ReHacked #114: How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism, World's 1st wooden satellite planned for 2023 launch, Emile Leray Survived The Desert By Building A Motorcycle From His Broken Car and more

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World's 1st wooden satellite planned for 2023 launch in Japan - Nikkei Asia #space #engineering

A plan is under way in Japan to launch the world's first "wooden" satellite in 2023, as its development team aims to harness the environmental friendliness and low cost of wood in space development.

A satellite whose exterior is made of wood will burn up upon re-entering the Earth's atmosphere after the end of its operation, giving less burden on the environment, according to the team comprised of Kyoto University and Sumitomo Forestry Co.

In addition, it will be cheaper to make than using aluminum, the current mainstream material for a satellite. Because electromagnetic waves can penetrate wood, the satellite can contain an antenna inside.

How Dreams Change Under Authoritarianism: Charlotte Beradt’s “The Third Reich of Dreams” | The New Yorker #history #lomgread #psychology

Not long after Hitler came to power, in 1933, a thirty-year-old woman in Berlin had a series of uncanny dreams. In one, her neighborhood had been stripped of its usual signs, which were replaced with posters that listed twenty verboten words; the first was “Lord” and the last was “I.” In another, the woman found herself surrounded by workers, including a milkman, a gasman, a newsagent, and a plumber. She felt calm, until she spied among them a chimney sweep. (In her family, the German word for “chimney sweep” was code for the S.S., a nod to the trade’s blackened clothing.) The men brandished their bills and performed a Nazi salute. Then they chanted, “Your guilt cannot be doubted.”

Emile Leray Survived The Desert By Building A Motorcycle From His Broken Car #history

As Emile Leray wiped the sweat from his brow in the Sahara heat, he knew the clock was running out. It had been 12 days of labor trying to make his own motorcycle without parts.

When he started this project, he thought it would take three days at best. He also thought he had about ten days of water.

The last of it his water reflected light in his eyes, a reminder that he’d better have success soon or someone would come upon a strange sight finding his corpse next to this mess.

He should have never left Tan Tan in the first place. Now he just wanted to get back. Thank god he didn’t pick up that dude looking for a ride.

David Nicholas Williams #writing

When you post writing anywhere online with a comments section, you'll generally see most comments be disagreements or nitpicks. You'll sometimes see one or two comments saying something like "thanks, I needed to read this".

Always write for that reader. Make your writing snappy and fun for them. Get them that valuable information, don't dilute it with caveats and defensive writing. That is, never write to convince the former readers, because you cannot. The space of objections and nitpicks is infinite, and someone will always find one. So making your writing less fun to read by trying to get ahead of this is pointless - just don't even attempt it.

The Thinner Book: Atomic Habits by James Clear #longread #selfimprovement

To effectively build new habits, you need to be aware of the three layers of behavior change:

1. Identity
2. Process
3. Outcome

Identity is what you believe, process is what you do, and outcome is what you get. The reason most people fall short of their aspirations in life is that they are solely focused on outcomes, without considering the systems that lead to those outcomes. Telling yourself "I want to get rich" or "I want to lose weight" will not contribute to either. Only through modifying our identity and processes can we change our behavior and bring about our desired outcomes.

An Ancient Greek Astronomical Calculation Machine Reveals New Secrets - Scientific American #history #nature #astronomy #science #longread

One of the central researchers in the early years of Antikythera research was German philologist Albert Rehm, the first person to understand the mechanism as a calculating machine. Between 1905 and 1906 he made crucial discoveries that he recorded in his unpublished research notes. He found, for instance, the number 19 inscribed on one of the surviving Antikythera fragments. This figure was a reference to the 19-year period relation of the moon known as the Metonic cycle, named after Greek astronomer Meton but discovered much earlier by the Babylonians. On the same fragment, Rehm found the numbers 76, a Greek refinement of the 19-year cycle, and 223, for the number of lunar months in a Babylonian eclipse-prediction cycle called the saros cycle. These repeating astronomical cycles were the driving force behind Babylonian predictive astronomy.

People who are obsessed with celebrities tend to score lower on measures of cognitive ability #psychology #society

Cognitive performance is slightly reduced among those with higher levels of celebrity worship, according to a new study published in BMC Psychology.

“Interest in the topic of celebrity worshipers spans almost two decades. From several studies, over that period, research showed a weak to moderate tendency for those who showed the strongest admiration for their favorite celebrity to have lower cognitive skills, using a variety of cognitive measures,” explained study authors Lynn E. McCutcheon, Ágnes Zsila, and Zsolt Demetrovics in a joint statement to PsyPost.

“However, most of these studies did not control for a variety of extraneous variables. The current study did control for several possibly relevant variables.”

What monetary system did Hobbits use in the Shire? - SF & F Stack Exchange #literature #sciencefiction

Until European rulers discovered fiat currency by adulterating the coinage, coins simply had the value of however much they weighed. There was no need for exchange rates, because you just weighed the coins and that was what they were worth. Standard-sized coins gave convenient ranges of values which reduced the need for weighing, but ultimately the weight was the value.

This meant that although every country around Europe had its own sizes of coins, there was no real "monetary system" as we would understand it today with fiat currency and exchange rates. The "monetary system" was simply that a certain weight of gold or silver was worth a certain weight of gold or silver, and that was all there was to it.

In the absence of a major centralising authority in Middle Earth, it seems likely that this would be the same there too. This is purely hypothetical though, and Tolkien hasn't given us strong evidence of any of this, beyond the fact (per Smaug's hoard in The Hobbit) that coins do exist.

Class action lawsuit filed in California alleging Google is paying Apple to stay out of the search engine business #internet #copyrights

California Crane School, Inc. filed a class action antitrust case [3:21-cv-10001, C.C.S.I. v Google LLC] on 12/27/21 against Google and Apple and the Chief Executive Officers of both companies alleging violations of the Antitrust Laws of the United States.

The complaint charges that Google and Apple agreed that Apple would not compete in the internet search business against Google.  The complaint claims that the means used to effectuate the non-compete agreement included; (1) Google would share it's search profits with Apple; (2) Apple would give preferential treatment to Google for all Apple devices; (3) regular secret meetings between the executives of both companies; (4) annual multi-billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple not to compete in the search business; (5) suppression of the competition of smaller competitors and foreclosing competitors from the search market; (6) acquiring actual and potential competitors.  The complaint alleges that advertising rates are higher than rates would be in a competitive system.  The complaint seeks the disgorgement of the billion-dollar payments by Google to Apple.  The complaint asks for an injunction prohibiting the non-compete agreement between Google and Apple; the profit-sharing agreement; the preferential treatment for Google on Apple devices; and the payment of billions of dollars by Google to Apple.

Kosovo bans cryptocurrency mining to save electricity | Reuters #economy #blockchain

Kosovo's government on Tuesday introduced a ban on cryptocurrency mining in an attempt to curb electricity consumption as the country faces the worst energy crisis in a decade due to production outages.

"All law enforcement agencies will stop the production of this activity in cooperation with other relevant institutions that will identify the locations where there is cryptocurrency production," Economy and Energy Minister Artane Rizvanolli said in a statement.

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Dainius