I finished treatment for prostate cancer this summer. Most of my time in the x-ray machine was spent getting the alignment right. They'd take a CT scan, do some image analysis and other computations, then adjust the table some small amount before turning the beam on.
I'm curious how they do the alignment with the histotripsy machine. I would think that they could obviously do an ultrasound scan to get the gross alignment correct. But perhaps there is a CT scan afterwards that lets them make the fine alignment. It probably also helps that the liver is a much larger gland so aiming is less critical?
Ideally it'd just be software driven. Take an ultrasound scan, adjust, blast. In theory this could be done in milliseconds to counter patient movements. Pretty nifty really!
This is because the upstate (of South Carolina) has a large eastern European population, dating back to some of the churches there welcoming in ex-Soviets in the 1990's. The new families (Ukraine, Belarus, etc.) didn't get the MMR vaccine, so now they're vulnerable.
This has nothing to do with Ukraine or Eastern Europe and everything to do with Americans not willing to have their kids vaccinated. Which is result of right wing propagandists who wanted to achieve exactly this and got rewarded for it.
24 of the cases originated at a church where the congregation is primarily eastern European. But to your point - as long as the local population is below 95% fully vaccinated, it's going to spread. Regardless of national origin or religious & personal beliefs.
I absolutely loved my Moto X with the walnut back. I switched to an iPhone when it stopped getting security patches.
It was built back when Google owned Motorola, before they sold off everything but the patent suite. And was intended to be their flagship phone - which the Pixel later became. Looking at the GrapheneOS FAQ, it doesn't look like I have a prayer of installing it on such an old device as it doesn't have the needed security hardware. Is there a lightweight Android install available?
25H2 is better than previous versions, where I used Beyond Compare to do file copies because explorer.exe would crash, corrupting the copy. Still needs a lot of work to improve reliability.
If you have access to the wiring diagrams, I have seem people apply 12v to the correct pins to reverse the motor, moving the piston back from the rotor.
> They will also be asked to use their iPhone to read the chip embedded on the back of their passport to ensure the data’s authenticity.
I installed an RFID app from the Apple app store (3rd party, not from Apple) and it couldn't read the chip in my passport. Perhaps Apple's firmware was filtering those out at the time?
Like many people, I throw my change into a jar when I get home. One time I only kept pennies and used an old apple cider jug. Turns out that a gallon of pennies is worth almost $55 [0]. And that carrying a heavy glass jug filled with pennies to the Coinstar machine is very anxiety inducing.
Speaking of which - the Coinstar machines near me will give you several options for redemption. Some of which have been Amazon and Home Depot e-gift codes that have no redemption fee.
One of the things that I think Anduril (Palmer Luckey and other founders) is doing right is designing for manufacturability. The invasion of Ukraine has shown that future conflicts will use up weapons at a very high pace. And that the US capability to build them at the rate needed to sustain conflict isn't there anymore. But that one thing that could help is making them easier to build. (the decline of US manufacturing is a related but separate topic)
>The invasion of Ukraine has shown that future conflicts will use up weapons at a very high pace.
That has been shown even in WWII. And the war was won by US/UK/USSR specifically because their mass production of weapons were several times higher than Germany/Japan/Italy.
The war in Ukraine actually haven't yet reached the levels of weapons use of WWII. (for example 500K-1M/day artillery shells in WWII vs. 20-60K/day in Ukraine war)
These days i so far see only China capable and ready to produce weapons, say drones, at that scale. And i so far don't see anybody, including Anduril with their anti-drone systems, able, or even preparing, to deal with 1M/day (my modest estimate of what China would unleash even in a small conflict like say for Taiwan) of enemy drones. No existing anti-drone systems/approaches are scalable to that level, and we can only hope that something new is being developed somewhere in top secret conditions, and that is why we don't know about it.
Here's a 2022 from Quartz article that might have some context on this. Anduril isn't on the list according to the footnote, but Thiel and Lucky have since had a history collaborating on projects with the same naming scheme.
It's especially interesting because their philosophy is the opposite of Tolkien's. They seek power at all costs, trying to create 'rings' and dallying with bad people.
One common rhetorical tactic, commonly used by their political allies, is to use their (perceived) enemies' most powerful words and ideas against them, to disarm and counter-attack. 'Woke' was a term on the left; racism became descrimination against white people, diversity becomes affirmative action for conservatives, banning and mocking and even embracing discussions of Nazis, etc.
I don't know what Tolkien's personal philosophy was but I think a reasonable reading of LOTR would put it at centre right. The culture it valorizes has military capability and heroism at its core.
His personal philosophy was very Catholic. My reading of LotR is that it is consistent with that, valorising faithfulness, the personal in place of the modern, and avoiding the temptation to sin for power. I agree it's centre-right (though idiosyncratically) but not about military capability: the orcs are the most modern military capability and they are decidedly not valorised. The central heros are a member of the rural gentry and his gardener, who barely fight. The Shire is defiantly non-military and pre-industrial.
> The Shire is defiantly non-military and pre-industrial.
The Shire stands as a symbol for a rural and peaceful life but their protected way of life is only possible because of the the military might of others and this is explicitly alluded to several times...for example in a conversation between Merry and Pippin (which I just happened to read to my kid yesterday!):
"Still there are things deeper and higher; and not a gaffer could tend his garden in what he calls peace but for them, whether he knows about them or not."
This is not entirely correct. The hobbits were very good with slings and spears and bows according to Tolkien.
Before the events of The Lord of the Rings, hobbits maintained a tradition of archery and other martial skills, partly due to past conflicts such as the Battle of Greenfields (1). By the time of the Scouring off the Shire, Merry, Pippin, and other veterans of the War of the Ring organized quickly taking up arms. According to the appendices, they managed to eliminate nearly two-thirds of Saruman’s invading force , displaying both tactical coordination and surprising courage. (Treebeard also notes this in The two towers) It’s a powerful reminder that, in Tolkien’s world, even the humblest people are capable of heroism when defending their home.
The LoTR had a great distrust of power as dangerous and corrupting - the Ring corrupted everyone who tried to use it - and a rejection of those who abided with evil. The mission was to destroy the power, not build a super-army.
Well in fact the raising of a huge army is indeed one of the goals of the protagonists. Of course for them the goal is to defeat evil. I'm sure that the people behind Palantir, Anduril and other such companies also believe they are building a military capability that will allow the United States to defeat what they see as evil. Every centre right libertarian I've encountered also has a "great distrust of power".
All I'm saying is that it only takes a small shift of perspective to see how the LoTR will appeal broadly to anyone who believes in good vs evil narratives - whichever side they appear to be on from one's own point of view.
well, this assumes that the person who created Palantir identifies with the protagonists and not with mordor, and this issue with your interpretation is that peter thiel very explicitly identifies with mordor
“Gandalf’s the crazy person who wants to start a war… Mordor is this technological civilization based on reason and science. Outside of Mordor, it’s all sort of mystical and environmental and nothing works.” - Thiel 2011 Details
> raising of a huge army is indeed one of the goals of the protagonists
It's not. They always acknowledge that their army will be much too small to defeat Sauron's in a war. They luckily win a battle outside Gondor. They defeat Sauruman only with a deus ex machina moment of supernatural aid. But when they march on Mordor they send only a token force; they know they can't win that way. They can only slow down and distract Sauron.
The way they win is trust in innocence, a thing and a plan that Sauron can't even envision - that's explicitly Gandalf's thinking. Sauron never imagines that a couple of essentially civilian hobbits, the least powerful people, would be given the Ring, and that they'd enter Morder on their own, that they'd have the courage, and that the good guys would actually destroy something of that much power when they could use it.
> it only takes a small shift of perspective to see how the LoTR will appeal broadly to anyone who believes in good vs evil narratives
I agree in a way: People who don't read the book with a little thought can just read a superficial action adventure, good guys fight bad and win. And Peter Jackson's films are 90% the latter.
This is an excellent interpretation but I would put forth that it is also possible that these people simply want to use "cool names" and get on with their business without any kind of deep understanding of the literature.
> Every centre right libertarian I've encountered also has a "great distrust of power".
While they may be wary of others with power, right "libertarians" are often attracted to wielding the power themselves - falling to the same exact "I will do good" fallacy as wielders of the Ring. Truly being disinterested in concentrated power means acknowledging that larger non- "government" entities are capable of coercing individuals (eg informal force or even just economic stickiness), not definitionally ruling it out to remain ignorant of it.
His personal philosophy was deeply anti-industrial. He felt as though industrialization was destroying everything good and pure and green in the world. That's why the orcs burn forests to produce their assembly lines.
> J.R.R. Tolkien had a complex relationship with Francisco Franco, as he expressed some moral support for Franco's Nationalist side during the Spanish Civil War, primarily due to concerns over the destruction of churches by Communists. However, Tolkien's views were not strictly political and were influenced by his personal connections and Catholic beliefs.
It is maybe considered right wing to not want to destroy churches, but so what? Who cares what the side is, when the point is he didn't like Communists destroying churches.
My point isn’t that Tolkien was wrong to support the Nationalists or that he didn’t have good reasons to. Personally I agree with him on the point, but then again I’m right wing.
Interesting. Right-wing meant something different then. Churchill was right wing, but has nothing to do with current white christian 'masculinist' nationalists.
> One common rhetorical tactic, commonly used by their political allies, is to use their (perceived) enemies' most powerful words and ideas against them, to disarm and counter-attack. 'Woke' was a term on the left; racism became descrimination against white people, diversity becomes affirmative action for conservatives, banning and mocking and even embracing discussions of Nazis, etc.
Heresy is at truth taken too far, or a virtue emphasised to the detriment of others - paraphrasing Chesterton whom Tolkien almost certainly read given their similar locations/religions. It's a theme you see with Sauron's love of order in particular.
I think a lot of the Maga people pretty much take this view of DEI or Nazi hate. That diversity was originally good when it was about helping minorities but not when hurting whites, however tricky those are to separate in zero sum environments.
I'm not so sure, JD Vance created a company called Narya after Gandalf's ring and Viggo Mortensen has more than once had to call out far-right groups trying to co-opt the fandom or litterature:
> James J.D. Vance and Colin Greenspon have co-founded a new venture firm called Narya Capital and have already raised $93 million toward a target of $125 million.
Thiel gave Vance his first real job. Thiel introduced Vance to Colin Greenspon (who was the managing director at Thiel's VC firm and now runs Narya with Vance). Thiel supported Vance's book. Thiel supported Vance's governor run. Thiel introduced Vance to Donald Trump. Thiel supported Vance's VP run.
It's not an employer/employee relationship, so maybe patronage is a better word.
Is this just their marketing language or have they independently verified this? IIRC their interceptors got absolutely rinsed at trials in Alaska so I’d be very wary of their claims at this point.
In particular Anduril is designing its weapons such that they could be manufactured in many other existing civilian factories using common tools and equipment. This should allow for rapidly scaling production in a crisis.
>The invasion of Ukraine has shown that future conflicts will use up weapons at a very high pace. And that the US capability to build them at the rate needed to sustain conflict isn't there anymore.
China has no issue with manufacturing so they will be happy to sell weapons to US at better prices than US manufactured weapons. :)
There's no need to welcome me to war. I'm not in one, despite the fact that the powers that be are hellbent on getting me (and everyone else) into one.
Oh, yes. That's exactly how it works. No one would ask you "do you want to get into a war"? Ukraine didn't want to get into a war. Turns out it wasn't their call to make!
Least you can do is be prepared. If a hostile country believes "oh, they can't handle a war, it's going to be so easy", the risk of that country trying shit goes up. And if you really can't, the war would be more devastating than if you can.
The truth is that countries can't want anything, be hostile, or have any other personal trait simply because countries are not animate entities but rather a huge number of absolutely different people with different goals, and most of them would just love to mind their own business and don't want to kill and die in the name of some scum calling itself government.
Speaking of war as something inevitable, something unconditionally built in into human nature, and telling people who want peace to prepare, as in Orwell's "war is peace", simply reinforces the narratives of said scum and spins this morbid wheel up into total destruction.
And now we have the Loudness War where the songs are so highly compressed that there is no dynamic range. Because of this, I have to reduce the volume so it isn't painful to listen to. And this makes what should have been a live recording with interesting sound into background noise. Example:
If you want a recent-ish album to listen to that has good sound, try Daft Punk's Random Access Memories (which won the Best Engineered Album Grammy award in 2014). Or anything engineered by Alan Parsons (he's in this list many times)
Is this still a problem? Your example video is from nearly twenty years ago, RAM is over a decade old. I think the advent of streaming (and perhaps lessons learned) have made this less of a problem. I can't remember hearing any recent examples (but I also don't listen to a lot of music that might be victim to the practice); the Wikipedia article lacks any examples from the last decade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
Thankfully there have been some remasters that have undone the damage. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge and Absolution come to mind.
Certified Audio Engineer here. The Loudness Wars more or less ended over the last decade or so due to music streaming services using loudness normalization (they effectively measure what each recording's true average volume is and adjust them all up or down on an invisible volume knob to have the same average)
Because of this it generally makes more sense these days to just make your music have an appropriate dynamic range for the content/intended usage. Some stuff still gets slammed with compression/limiters, but it's mostly club music from what I can tell.
This goes along with what I saw growing up. You had the retail mastering (with RIAA curve for LP, etc.) and then the separate radio edit which had the compression that the stations wanted - so they sounded louder and wouldn't have too much bass/treble. And also wouldn't distort on the leased line to the transmitter site.
And of course it would have all the dirty words removed or changed. Like Steve Miller Band's "funky kicks going down in the city" in Jet Airliner
I still don't know if the compression in the Loudness War was because of esthetics, or because of the studios wanting to save money and only pay for the radio edit. Possibly both - reduced production costs and not having to pay big-name engineers. "My sister's cousin has this plug-in for his laptop and all you do is click a button"...
> I still don't know if the compression in the Loudness War was because of esthetics,
Upping the gain increases the relative "oomph" of the bass at the cost of some treble, right?
As a 90s kid with a bumping system in my Honda, I can confidently say we were all about that bass long before Megan Trainor came around. Everyone had the CD they used to demo their system.
Because of that, I think the loudness wars were driven by consumer tastes more than people will admit (because then we'd have to admit we all had poor taste). Young people really loved music with way too much bass. I remember my mom (a talented musician) complaining that my taste in music was all bass.
Of course, hip hop and rap in the 90s were really bass heavy, but so was a lot of rock music. RHCP, Korn, Limp Bizkit, and Slipknot come to my mind as 90s rock bands that had tons of bass in their music.
Freak on a Leash in particular is a song that I feel like doesn't "translate" well to modern sound system setups. Listening to it on a setup with a massive subwoofer just hits different.
The bass player tuned the strings down a full step to be quite loose, and turned the treble up which gave it this really clicky tone that sounded like a bunch of tictacs being thrown down an empty concrete stairwell.
He wanted it to be percussive to cut through the monster lows of the guitar.
I have an Audio Developer Conference talk about this topic if you care to follow the history of it. I have softened my stance a bit on the criticism of the 90’s (yeah, people were using lookahead limiting over exuberantly because of its newness) but the meat of the talk may be of interest anyway.
You can see some 2025 releases are good but many are still loudness war victims. Even though streaming services normalize loudness, dynamic range compression will make music sound better on phone speakers, so there's still reason to do it.
IMO, music production peaked in the 80s, when essentially every mainstream release sounded good.
I was obsessed with Tales of Mystery & Imagination, I Robot, and Pyramids in the 70s. I also loved Rush, Yes, ELP, Genesis, and ELO, but while Alan Parsons' albums weren't better in an absolute musical sense, his production values were so obviously in a class of their own I still put Parsons in the same bucket as people like Trevor Horn and Quincy Jones, people who created masterpieces of record album engineering and production.
3M was indeed a big player in those markets. I purchased both 5.25" and 3.5" 3M floppies and they were good quality and reliable.
I expect they left the market because of declining use and the entrance of much cheaper foreign manufacturers. I expect they didn't enter the flash memory market as they had no existing manufacturing base for them to build on. They would have had to rebrand another firm's chips and circuit boards.
I'm curious how they do the alignment with the histotripsy machine. I would think that they could obviously do an ultrasound scan to get the gross alignment correct. But perhaps there is a CT scan afterwards that lets them make the fine alignment. It probably also helps that the liver is a much larger gland so aiming is less critical?