Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Nov 10, 2020Replying to @ribbonfarmMJD 59,163ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,163Moore’s Law was first proposed in 1965, then again in revised form in 1975. Assuming an 18-month average doubling period for transistor density (it was ~1 year early on, and lately has been ~…112
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Nov 16, 2020MJD 59,169ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,169If you remember your high-school physics, free energy is the energy available to do work. Energy is conserved, but free energy is not. For example, when a heavy ball drops from a height, the free e…113
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Apr 20, 2021Quote TweetRibbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Feb 12, 2021MJD 59,256 https://ribbonfarm.com/2021/02/11/mjd-59256/…1
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Apr 20, 2021MJD 59,323ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,323Yesterday, I was testing a new bench power supply I just bought. I tested it with a multimeter, then connected it up to a motor, to make it go brrr for fun. It’s the sort of thing I havenR…1
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Apr 23, 2021MJD 59,326ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,326I am considering adopting two rules for projects that I think are very promising for 40+ lifestyles. No new top-level projects (TLPs) (twitter thread)Ten-year commitments to projects or no deal (tw…123
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·May 21, 2021MJD 59,354ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,354Peter Turchin’s concept of elite overproduction has been on my mind increasingly lately. It refers to historical conditions during which there are more people aspiring to elite roles in socie…123
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Jul 2, 2021MJD 59,396ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,396I’ve developed two obsessions through the pandemic that I think will persist long past the end of it, probably to the end of my life: tinkering and story-telling. On the tinkering front, I…11
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Aug 11, 2021MJD 59,436ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,436A week ago, for the first time in decades, I spent several days in a row doing many hours of hands-on engineering work in a CAD tool (for my rover project), and noticed that I had particularly vivi…133
Ribbonfarm@ribbonfarm·Sep 3, 2021MJD 59,459ribbonfarm.comMJD 59,459In 2018, historian Michael McCormick nominated 536 AD as the worst year to be alive. There was a bit of fun coverage of the claim. This sort of thing is what I think of as “little history.…211