What cables to use with my 4k monitor?
HowToGeek gives a good breakdown on the differences between the different versions and capabilities of HDMI, Displayport, and USB-C standards.
Riding through an electron beam irradiator
Electron beam irradiators are used for sterilization and specialized polymer generation/combination. These devices are rated in MeV range and emit astounding amounts of radiation/charged particles.
Anyone entering even the same room as the device would likely receive a fatal dose nearly instantly. The radiation is so intense, the air itself is ionized to the point it glows blue (seen clearly at timestamp 1:08 in the video below). It’s was an effect seen above the Chernobyl reactor right after it’s explosion.
The radiation is so powerful and dangerous that special hardened ‘radiation bunkers’ are created with winding shielded corridors that keep operators safely away from any straight-line exposure to radiation sources. Still, there is a long history of operators that have been seriously injured and killed by huge amounts of radiation when they ignored safety protocols and circumvented safety devices to enter the rooms.
Someone decided to see what it looked like inside an electron beam irradiator by putting a GoPro camera through the device. To even survive, it was encased in a 3/8″ lead case with a 1/2″ thick 50% lead glass window – with an additional 1/4″ lead plate above the camera. Even with all that shielding, it completely overwhelmed the CCD in the Gopro. It’s a terrifying ride through a lethal radiation dose. Give it a watch.
Un Caro
The Vatican has released the doctrinal note Una Caro: In Praise of Monogamy (Italian only so far, you can use google translate for now) to give guidance are re-enforce on already existing teaching on the subject of marriage.
You can find a great summary of it’s main points here.
In a world that is rapidly and constantly changing definitions about the nature of relationships as well as basic definitions of human biology, this is an excellent document to read if you want to know the beauty our physical bodies and relationships have always been understood as: gifts, signs, and multi-layered bonds of unity that mirror the love Christ has for the Church – his bride.
Give it a read as we await our bride groom who comes in just a few short weeks at Christmas – born in a barn, placed in a feed trough, and united with for us in our humble humanity.
Van Gogh’s Turbulent Night
Scientists using the Hubble space telescope discovered patterns of eddies and currents of dust around a distant star, and thought it looked a lot like Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting.
In digitizing and measuring the patterns in Van Gogh’s turbulent flows, they found the patterns of turbulent flow close to his end during a period of psychological difficulty closely matched Kolmogorov’s turbulent flow equations. Strangely, turbulent flow in his earlier paintings during a less troubled psychological time, did not exhibit this pattern.
Healing Junocam from 500 million miles away
The Juno spacecraft has had an amazing mission orbiting Jupiter since 2016. One of the biggest problems in exploring the Jupiter is the intense radiation. Jupiter has extremely powerful magnetic fields that trap charged particles. Those particles generate massive amounts of radiation in various bands around the planet – in the range of 500-3600rem/day. Many times a fatal dose for a human. The combined effect can even destroy electronics and instruments onboard any spacecraft sent there.
To combat this, much of Juno’s critical electronic hardware was encased in a special radiation resistant titanium vault. Sadly, not all devices could be put in the shielding. One of those devices was the camera – Junocam. On the 47th orbit, scientists noticed the camera started showing signs of radiation damage in the form of grainy, horizontal streaks. By orbit 56, almost all images showed signs of corruption.
Junocam, like most modern digital cameras, is based on CCD technology. Unfortunately, radiation shows up as streaks, bright spots, and noise. Prolonged exposure damages the silicon-crystal structure of the CCD itself.
By examining the kind of image degradation in the images, mission staff determined a voltage regular on the camera’s power supply was malfunctioning. But how to fix it?
“We knew annealing can sometimes alter a material like silicon at a microscopic level but didn’t know if this would fix the damage. We commanded JunoCam’s one heater to raise the camera’s temperature to 77 degrees Fahrenheit — much warmer than typical for JunoCam — and waited with bated breath to see the results.”
It worked. JunoCam’s imaging was restored and delivered clear images for the next few orbits. Unfortunately, as the mission took Juno closer and closer to Jupiter and Io, image damage returned. Image processing alone couldn’t fix the issue.
There was a deadline. Juno was going to come within 1500km of Io and they wanted to get the most amazing last shots of the mission. In a last attempt to fix the camera and get high quality pictures of Io, they cranked the heater all the way up and tried one more time. It worked, and they got crisp images of Io:
They used this same annealing method for several other components in Juno with success. NASA now even thinks they might specifically design components that will be damaged by radiation to be annealed.
Links:
Taking apart a smoking Funny Car
After a late Friday night qualifying run, the Chad Green Motorsports Nitro Funny Car team at the 2025 NHRA Muckleshoot Casino Northwest Nationals in Seattle gets to work in the pits, disassembling the racecar to assess its condition.
Funny cars are disassembled after every single run due to the absolutely bonkers forces these engines undergo. These guys have the process down to a science and they do it while the engine is still hot from the run to help it come apart easier.
Old Skool Cafe San Francisco
Slip through a door labeled ‘speakeasy’ in San francisco’s Bayview, and you’ll be transported into a red-carpeted restaurant that looks like it fell out of the 1920’s. What makes this place different is that it’s run for, and by, at risk San Fanciscans ages 16 to 22. The idea spawned from a gang prevention effort in the notorious Mission District. The question the founders asked: “What if we created our own restaurant so we could not only make a little money to keep it going, but no longer be dependent on the state or philanthropy?” Then they could give kids jobs and learning opportunities.
They enroll about 50 students per year in a two year program that teaches them restaurant skills like cooking and serving – and pays them. They then get externships in the hospitality industry. Eddie Blyden is Old Skool’s head chef and director of culinary education. He even encourages them to make their own recipes that are sometimes served as specials.
Old Skool also won a $350,000 grant from Chick-fil-A. The nonprofit just inked a deal to bring on award-winning hospitality group Hi Neighbor, the visionary behind restaurants 7 Adams, Trestle, The Vault Steakhouse and Mama Oakland, as a consultants.
This seems like a much better system than simple handouts as it gives young people a way out as well a real purpose and skills.
Links:
Another single remaining copy game shared
TRIPITAKA (Xuanzang Sanzo’s Dharma-Seeking Journey) is the sequel to Cosmology of Kyoto and second episode in the Cosmology of Asia series. Developed by Soft Edge. Published by PD Inc., 1999.
What makes it interesting is that only a single copy of the game is known to exist. Like eCDP, the owner has decided to release a copy of the game for free.
While I don’t have any ultra-rare games, I did manage to get a copy of the rare Clue: The Storybook, scan it, and provided the internet a copy.
GPU Hud
MangoHud is a nice little Linux package that provides a Vulkan and OpenGL overlay for monitoring FPS, temperatures, CPU/GPU load, and lots of other parameters. Source is provided on github.
14.5-inch 32:9 display
The Corsair Xeneon Edge 14.5″ Touchscreen is an interesting little display. It’s a 14.5″ touchpanel, but at an very wide 32:9 aspect ratio. It makes it a niche 2nd display device for displaying system info, a news feed, displaying Twitter/Discord feeds, or maybe even something mounted to a computer case.