sopchi

The research described was done at Stanford by Profs Eric Pop and Krishna Saraswat. Paper in Science: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adq7096

I disagree with your point #2 as it is written. You want to keep you battery close to the temperature at which it is rated. Cycling below that also harms batteries and shortens their life. If you really want to geek out about that, I can recommend for example a talk [1] that was given last week (you can jump to slide 15). The presentation has nice electron microscopy images of the cracking this type of abuse causes in batteries.

[1] https://academy.covalentmetrology.com/wp-content/uploads/Bat...

Carved from antlers. What tool would you use to make such clean, deep, small, circular features such as the pips and eyes on the figurine?

Incredibly, this site is still being updated and added to. The site owner as been at it for over 20 years.

If you are in California or the US, enter your town's name in the search bar and you will be surprised by what you learn about buildings you have noticed in your daily life.

One reproduces the sky as seen from Earth (planets, stars, galaxies, etc), while the other is a model of the solar system. The Zeiss device will let you see the sky as it is at different dates, from different places on Earth, will let you see the sky as if the Sun was not shining during daytime (so you can see the other objects). It is unfair to discount it as just a new way of presenting what that other machine was showing. They are in fact very different in what they can do.

Yes I do, all the time. Your post and the comments it elicited reminded me of the excerpt from Adam Smith's Weath Of Nations about the Woolen Coat. It is given as an example of what can be achieved thanks to the division of labor. I took pleasure in re-reading it so I copy it here:

"The woolen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool-comber or carder, the dryer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very distant part of the country! how much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world!... Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next to his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on... the kitchen grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage...; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided... the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be tue, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many of African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages."

OK, I see. I still find that surprising because I would imagine having the pipette hanging from your mouth doesn't allow ou to really see what is going on if you are really trying to hit a target volume. I would have thought the feedback you need is visual.

I am surprised there is on mention of rubber bulbs. If the main concern is safety, as the beginning of the article seems to imply, the rubber bulb would have been enough of a solution. The micropipette solves mostly all the other concerns: speed, repeatability, avoidance of contamination, ease of use one-handed. A great invention for sure. Why would they even mouth pipette if they can use a rubber bulb? Is it that the rubber bulb was somehow invented later? Did you encounter anything about that when researching this topic?

Can you elaborate: why are the rings not visible on that image? Is it because they are outside the frame, or too faint, or don't appear in the visible spectrum? Something else?

I don't quite believe the dice roll metaphor tells the whole story. It is not all or nothing, it is not how it is done. On that subject, I recommend reading the book by Ed Viesturs [1], first American to ascend all 14 highest mountains (summits > 8000m) without oxygen. His take is: to do all 14, you need to come back alive every time. So knowing when to give up on an attempt and turn back is key. Above 8000m (reasoning impaired by lack of oxygen), when the weather is still good, when you are so close to the top, and knowing you will have to wait years perhaps for the next opportunity it can be really hard to make that decision correctly. And picking a partner with not just all the skills bit also the same risk tolerance is vital.

[1]: No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks (October 2006)

Apple, software side. I use Apple Notes on my macbook, phone and windows machine through the browser. One day, an important (to me) functionality had stopped working in the browser version only. I knew it should be there and thought they must have updated something and broken that in the process. It happens. I was bugged more than I should have been so I filed a request on the Apple website. Less than an hour later, I get a phone call. When the person on the phone understands they are looking at something real, they ask if they can connect me to an engineer. I talked to some engineer, walked them through the issue. The issue was fixed in the same day. It was so easy. I was shocked a company so big could function on such a personal level. To me that is the mark of great customer service.

Melville's got your back:

- "Be it known that, waiving all argument, I take the good old fashioned ground that the whale is a fish, and call upon holy Jonah to back me."

- "To be short, then, a whale is a spouting fish with a horizontal tail."

He even notes right there that he knows about Linnaeus' work (a century old at this point) that concludes that whales are not fish. He simply decides not to care. Looks like Walrus is where he draws his line.

[1]: Moby Dick, Chapter 32: Cetology

On this page you can select "State" (in Area Type) to zoom in on California. Compare this March 7 2023 to March 8 2022 and March 9 2021 to see the effect of the recent rains on the severity of the drought.

For this time of year, this is the best we've had since 2019.

The Drought Monitor has been a team effort since its inception in 1999, produced jointly by the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, NOAA, and the USDA.

For sure. I was just bringing numbers to support the >25% number claimed higher, and that it is not a matter of visibility. I frequently find people seem to think the homeless are simply more visible in California.

Also didn't want to copy paste the whole page, thinking people here know that California's population is nowhere near half or even 30% of the US population. The link I shared has on page 16 a map that addresses your point, and also on the same page:

• California also had the highest rate of homelessness, with 44 people experiencing homelessness out of every 10,000 people in the state.

The link you posted is interesting. It does take numbers form a variety of different sources and it is difficult to know if the methodologies are always comparable. That page uses HUD numbers (and the map I am pointing to) as one of the sources. The states ranking it gives for homeless per capita is from 2019 (prepandemic), and different from the one HUD has in their latest report.

You bring up visibility of the homeless, that is one thing, but it is besides parent's point. There are government statistics on the homeless population and California has a huge share of it. See the 2022 HUD report [1] (also note the distinction between homeless and unsheltered):

• More than half of all people experiencing homelessness in the country were in four states: California (30% or 171,521 people); New York (13% or 74,178 people); Florida (5% or 25,959 people); and Washington (4% or 25,211).

• California accounted for half of all unsheltered people in the country (115,491 people). This is more than nine times the number of unsheltered people in the state with the next highest number, Washington. In the 2022 point-in-time count, Washington reported 12,668 people or just six percent of the national total of people in unsheltered locations.

[1] page 16 of https://www.huduser.gov/portal/sites/default/files/pdf/2022-...

Compares caffeine contents in filter vs espresso, instant coffee, light roast vs dark roast, function of time. Uses Lightell caffeine analyzer (looks like the CA-700)

Interestingly, that German phrase also has its application in French: the word Vasistas [1], used to refer to roof windows. Ended up completely different than both German and Hungarian versions.

[1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasistas

On the very practical side:

- Separate clearly preparation time from execution time. Prepare your pitch. Prepare a nice long list of targets with the relevant information (why you picked them) + contact info. Make it so you don't have to go back to this while executing.

- Block off a 1-2 of hours to do the calling. No distractions, no over-thinking. If you are doing phone calls: it is you, a phone, your list of contacts, pitch help, and note-taking material in a room. You will be making back to back calls. Execution time is not the time to think of why you are getting rejected so much, or you will be making 2 calls when you should have made 20. This assumes you have a long enough list of targets to be able to just go through them.

- Start with lower stakes targets. Keep more important, more strategic, bigger, targets for a little later. In particular if you think you have a better chance of landing them for some reason. Preferably not for the first session. There is a warm up period for each session, and you should also be getting better after the first session. The first session is definitely a test more than anything else.

- Note down everything you can. Verbatim as much as possible.

- Make it conversational. The opening sentences are going to be scripted, and you can use a more scripted version of the rest of the pitch for the first few calls of a session, but as you warm up, let things be more conversational. This will be a more pleasant experience for you and the persons you call.

- Sales calls are all about asking questions and making a connection. Be curious about the persons you are talking to and use the time they give you to satisfy your curiosity. Ask follow-up questions. Chime in with an opinion or a sentiment now and then. Use what they give you (any answer or info) to dig deeper to understand their problem. You are typically better off selling a solution to a problem they actually have than selling a product/features. The difficult part is to get them to tell about their problem - because people who like to open up about their problems to strangers are pretty rare.

- Immediately after you are done with a session, look at your notes, organize them, complete them as needed from memory, and list all the follow up you have to do. You will be following up in a timely fashion. The people who did not pickup the phone are on the list for next time.

- Now is also a good time to reflect on how the next round can go better: What worked? Did you repeatedly hear a theme when they were pushing back? Do you need better proof? Handling objections is a key part of selling, so having notes of all the objections and devising ways to handle them is crucial. Were you targeting the right people, the right title? Was it the right time of day/week/quarter/year (budgeting cycles)? When things went better, was there a pattern you can identify?

- If you are working in a team of people conducting the same effort in parallel, share this feedback with them. Are they doing something that works? What are you guys learning about your customers? If one of you is having more success, them letting the others listen in on some of their calls can be gold.

- Rinse and repeat.

The thing is even when you are being rejected, you want to build knowledge about the market. That is an added value of this approach vs just listing your services on some marketplace and having a website.

And yes, like others have commented, any warm lead or referral will have 50x better success rate. BTW, if you can score a referral (even weak) from one of the people you are cold calling, that counts the same: "I spoke with xxx and she indicated you would be a better person to have this conversation".

Also, I am not implying cold calling is the right approach for your company and product, just giving a few practical tips if you are going to be doing it.

Good overview of the battery research space, with insights of what makes it hard to go from lab prototype to commercial product and why so many research breakthroughs eventually fail to translate into innovation for the consumer.

I was very surprised to find in the recent New Yorker long article about Chinese-Taiwanese Relations [1] that TSMC was only mentioned at the very end. I was expecting this to be central to the story. I recommend reading the whole thing to anyone who has an hour to spare.

"One of the most important deterrents to war is Taiwan’s role in producing semiconductors. Seventy per cent of the world’s most advanced chips are manufactured there, many of them at the Taiwanese Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. [...] China is similarly reliant on the highest-end chips produced in Taiwan; it doesn’t have the equipment or the expertise to manufacture them. If China seized control of Taiwan’s semiconductor factories, it could conceivably force local workers to run them. But the factories depend on a constant flow of Western material, software, expertise, and engineers, without which production would cease in a matter of weeks. Pottinger told me, “If the Chinese took the factories, there’s no way the West would help run them.”"

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/11/21/a-dangerous-ga...

They can definitely be bought and sold. This lovely website [1] has a list and prices are displayed. Prices vary a lot: type/composition, origin, and of course size all matter. How pretty they are also matters. I have met a few people who thought they found large meteorites (right or wrong) and who understandably were very excited.

[1] http://www.meteoritemarket.com/mmhome.htm

For those not familiar with meteorite identification: they can be tricky to tell apart from other rocks and random debris found on earth. I love this Professor's site [1], first attempting to deter people from sending him tons of useless rocks. Starts with some "Rude Admonishments" that are worth a read. His site is also at the top of the sites recommended by the Utah Geological Survey as resources for people who think they may have found a meteorite.

[1] https://sites.wustl.edu/meteoritesite/items/what_to_do/

Shows all the stations connected by a direct train (no connection). Limited to Europe. Contrast Vienna to Bruxelles-Midi, for example.