Interesting Engineering: Commercially viable fusion energy could be closer with new fuel approach

One of the central challenges in fusion is cost. The machines typically used to compress fuel must deliver enormous bursts of energy with exceptional precision. Repeating that process places significant stress on components, increasing operational and capital costs due to the risk of failure, maintenance requirements and downtime.

FLARE takes a different approach. Its multi shell target is designed to control much of the compression process itself, turning a relatively simple electrical pulse into a carefully timed series of shock waves. These progressively compress the fuel to high density without prematurely heating it, reducing the peak power and complexity required from the driver, according to a press release.

CBC Ottawa had an interesting item on the news today: the city of Gatineau is going to do curbside pickup of “fast fashion” items. Apparently the plan is to deliver them to stores that sell used items.

Unfortunately I can’t yet find the news article on the website. (This is a challenge with CBC Radio news items – the stories often don’t show up online until hours or even days later.)

Also, shouldn’t it really be called “disposable fashion”, or “single use fashion”?

Guardian: UK mathematician debunks myth around Parthenon’s optical illusions

Study challenges belief that temple’s curves were designed to correct optical illusions that would have ruined its clean lines.

I understand why people don’t want to think about this but…

The Guardian: Global heating will hit at least 1.8C, UN warns, and there are ‘no good outcomes’

But scientists say the world could get back to 1.5C through deep, rapid emissions cuts and removing carbon from the atmosphere.

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The report by the Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme confirmed overshooting the 1.5C goal inscribed in the landmark Paris agreement of 2015 was now “unavoidable” and, despite some progress in addressing the human-caused climate crisis driven by burning fossil fuels, likely in the next few years.

MUN Gazette: Zombie sea cucumbers

A small piece of sea cucumber left behind from a laboratory experiment should have begun degrading within days.

Instead, weeks passed, then months, and eventually years.

The tissue was not only still present. It was alive.

Now, a study led by PhD student Sara Jobson in Memorial University’s Department of Ocean Sciences in the Faculty of Science, has documented what may be the first known case of long-term tissue survival and growth outside a living organism under natural conditions — a discovery that raises new questions about life, death and the boundaries in between.

NYT: Here’s What ‘the Most Important Mozart Discovery in Decades’ Sounds Like

That may have been exasperating for Mozart, but it has given posterity a spectacular gift. On Friday, the National Library of France announced the discovery of a 44-page notebook from de Guînes’s lessons. The notebook offers an extraordinary window into Mozart’s teaching method, showing his corrections and improvements on de Guînes’s work. The discovery also yields repertoire pieces marked by Mozart’s imagination: seven previously unknown works for flute and harp. Experts say that while de Guînes composed these works under her teacher’s guidance, Mozart penned a substantial portion of the music himself.

“This is the most important Mozart discovery in decades,” Armin Brinzing, the director of the Mozart Library at the International Mozarteum Foundation in Salzburg, Austria, said in a phone interview.

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“It was not so easy, to guess who wrote what,” Caldérini said.

She also wondered whether Mozart was being overly harsh with his student. “He was very demanding, because he was so talented and so young,” she said. “Maybe he couldn’t understand that it was not so easy for someone else to compose.”

Interesting little story.

Gift link

We were out beside the bay for a summer solstice celebration. The ice is finally coming out of the bay after unseasonably warm temperatures this week — 16°C (61°F). The first icebreaker of the year is due this week!

The first sign of spring is the return of the snow buntings. That was a few weeks ago, and this week the spring flowers are starting to pop up in numbers. ✓

CleanTechnica: The Big ICE Meltdown — May’s China EV Sales Report

The only thing that grew in May? Pure electrics. Despite having fewer incentives, BEVs were up 4% YoY, to 637,000 sales. This meant that BEVs scored a record 42% BEV share in China!

Adding PHEVs (21% share) to the tally meant that in May a record 63% of all cars sold in China had a plug!

Sweden Herald: New forecast: When electric cars will take over in Sweden

The proportion of new pure electric cars sold at the beginning of 2026: - Norway, 98 percent - Denmark, 80 percent - Finland, almost 50 percent - Sweden, 40 percent

Canada: roughly 12%

At this point Mark Carney is not looking like much of a leader on combatting climate change.

CBC: Guilbeault resigns as MP, says he’ll fight climate change outside of government

Ex-environment minister Steven Guilbeault said he is resigning as an MP because he intends to take his fight for the environment outside of government.

“This decision is the result of careful consideration,” he said in a social media post.

This is a huge loss, and an indication of how thin the Carney government’s support for necessary change on carbon is.

As I understand it, micro.blog premium plan blogs (five included) all still show the same user ID for posts. (I want to set up an RSS feed for a friend’s charity, and creating a new micro blog seems like the easiest way but I don’t want to assume cx for them — I would just be echoing announcements.)

Don Norman has been the guru of human-centred design for many years. Who is/will be the next Don Norman?

[link to a related video for your enjoyment]

CNN Business: The Iran war has the world buying more clean energy. China stands to benefit the most.

The war in Iran has sent oil-starved countries scrambling for fuel. Many are opting for energy alternatives — and turning to the renewables king of the planet: China.

Chinese exports of solar technology, batteries and electric vehicles all reached record highs in March, according to energy think tank Ember, a sign that the historic oil supply shock is accelerating the adoption of clean energy around the world.

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As countries invest more in renewable energy, China stands to benefit as the world’s largest manufacturer of electric vehicles, wind turbines and solar panels.

A Thursday report from Ember said China exported 68 gigawatts of solar technology in March, surpassing the previous record set in August by 50%. Fifty countries set new records for Chinese solar imports, with the most significant growth coming from emerging markets in Asia and Africa hit hardest by the energy crisis, according to the think tank.

Ironic that Trump has been the driver of this! And American car companies, cornerstone employers, are very poorly prepared to compete with China when this passes due to Trump’s interference in the American truck and automobile market.

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In the end of the news, not important but interesting or amusing category:

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UPI: Colombia asks India to assess relocation of 80 hippos to avoid culling

The government of Colombia has formally asked India to assess whether to authorize relocation of 80 hippos to a conservation center in that country as an alternative to culling part of the invasive population, the Ministry of Environment said.

The request, sent Thursday, considers possible transfer of the animals to the Vantara wildlife rescue center in the state of Gujarat, western India, which has offered to receive them.

The relocation proposal was put forward by billionaire Indian businessman Anant Ambani as an alternative to the euthanasia of some of the animals.

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The Colombian government declared hippos an invasive exotic species in 2022. The animals are descendants of a small group illegally brought into Colombia more than 30 years ago by drug trafficker Pablo Escobar for his private zoo.

After his death, the hippos were left unattended and gradually spread into nearby rivers, where they reproduced rapidly in the absence of natural predators.

Cleaning out the old family home. I feel like a criminal throwing out so many old books. 😢

Undecided with Matt Ferrell: The National Grid Is Dead. Here’s What Replaces It.

In April 2025, most of Spain and Portugal went dark. A cascading failure knocked out the Iberian peninsula’s grid in seconds. Just four years earlier, Texas came within 4 minutes and 37 seconds of its own total collapse. Not a temporary blackout. A full shutdown. What engineers call a “black start,” a process that could take days to weeks to recover from. Not to mention all of the people that died as a result. According to the Department of Energy, 70 percent of US transmission lines are over 25 years old. We’re running 21st century lives on a mid-20th century grid. But back in 1997, energy consultant Karl Rábago wrote a blueprint for a radically different grid. His model? The internet. Seriously. And no, I’m not talking about today’s internet, which is just five billionaires in a trench coat. I’m talking about the ‘90s internet. Decentralized. Collaborative. And really, really cool. So how would the internet stop a blackout? And why did the guy who figured it out get ignored for 30 years? But first, we need to understand what went so wrong.

Are you team DER [Distributed Energy Resources] or team “leave things as they are”?

The virtual utility is the “Internetification” of electrical supply. It has numerous benefits, and of course will be fought by the current centralized utilities, just like big oil is fighting renewables.

Daring Fireball: John Buck on the Invention of QuickTime

Fun anecdote from 1990:

He asked Peppel to create a product plan that he could announce at Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference on May 7th. That day, Casey took to the stage and announced QuickTime to a stunned audience, saying, “Apple intends to develop real-time software compression/decompression technology that will run on today’s modular Macintosh systems. A system-wide time coding to allow synchronization of sound, animation, and other time-critical processes.”

Casey explained that Apple’s new multimedia architecture would be delivered by the end of the year. He did not say that QuickTime had no budget, staff, or offices.

WORTHINGTON: We were dumbfounded.

KONSTANTIN OTHMER, QUICKDRAW ENGINEER: I was standing next to Bruce Leak, and asked him, “What the heck was that?” He said he had no idea.

QuickTime actually shipped by WWDC 1991, …

John Scully was the CEO of Apple at the time. Although he was much maligned by Steve Jobs and others for some of his decisions, he did have a positive lasting impact on Apple.

This also reminded me of the wonderful Kon & Bal column in Apple Develop around that time.

CBC: Carney announces $3.8B to protect nature, new conservation sites in James Bay and Manitoba

Prime Minister Mark Carney announced $3.8 billion in funding to protect nature on Tuesday, as the federal government moves to meet its conservation targets.

In addition to public money, the government is seeking private sector investment to fund the conservation strategy, which will involve the creation of new national parks and marine reserves.

“Creating these spaces is ambitious and requires significant funding,” Carney said during a news conference in Wakefield, Que. “We can’t do it with public money alone.”

“Private sector investment” Hmmm. Voluntary taxes? A new federal “pay what you can” strategy? The new “ScotiaBank Nature Reserve”?

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The intersection of Dog & Raven

Today I was thinking about Will Shipley. He hasn’t posted anything about software in quite a while (since he joined Apple five years ago). I wonder what he thinks of useability in current Apple operating systems? (I wonder if he could say?)

I’m hoping that a compatible version of Debian for the Mac Neo emerges soon.

NYT: Trump Repeals Key Greenhouse Gas Finding, Erasing EPA’s Power to Fight Climate Change

President Trump on Thursday announced he was erasing the scientific finding that climate change endangers human health and the environment, ending the federal government’s legal authority to control the pollution that is dangerously heating the planet.

The action is a key step in removing limits on carbon dioxide, methane and four other greenhouse gases that scientists say are supercharging heat waves, droughts, wildfires and other extreme weather.

Led by a president who refers to climate change as a “hoax,” the administration is essentially saying that the vast majority of scientists around the world are wrong and that a hotter planet is not the menace that decades of research shows it to be.

This is beyond moronic. If there is evil in this world, it is embodied by Trump and his acolytes.

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River Taff reminds me of @Miraz’ post earlier.

Christmas dinner on the hoof!