Lessons

You know how sometimes the world decides to remind you of humility?

The most pleasant way it does is by making me work with people much smarter than me.

Mara

Thank you everyone who ordered a copy. (A download?) I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out.

Those matter a lot, because more downloads raise the book in Amazon’s algorithm. That controls exposure, linkage, etc. Since I’m working on another, having Mara do well would be a big help. If you have purchased it or read it on Kindle Unlimited, please leave a review. Even just stars would be fantastic.

I appreciate you reading and hope you enjoy it.

Wavelets

A wavelet is a chunk of a wave. In theory, waves go on forever, but they don’t. Contraction from waves to wavelets is analogous to applying friction to Newtonian forces. The mechanisms seem quite different.

MPP

Honda is part of several consortiums of motorcycle and scooter producers* to develop and build swappable batteries. Honda just released a removable motorcycle battery. It may be a paradigmatic update.

Details as yet have been slim. I don’t know cells, Ah, mass, or so forth.

But it exists, and as claimed, it’s living-room chargeable. That would be delightful.

Consider me cautiously optimistic.

*Some, like Honda, make cars and so forth. As yet, the battery development seems focused on bikes and scooters.

eV

In what situation would eigenVolts be a valid unit?

Maybe Eigen Volts, eigen volts, Eigenvolts, or what have you. Unit-term capitalization plays fast and loose with rules. But whatever.

If you have a matrix of potentials, you might be able to address the matrix eigenvalues as eigenvolts, but you wouldn’t do that addressing the value itself. An eigenvalue of 2.3V would just be 2.3V. To meaningfully use a term eigenvolts, you’d have to….what? Be describing potential degeneracy?

There should be a situation wherein eigenvolts would be useful, but I can’t think of one.

Greetings

When you meet kids you don’t know, the best form of contact seems to be the high five.

Some kids, especially the small ones, try to hug everyone, and that’s nice. But some get very shy. You can see their minds working. “Who is this stranger? Why is he grabbing me? Why are my parents allowing this?” They don’t like it.

A similar train of logic applies to handshakes.

High fives seem to be the better course because the kid does all the fiving. You just stand there with your hand up. Kid gets excited? Great. Kid barely touches your hand? Still great. Kid hides behind a parent’s leg? Not a problem.

In general, I’ve found most do get a little excited because they’re the ones with power. They have agency, mild as it is, but mild agency is just right for smaller kids. They don’t go mad with power at high fiving an adult.

Well, some do, but those are mad with power to begin with. Also, how mad with power can a six-year-old get giving a high five?

Don’t answer that.