Friday links and objects of interest – 4/7/23

It was over a decade ago that I started my first NFP (non-profit). Since then, I’ve chaired various NFP organizations or served as an officer or administrator within them. Something’s changed over that time — they’ve gotten more ravenous. Desirous of funding at any cost in this 21st Century crunch of slow decline. In the process, they’ve lost their soul.

Today’s array of links range from AI (of course at this point), to interesting natural curiosities, to natural solutions to big snake problems. Also, India has a major initiative to move the manufacturing of things to their country that I was unaware of.

— Scope creep is real, and it’s no different with NFPs. Organizations should remember their mission and adhere to it, or risk losing their souls. Funny post by The Onion: Nonprofit no longer recalls who they were originally.

— Can you use water to solve mazes? Fun question.

— Rainbows aren’t arcs, but circles that you only typically see half of. This was a “well, duh” moment for me — funny how we intuitively know something, but never really thought about it.

— Such a great, thoughtful piece that I’ll let it speak for itself. “I think that if you want to know how something is made, you should look for the grids. They are the ever-present, behind-the-scenes structure of our cities, our machines, our homes, and our lives. You’ll find the grid in the artist’s studio, in the patterns of the textile weaver’s pattern book, in the architect’s floor plan sketches, in the engineer’s CAD software.”

— File this under something I’d never thought of, but that’s incredibly fascinating. How do different kinds of eggs affect bread dough?

— How much of our use of (and theorizing about) AI is just technological solutionism? Compelling case that a lot of it is.

— If you have a Mac and haven’t read the Bitcoin white paper yet, well, you can. It’s stored hidden on your computer (and practically every other Mac out there).

— This has been happening for a while now. Apple is moving even more of their manufacturing to India, as are many other international/multinationals. I would not be surprised if this has major economic implications. Make in India.

— Lots of discussion about how AI will replace writing. But writing is a way of thinking that we should not lose. The abacus faced a similar problem when the calculator was introduced. And what of it?

— Reminds me of Judas pigs — there’s a snake problem in Florida, and people just figured out how to find them in a much more efficient (albeit gruesome) way.

Keep the Internet weird,
JRM – KD9LGF