bookofjoe

MLB Logo is Genius

It came out in 1968 but it wasn't until last night that the penny dropped and I realized that the batter [above] could be either left- or right-handed.

I love visual tricks that take half a century to become evident.

Hats off to the designer, Jerry Dior.

How to Draw a Line on the Road — Koki Tanaka

More about and by the artist here and here.

Qoobo — 'A tailed cushion that heals your heart'

News travels slowly to Podunkville, Virginia, where I've happily resided since moving here from LA in 1983.

How else to explain that it was only yesterday that I first learned of the existence of Qoobo?

It first appeared in 2020 and like I said, my Crack Research Team©®™ didn't hear the clue phone ringing until yesterday.

It comes in two versions: the original and the newer petite model.

The original comes in Husky Gray, French Brown (sold out), and Silky Black (sold out) and costs $246.92.

The petite iteration comes in Brown, Black, and White (Grey is sold out) and costs $110.

More?

Here's an in-depth 2020 TechCrunch review.

On the fence?

Watch

the video.

Still unsure?

Watch 

another one.

Bloom Chair

Designed by Kenneth Cobonpue.

Microfiber and resin; steel base.

Wonderful YouTube Easter Egg

Look at the two images juxtaposed above.

Can you tell the difference?

What is it?

I could be annoying and make everyone wait till tomorrow at this time for the big reveal but I'm not gonna do that.

Rather, I will digress a bit to give you a bit more time to find the difference, which in fact exposes the Easter egg, which may have been there forever for all I know.

Constant readers will know that sometimes I get fixated on a song such that I play it at max volume on repeat all day.

When the music from "Industry" hit my sweet acoustic nerve spot, I listened to it for several days, many many times.

Each time I had to click on the YouTube link, which got old really fast.

While I was daydreaming I noticed this tiny image 

just under the title of the music, at the extreme left.

"Wait a sec," I thought to myself, that's the same icon Apple Music use to turn on and off the Repeat function: you click on it and a tiny number 1

appears between the two arrows, indicating the player will repeat that one song indefinitely.

I tried it and it worked.

I'm so excited — I love discovering new features after everyone else has known about them for years.

It's the TechnoDolt©®™ way.

One more thing: I learned about an easy peasy YouTube repeat hack a number of years ago.

You started with the song's URL on YouTube, in the case of "Industry":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyOQCDsVmgA&list=PLl6VOF3VAfUqZfyjiW5aT4miCAWT9hhXN&index=1

Then you delete https:// ;  delete the word "watch" ; and insert the word "repeat" after YouTube in the URL:

www.youtube.com/repeat?v=WyOQCDsVmgA&list=PLl6VOF3VAfUqZfyjiW5aT4miCAWT9hhXN&index=1

Clicking on the revised URL would play the song forever on repeat.

Until YouTube blocked this hack; now if you try it, when you click on the revised URL you get this:

Blunt Umbrella

It comes from New Zealand.

What took so long?

Rounded tips eliminate dangerous sharp spikes at the outer edges.

Able to withstand Force 12 (up to 72 mph) winds.

Zillions of colors and patterns.

From $89.

Tinsel — Robin Robertson

 
  

 

 

 
 

 
 

  

AI Simulation Lets You Look at Your Future Self

[Researchers from MIT and elsewhere created a system that enables users to have an online, text-based conversation with an AI-generated simulation of their potential future self.]

Cut to the chase here.

Detailed MIT News back story here:

AI Simulation Gives People a Glimpse of Their Potential Future Self

By enabling users to chat with an older version of themselves,Future You is aimed at reducing anxiety and guiding young people to make better choices.

Have you ever wanted to travel through time to see what your future self might be like? Now, thanks to the power of generative AI, you can.

Researchers from MIT and elsewhere created a system that enables users to have an online, text-based conversation with an AI-generated simulation of their potential future self.

Dubbed Future You, the system is aimed at helping young people improve their sense of future self-continuity, a psychological concept that describes how connected a person feels with their future self.

Research has shown that a stronger sense of future self-continuity can positively influence how people make long-term decisions, from one's likelihood to contribute to financial savings to their focus on achieving academic success.

Future You utilizes a large language model that draws on information provided by the user to generate a relatable, virtual version of the individual at age 60. This simulated future self can answer questions about what someone's life in the future could be like, as well as offer advice or insights on the path they could follow.

In an initial user study, the researchers found that after interacting with Future You for about half an hour, people reported decreased anxiety and felt a stronger sense of connection with their future selves.

"We don't have a real time machine yet, but AI can be a type of virtual time machine. We can use this simulation to help people think more about the consequences of the choices they are making today," says Pat Pataranutaporn, a recent Media Lab doctoral graduate who is actively developing a program to advance human-AI interaction research at MIT, and co-lead author of a paper on Future You.

The research will be presented at the IEEE Conference on Frontiers in Education.

A Realistic Simulation

Studies about conceptualizing one’s future self go back to at least the 1960s. One early method aimed at improving future self-continuity had people write letters to their future selves. More recently, researchers utilized virtual reality goggles to help people visualize future versions of themselves.

But none of these methods were very interactive, limiting the impact they could have on a user.

With the advent of generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT, the researchers saw an opportunity to make a simulated future self that could discuss someone’s actual goals and aspirations during a normal conversation.

"The system makes the simulation very realistic. Future You is much more detailed than what a person could come up with by just imagining their future selves," says Pattie Maes, head of the Fluid Interfaces group at MIT.

Users begin by answering a series of questions about their current lives, things that are important to them, and goals for the future.

The AI system uses this information to create what the researchers call "future self memories" which provide a backstory the model pulls from when interacting with the user.

For instance, the chatbot could talk about the highlights of someone's future career or answer questions about how the user overcame a particular challenge. This is possible because ChatGPT has been trained on extensive data involving people talking about their lives, careers, and good and bad experiences.

The user engages with the tool in two ways: through introspection, when they consider their life and goals as they construct their future selves, and retrospection, when they contemplate whether the simulation reflects who they see themselves becoming.

"You can imagine Future You as a story search space. You have a chance to hear how some of your experiences, which may still be emotionally charged for you now, could be metabolized over the course of time," said researcher Peggy Yin.

To help people visualize their future selves, the system generates an age-progressed photo of the user. The chatbot is also designed to provide vivid answers using phrases like "when I was your age," so the simulation feels more like an actual future version of the individual.

The ability to take advice from an older version of oneself, rather than a generic AI, can have a stronger positive impact on a user contemplating an uncertain future.

The interactive, vivid components of the platform give the user an anchor point and take something that could result in anxious rumination and make it more concrete and productive.

But that realism could backfire if the simulation moves in a negative direction. To prevent this, they ensure Future You cautions users that it shows only one potential version of their future self, and they have the agency to change their lives. Providing alternate answers to the questionnaire yields a totally different conversation.

"This is not a prophecy, but rather a possibility," Pataranutaporn says.

Aiding Self-Development

To evaluate Future You, they conducted a user study with 344 individuals. Some users interacted with the system for 10-30 minutes, while others either interacted with a generic chatbot or only filled out surveys.

Participants who used Future You were able to build a closer relationship with their ideal future selves, based on a statistical analysis of their responses. These users also reported less anxiety about the future after their interactions. In addition, Future You users said the conversation felt sincere and that their values and beliefs seemed consistent in their simulated future identities.

"This work forges a new path by taking a well-established psychological technique to visualize times to come — an avatar of the future self — with cutting edge AI. This is exactly the type of work academics should be focusing on as technology to build virtual self models merges with large language models," says Jeremy Bailenson, the Thomas More Storke Professor of Communication at Stanford University, who was not involved with this research.

Building off the results of this initial user study, the researchers continue to fine-tune the ways they establish context and prime users so they have conversations that help build a stronger sense of future self-continuity.

"We want to guide the user to talk about certain topics, rather than asking their future selves who the next president will be," Pataranutaporn says.

They are also adding safeguards to prevent people from misusing the system. For instance, one could imagine a company creating a "future you" of a potential customer who achieves some great outcome in life because they purchased a particular product.

Moving forward, the researchers want to study specific applications of Future You, perhaps by enabling people to explore different careers or visualize how their everyday choices could impact climate change.

They are also gathering data from the Future You pilot to better understand how people use the system.

"We don't want people to become dependent on this tool. Rather, we hope it is a meaningful experience that helps them see themselves and the world differently, and helps with self-development," Maes says.

The researchers acknowledge the support of Thanawit Prasongpongchai, a designer at KBTG and visiting scientist at the Media Lab.

Scientific paper: "Future You: A Conversation with an AI-Generated Future Self Reduces Anxiety, Negative Emotions, and Increases Future Self-Continuity."

Vestaboard — 'We expect to sell out shortly'

From websites:

The 41" x 22" mechanical split-flap display

is similar to train-station-arrival and departure boards.

Inspire family, friends, or guests

by easily sending wireless messages

from anywhere that instantly appear

on our award-winning messaging display.

White or Black.

$3,295.

Knit Bike — Theresa Honeywell

Her 2006 piece is entitled "Everything Nice."

It's a giant acrylic yarn cozy on a real motorcycle.

6 feet long x 5 feet wide x 3.5 feet high.

What I can see in my rearview mirror

Palm Grater

From the website:

Grating cheese or vegetables has never been more fun and easier!

Designed to look like a piece of paper with a curled corner, this adorable grater fits perfectly in your palm while also keeping your hand clean.

Simple and safe, this colorful kitchen tool makes it easy and enjoyable to sprinkle a bit of flavor onto every dish.

Even your guests might want to do the garnish themselves just to get their hands on it.

Features and Details:

• Made in Japan

• 4.1" x 3.6" x 0.9"

• Designed by Gensuke Kishi

• Made from a single aluminum alloy plate

• Available in a variety of colors: Matte Black, Satin Silver, Champagne Gold, Yellow Gold, Sky Blue, Royal Blue, Ice Green. Deep Green, Pink, Rose Red

$25.

Watch hydrogen and oxygen atoms form water in real time

YouTube description: "For the first time ever, researchers have witnessed — in real time and at the molecular-scale — hydrogen and oxygen atoms merge to form tiny, nano-sized bubbles of water. The researchers say it might be 'the smallest bubble ever formed that has been directly viewed.'" 

From NewAtlas:

With high-vacuum transmission electron microscopes, scientists were able to see tiny water bubbles begin to form at the surface of honeycomb-shaped palladium nanoreactors after hydrogen and oxygen were introduced.

Adding hydrogen first followed by oxygen led to the fastest water formation rate. 

The hydrogen atoms would squeeze in the metal, then come back out when oxygen was added to produce water on the palladium's surface.

This could lead to new ways to generate water on demand, both on Earth and in space.

The scientific paper describing the discovery, "Unraveling the adsorption-limited hydrogen oxidation reaction at palladium surface via in situ electron microscopy," was published September 27, 2024 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Below, the abstract.

Palladium (Pd) catalysts have been extensively studied for the direct synthesis of H₂O through the hydrogen oxidation reaction at ambient conditions. This heterogeneous catalytic reaction not only holds considerable practical significance but also serves as a classical model for investigating fundamental mechanisms, including adsorption and reactions between adsorbates. Nonetheless, the governing mechanisms and kinetics of its intermediate reaction stages under varying gas conditions remain elusive. This is attributed to the intricate interplay between adsorption, atomic diffusion, and concurrent phase transformation of catalyst. Herein, the Pd-catalyzed, water-forming hydrogen oxidation is studied in situ, to investigate intermediate reaction stages via gas cell transmission electron microscopy. The dynamic behaviors of water generation, associated with reversible palladium hydride formation, are captured in real time with a nanoscale spatial resolution. Our findings suggest that the hydrogen oxidation rate catalyzed by Pd is significantly affected by the sequence in which gases are introduced. Through direct evidence of electron diffraction and density functional theory calculation, we demonstrate that the hydrogen oxidation rate is limited by precursors’ adsorption. These nanoscale insights help identify the optimal reaction conditions for Pd-catalyzed hydrogen oxidation, which has substantial implications for water production technologies. The developed understanding also advocates a broader exploration of analogous mechanisms in other metal-catalyzed reactions.

ForecastAdvisor: 'Who Has the Most Accurate Weather Forecast for Your Location?

Free, the way we like it.

Above and below, how various apps performed for Charlottesville, Virginia last month and last year.

Note: ForecastAdvisor doesn't rate Apple Weather or Google Weather because they are tougher for third parties to track.

Back story from the Wall Street Journal here.

What is it?

Answer here this time tomorrow.

Hint: smaller than a bread box.

Another: no moving parts.

A third: aluminum.

Made in Japan.

Close-up: