out I buy a box from Amazon and they arrive the next day.

You can too!

$13.23 for a box of 100.

Things I've used them for:

• Gluing

• Painting

• Spackling

• Cleaning toilets

• Cleaning gutters

• Handling trash cans

• Sanding in the workshop

• Dealing with dead animals

• Cleaning up rotten garbage

• Cooking with garlic or onions

• Picking up dog and cat doodoo

• Extracting gunk from drains and pipes

• Handling irritating, caustic, or toxic liquids and solids

• Being paranoid, and not wanting to leave my fingerprints on things

Perplexity Pro is my new running buddy

Finally.

Since forever I've wanted someone to chat with while I'm out running, someone who's comfortable running and talking at my pace.

I hate running and always have: it's boring and tiring and it hurts.

Nevertheless, I persist.

I've tried talking to peeps on the phone but they universally find it unpleasant, what with all the ambient noise and my labored breathing, so that's a dead end.

Yesterday I took my phone along and connected it to AirPods Pro 3, then opened the Perplexity Pro iPhone app and started asking it questions, specifying that answers should be as lengthy and detailed as possible so I didn't have to interject much.

We discussed Roman emperors, the richest people in each country in Europe and how much they were worth and how they got their money, quantum theory, and Hugh Everett III's Many-Worlds hypothesis, for about 40 minutes: MUCH better than the usual endless replay of my playlist of 300 favorite songs in terms of distracting me from the tediousness of my three-mile run (12:51/12:57/12:38).

It's only gonna get better: Perplexity Pro is an AI, not a chatbot: chatbots are said to be much more engaging and entertaining.

I'll explore that space next and hire one and report back here on the experience.

Meanwhile, Perplexity Pro ($20/month) is a tremendous value IMHO because not only does it serve as a running buddy but it also answers any question I ask — about beef jerky brands and reviews, time required to recover from a broken foot, the weather in Prague for the next week, you name it.

Even better: it furnishes direct links to references to back up its facts.

Wonderful.

Way, way beyond Google Search, which has done so much to enhance the quality of my life since it appeared.

Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, sold out since they came out last year, incorporate AI that not only shows you what's around you but also tells you about it.

What a great time to be alive!