Tootfinder

Aeolian dune simulation (made in 2017) for #MeerMittwoch:
The images show a screenshot of the JavaScript application to create the simulation and some Houdini renders of exported height fields. The sim itself had 5 macro params to control the behavior of the interactive deposit/erosion/transportation process. It supported tileable patterns, customizable seed terrain (images) and ran r…

"New Teflon Recycling Method Turns The “Forever Chemical” into Toothpaste "
#PFAS #ForeverChemicals
https://

New Teflon Recycling Method Turns The “Forever Chemical” into Toothpaste  | Happy Eco News
Scientists from Newcastle University and the University of Birmingham developed a room-temperature Teflon recycling method that turns Teflon waste into sodium fluoride using mechanical shaking with sodium metal. The process breaks strong carbon-fluorine bonds without heat or solvents, producing pure sodium fluoride for toothpaste, water treatment, and pharmaceutical applications.

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I think this is interesting, from "Frontiers in Neuroscience" mag. New "HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article" by Joachim Keppler, head of Department of Consciousness …

Frontiers | Macroscopic quantum effects in the brain: new insights into the fundamental principle underlying conscious processes
Empirical findings indicate that conscious states are inextricably linked to long-range synchronized activity patterns that result from phase transitions and...

Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT run on expensive chips in data centers, consuming lots of electricity and generating lots of heat.
I just tested an LLM on my iPhone, totally offline, running on its battery with room air cooling it.
Surprisingly, results were good, despite iPhone processors not being designed for LLMs.
This local AI approach has promise for certain things, without the boiling the ocean and using a city’s worth of power.

For a project to be truly #OpenSource (not to mention #FreeSoftware), it really needs to:
1. Have a *public* issue tracker that enables you to browse and search through issue reports *without* having to create an account.
2. Accept issue reports, with no strings attached. Yes, expecting registration is fine. Yes, expecting some effort to file a good bug report is fine. No, expecting people to ask permission, donate or otherwise put a lot of extra work to report a problem is not.
3. Do not close issue reports as "stale". Yes, it's fine to close a report if you really believe it was fixed, or if you asked for something and the user didn't reply for a long time. It's not fine to run a bot expecting users to jump every month so that the issue report that *you are ignoring* doesn't get closed.
If a project doesn't meet these, it's just a glorified throwaway code.

Is Enerkem's Waste Gasification technology a Failure or a promising Climate Solution?🗑️💨♨️🏭
Gasification of waste and biomass🪵 could be an enormously helpful tool to make valuable circular or renewable chemicals. Yet, the list of failed gasification projects is long.
Enerkem looked like it had finally unlocked successful waste gasification, with the world's only waste-to-Methanol/Ethanol plant operating in Edmonton, Canada🇨🇦, since 2014. But in early 2024, it was shut down.…

Is Enerkem's Waste Gasification technology a Failure or a promising Climate Solution?
Repsol wants to build a waste gasification plant to make circular and biogenic Methanol in Spain. The Ecoplanta project will use a technology that previously failed to deliver on its promises in Canada.

From David Suzuki
For the past 30 years, global representatives have gathered for United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) climate summits, promising solutions. But political inaction continues to drive worsening climate disasters.
It’s hard not to be cynical. The COP process has become a theatre of contradiction. Recent summits have been hosted by petrostates & financed by polluters. Fossil fuel lobbyists attended COP28 & COP29 [en masse]

"Building sustainable sodium-ion batteries from wood industry by-products"
#Batteries #Energy
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Building sustainable sodium-ion batteries from wood industry by-products
In light of the growing demand for energy storage for the energy transition, there is an urgent need for cost-effective, safe and resource-efficient battery technologies. Sodium-ion batteries based on locally available and environmentally friendly materials offer a promising approach. Fraunhofer researchers and their project partners are working on a sodium-ion battery system based on lignin, a by-product of the wood and pulp industry.

"New process achieves 97% silver recovery from end-of-life solar panels"
#SolarPower #Enegy #Renewables #SolarPower

New process achieves 97% silver recovery from end-of-life solar panels
Australian researchers have developed a new separation technique that employs the same crushing and flotation principles used in mineral processing to recover more than 97% of silver from end-of-life solar panels.