Available battery voltages Updated +Created
Only certain battery voltages exist, because this voltage depends intrinsically on the battery's chemical composition.
learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/battery-technologies/all (CC BY-SA) has a very good summary list, reordered from lowest to highest voltage:
Battery ShapeChemistryNominal VoltageRechargeable?
AA, AAA, C, D (Rechargeable)NiMH or NiCd1.2VYes
AA, AAA, C, and DAlkaline or Zinc-carbon1.5VNo
Coin CellLithium3VNo
Silver Flat PackLithium Polymer (LiPo)3.7VYes
9VAlkaline or Zinc-carbon9VNo
Car BatterySix-cell lead acid12.6VYes
Craig Steven Wright Updated +Created
This dude actually managed to convince a brain-dead British court that he was Satoshi and force a takedown of the Bitcoin whitepaper from bitcoin.org/bitcoin.pdf where it had been for many years prior: coinmarketcap.com/academy/article/bitcoin-org-ordered-to-take-down-bitcoin-whitepaper-because-of-copyright-infringement The page was updated to simply display the following Satoshi quote:
It takes advantage of the nature of information being easy to spread but hard to stifle. - Satoshi Nakamoto
Figure 1.
Craig Steven Wright
. Source.
The mere thought that Satoshi would attempt to copyright takedown the Bitcoin whitepaper, and not be able to back his identidy with any cryptographic keys, makes one shrivel to the bones.
Also, kids, this is why you put a fucking license on everything you release to the public, and especially when doing so anonymously!!! A quick CC BY-SA on that paper would have prevented all this bullshit.
The existence of this outrageous fraudster has had two good effects on the world however it must be said:
Timeline:
Interesting
Csound Updated +Created
XML file format (but with 99% of the action of interest in a domain-specific language on the CsInstruments and CsScore elements) that can be played and the reference implementation. Offers complex effects out-of-box apparently.
Allows you to easily define instruments with seemingly arbitrary mathematical functions, and then use them to play notes at given time intervals.
The instrument functions can be parametrized, and each note played can have different parameters.
The instrument definition actually defines a block diagram graph, much like a hardware synthesizer would.
Csound is so not-bloated that it contains an UI system. And it includes an interactive virtual MIDI keyboard that interacts with parameter knobs: www.csounds.com/manual/html/MidiTop.html
But hey, it's fun. And like any other good domain-specific language, debugging it is barbaric of course.
If only it had been written in Python... the array manipulation boilerplate would be likely perfect for NumPy, and this would have been exactly what Ciro Santilli wanted!
CSound states that one of its design goals is backward compatibility, and it shows. Some of the stuff is utterly arcane, e.g. you have to remember what GEN10, GEN11, etc. mean instead of having named enums.
It just worked on Ubuntu 20.04 no questions asked:
sudo apt install csound
git clone https://github.com/csound/csound
cd csound
git checkout 92409ecce053d707360a5794f5f4f6bf5ebf5d24
csound examples/xanadu.csd
which runs this file: github.com/csound/csound/blob/92409ecce053d707360a5794f5f4f6bf5ebf5d24/examples/xanadu.csd and this plays a relly cool sound demo:
Video 1.
Xanadu Csound demo
. Source.
Save to file instead of playing:
csound -o xanadu.wav xanadu.csd
or direct ogg output:
csound --ogg -o xanadu.ogg xanadu.csd
or pipe to stdout to FFmpeg TODO: stackoverflow.com/questions/64970503/how-to-pipe-csound-output-to-ffmpeg-for-conversion-without-an-intermediate-file
TODO find the most amazing set of songs made with it on GitHub? Some examples:
Documentation-wise, it's a bit lacking. The only dude who can explain it really well, Dr Richard Boulanger, made the "The Csound Book" closed source, so, congrats, this will forever hurt the popularity of Csound.
David Goodsell Updated +Created
E-learning websites must keep content free, only charge for certification Updated +Created
Charging for certification is fine. Creating exams and preventing cheating has a cost.
Another thing that is fine charging for is dedicated 1-to-1 tutor time. This is something Udacity is doing as of 2022.
www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/042815/how-coursera-works-makes-money.asp has a good mention:
MOOCs were first created by people with utopian visions for the internet. This means the idea for platforms like Coursera was likely conceived without a business plan in mind. Nonetheless, Coursera has managed to monetize its platform. It is worth noting, however, that monetization has lead to the effective elimination of the original MOOC idea, which is predicated on ideals like free and open access, as well as the building of online communities.
Coursera users must pay to engage with the material in a meaningful way and take courses for individualistic purposes. This has been a consistent trend among all major online education platforms.
and it links to: www.freecodecamp.org/news/massive-open-online-courses-started-out-completely-free-but-where-are-they-now-1dd1020f59/, very good article!
That is a fundamental guiding principle of OurBigBook.com. The educational content must be licensed CC BY-SA!
Perhaps the most reliable way of reaching this state is E-learning websites must allow students to create learning content.
Bibliography:
With CC BY-SA of course. Not the evil CC BY-NC-SA.
Any lectures must be recorded. But of course, text is cheaper than video.
Just fucking pay teachers a decent salary comparable to industry instead of basically requiring them to try and sell their knowledge to complement their income. They must get paid, and their knowledge must
We don't need that many teachers teaching the same subjects over and over. We just need a few good men and women who can truly teach the masses. And we must pay those men and women a decent wage.
The perfect platform for this will of course be OurBigBook.com ;-)
Four Beauties Updated +Created
Figure 1.
A modern rendition of the four beauties
. Source. TODO we need a decent older one with CC BY-SA, and illustrating their attributes! Wikimedia failed me.
History of Amazon Updated +Created
I wonder where the spray painted sign went: twitter.com/profgalloway/status/1229952158667288576/photo/1. As mentioned at officechai.com/startups/amazon-first-office/ and elsewhere, Jeff did all he could to save money, e.g. he made the desks himself from pieces of wood. Mentioned e.g. at youtu.be/J2xGBlT0cqY?t=345 from Video 4. "Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002)".
Video 1.
Amazon.com report by Computer Chronicles (1996)
Source. Contains some good footage of their early storehouse.
Video 2.
Jeff Bezos interview by Chuck Films (1997)
Source. On the street, with a lot of car noise. CC BY-SA, nice.
Video 4.
Jeff Bezos presentation at MIT (2002)
Source. Good talk:
Video 5.
Jeff Bezos Revealed by Bloomberg (2015)
Source.
Video 6.
cosine by Jeff Bezos (2018)
Source.
PDE mention in another video from 2009: youtu.be/TYwhIO-OXTs?t=118
Full original video from The Economic Club of Washington, D.C. (2018): youtu.be/zN1PyNwjHpc?t=1544
Bezos also told PDE stuff in interviews as early as 1999: archive.ph/a3zBK.
Bibliography:
  • archive.ph/ucSHN This is what it was like to work at Amazon 20 years ago (2015). Good annecdotes from the first offices.
HyperPhysics Updated +Created
Created by Dr. Rod Nave from Georgia State University, where he worked from 1968 after his post-doc in North Wales on molecular spectroscopy.
While there is value to that website, it always feels like it falls a bit too short as too "encyclopedic" and too little "tutorial-like". Most notably, it has very little on the history of physics/experiments.
Ciro Santilli likes this Rod, he really practices some good braindumping, just look at how he documented his life in the pre-social media Internet dark ages: hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/Nave-html/nave.html
The website evolved from a HyperCard stack, as suggested by the website name, mentioned at: hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/index.html.
Shame he was too old for CC BY-SA, see "Please respect the Copyright" at hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/index.html.
exhibits.library.gsu.edu/kell/exhibits/show/nave-kell-hall/capturing-a-career has some good photo selection focused on showing the department, and has an interview.
LibreTexts Updated +Created
Follows the "certified teacher only" approach which is in Ciro Santilli's opinion a fatal flaw of most elearning systems out there, OurBigBook.com won't suffer from that!
But that is a very, very good project.
All notes appear to have been extracted from existing notes, as noted on the bottom of each page.
TODO how does it work exactly? Do they ask for permission from authors in every case, including when the content has open license? Or when it has open license, do they just do it? In some cases, the notes have no license, so they must have asked.
TODO what is the source code that authors write? LaTeX or something else? LaTeX feels extremely likely given that it is what most original materials were already written in.
They are attempting a "model up this entire university" thing: phys.libretexts.org/Courses which is good. E.g. they have a bunch of "quantum mechanics ones under: phys.libretexts.org/Bookshelves/Quantum_Mechanics
Appears to be UC Davies-based mostly.
They claim to use this closed source backend: www.nice.com/resources/cxone-expert-knowledge-management? Seriously? For a publicly funded project with low-tech requirements?? It is mind blowing.
Some issues:
OK let's database it:
Existing data sources Updated +Created
Some possible/not possible sources that could be used to manually bootstrap content:
Lecture note upload website:
Exams uploads:
Topology in condensed matter Updated +Created
But then they regained their sanity and put the source code on GitHub: github.com/topocm/topocm_content and is CC BY-SA.
Uses an ungodly combination of Jupyter notebooks and Pelican.
ViaScience Updated +Created
Those guys are really good, Ciro Santilli especially enjoyed their quantum mechanics playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL193BC0532FE7B02C
The quantum electrodynamics one was a bit too slow paced for Ciro unfortunately, too much groundwork and too little results.
Accompanying website with a tiny little bit of code: viascience.org/what.html
TODO: authors and their affiliation.
Videos licensed as CC BY-SA, those guys are so good.
YouTube channels that just go over Stack Exchange questions Updated +Created
Some people have been creating YouTube channels that just post and go over a large number of Stack Exchange questions, some of them with a quick random intro video. Perfectly legal due to CC BY-SA but really weird stuff!