-
Ammonite Suture Patterns
Their suture patterns are like nature’s artwork. The internal walls (septa) dividing shell chambers create incredibly intricate, fractal-like patterns visible when fossils are polished. These "sutures" are unique to each species and help paleontologists identify and date them precisely. Placenticeras meeki Late Cretaceous, Pierre Shale South Dakota, USA This unusual-looking piece features an ammonite preserved… Read More
Categories: Uncategorized (201)No comments on Ammonite Suture Patterns
-
We Dig Ammonites
Ammonites used to rule the seas for 350M years. They were prolific, and adaptive, with over 10,000 different species, across sizes spanning from a millimeter to 10 feet across. But then they all disappeared with the meteorite impact that took out the dinosaurs. Ammonites are ancient relatives of octopuses and squids, marine cephalopods with tentacles,… Read More
Categories: Uncategorized (201)
-
Pyrite Ammonite
For the ones that look metalized with crystals in the chambers: “as the organic matter decayed, it released sulfides that interacted with the iron ions dissolved in the surrounding waters. This allowed pyrite to invade the shell and fill the chambers, creating a preservation with a brassy luster.” (We Dig Ammonites, p.85) Nautilus shell on… Read More
Categories: Uncategorized (201)
-
FOCUS —⃣⃣⃣⃣⃣ The ASML Way
I just finished this history of the most important semiconductor equipment company in the world, as translated from the Dutch original (and lurking in the background might be a better way). Reminder: ASML builds 100% of the world’s extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines, without which cutting edge chips are simply impossible to make. It’s the… Read More
Post Tags: asml (2), book (104), china (81), cymer, duv, euv, focus (2), history (102), lace (7), lithography (5), na (3), nigh, summary (10), the (72), tsmc (2), way (10)
-
Before Think Different, there was THINK
Wow, wow, wow… I just won the auction of Steve Jobs’ THINK poster and his Apple 1 ribbon cable from his home garage, birthplace of Apple Computer. in the David v. Goliath mythology that Jobs promulgated, IBM was the Goliath. When IBM introduced the PC in 1981, Jobs took out a full page newspaper ad… Read More
Categories: Mac Attack (58)Post Tags: 1981, apple (49), ibm (24), jobs (26), office (54), owned (2), personally, sign (52), steve (53), think (11)
-
Steve Jobs’ Personal Apple 1 Relic from 1976
I just won Steve Jobs’ original Apple 1 rainbow ribbon cable, used to connect the motherboard to the keyboard (example below). On the left is a standard 16-pin connector that fits the same DIP socket used for logic chips and memory back then, long before standard USB connectors. This cable is a 1976 relic from… Read More
-
Defining the American Dream 🇺🇸 🇺🇸 🇺🇸
A fun surprise to see our definition decorating the elevator (see comments below), and then, the huge portraits glowing in the main hall at a conference for philanthropists this weekend. In an era of political tribalism, what we say and what we believe can diverge. Todd Rose has the world’s largest data set on what… Read More
-
This is your brain on drugs…. Cocaine on the left, Group-belonging on the right. Todd Rose, far right
Todd Rose, Author of Collective Illusions: "Why do people lie in public, contrary to their private beliefs? One word: Belonging. The fMRI brain imaging of a drug addict given cocaine lights up the reward system. When people are told their beliefs align with their group, it activates the exact same reward system. To wreak havoc… Read More
Categories: Uncategorized (201)
-
Is intelligence substrate-dependent?
Neuroscience Prof. Anil Seth argues that conscious human intelligence is tightly coupled to our living, biological substrate, not replicable or simulatable in silicon. Here are some of my reactions to his thought-provoking piece: If human intelligence and consciousness is substrate dependent, as asserted, even down to individual neurons being irreplaceable by silicon substrates, then some… Read More
-
We got the MEAT 🎶 the new book by Bruce Friedrich
Just got my pre-print of “a road map to a better future for meat manufacturing… where our appetites and our ethics can finally align.” — my blurb in the book 🙂 Some of the technologies covered: • Cellular Ag: grow real meat without the animal, “indistinguishable from conventional animal meat, but less expensive, more nutritious,… Read More
