Archive
IRZ archive, page 23.
An atom in an optical cavity behaves like a heat engine. Basel physicists show that classifying outgoing photons as “waste heat” or useful energy changes the very consistency of the theory.
Prusa launched a carbon-fiber-free PA11 derived from castor oil. A counterintuitive call: for moving parts, the pure version beats the reinforced one on layer adhesion and friction.
An accessibility consultant proposes flipping a Nielsen heuristic back onto designers: recognize accessibility problems while designing, instead of trying to recall a thousand rules.
The CMP 170HX, an Ethereum mining card that sank to $250, carries A100 silicon and HBM2e throttled by firmware. The open-source cmpunlocker tool wakes up the 64GB soldered on the board.
Firefox 151 ships the Web Serial API: flashing CircuitPython, reading a USB power meter or configuring ESPHome no longer requires Chromium. The interesting part is the permission model, not the compatibility checkbox.
Emmanuel Boos keeps certain warps, rolling marks and glaze traces. This is not a retreat from control: it is a judgement made possible by knowing the material unusually well.
The Balloon Banjo uses a party balloon as a tunable resonator. Its better trick is mechanical: making assembly child-friendly deliberately increased the number of printed parts.
A NC State patch detects dangerous gases, aerosols and heavy metals in water, then warns you through distinct vibration codes. The interesting part is not the sensor. It is the end of the chain.
Nakagin Capsule Tower was designed to keep its concrete cores while capsules were repaired or replaced every 25 years. Across fifty years, two theoretical replacement cycles passed without a single planned exchange.
ShiftLens, a system from MIT, produces objects whose surface changes with the user's gesture: a bottle turns green when its cap is tightened. No sensor, no screen.