THUMBS UP! AND OVER
AN OPPOSABLE THUMB optimizes interaction with the other four digits of a hand (or foot—gorillas have opposable big toes too). Humans have opposable thumbs, as do most other primates. Cats, … Continue reading
CELEBRATING PASTA ENGINEERING
HERE’S A WIN-WIN for science, for the environment, and for cuisine: a pasta that changes shape from flat to fancy as it cooks. At first glance, this may seem like … Continue reading
SHIPPING TIDBITS
THE ARTICLE “Gargantuanisation,” by John Lancaster, in the London Review of Books, April 22, 2021, is a review of Laleh Khalili’s Sinews of War and Trade: Shipping and Capitalism in … Continue reading
T. REX TALLY
DINOSAURS DOMINATED THE world’s land masses for 185 million years, from some 250 million years ago to around 65 million years ago. How many dinosaurs existed? Charles R. Marshall and … Continue reading
NEW COPTER REPELLED BY MARS TOO!
IT’S A HOARY old joke of fixed-wing aviators that helicopters don’t really fly; it’s just that the Earth repels them. With this in mind, it’s time to celebrate another rotary-wing … Continue reading
CELEBRATING SECONDHAND ROCKETRY
ONE-USE ROCKETRY IS so 20th Century. In the old days of space exploration, rockets and their boosters were one-use entities, discarded in the ocean as part of the space capsule … Continue reading
NEW THOUGHTS ON A.I. PART 2
YESTERDAY, WE SHARPENED our discussion of artificial intelligence by separating A.I. from some guy named Al. We also gleaned tidbits from James Fallows’ article in The New York Times Book … Continue reading
NEW THOUGHTS ON A.I. PART 1
MY MOST RECENT thought on artificial intelligence is to add punctuation, A.I. Hitherto, depending upon type font, discussions of this subject here at SimanaitisSays resembled a bio of a guy … Continue reading
QUATERNIONS—EXPANDING OUR TOUR OF NUMBERS ON A DUBLIN BRIDGE
OUR TOUR OF numbers here at SimanaitisSays has included “You Can Count on Me—Or Maybe Not,” “Exploring Rationality,” and “Euler’s Elegance.” Along the way, we’ve encountered three expanding sets of … Continue reading
ON TRILLIONS
SUPPOSE AN OFFICIAL Counter had been commissioned at the birth of Christ to begin numbering the seconds (assuming, for the moment, a start at 1 A.D., not the 4 B.C. … Continue reading
