# Innovative Uses of Wood, the Cyanometer, and Wind Turbines
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Chapter 1: Artistic Perspectives
Each week, I dive into the vast expanse of the Internet to bring you a curated selection of intriguing content. Let’s jump into this week’s highlights!
- 🎨 Eyes in Everyday Life: Robyn Rich's Art
Robyn Rich's latest project, titled Optics, features realistic eyes painted on commonplace items, such as spoons and containers. The artwork raises questions about perception and observation.
As highlighted by Colossal, Rich's pieces evoke a sense of intimacy and eeriness. She captures the emotions of her subjects through detailed features like brows and lashes, creating a dialogue about who is observing whom. The collection, currently showcased at Beinart Gallery in Australia, invites viewers to reflect on the significance of sight.
- 📖 Excel Meets Wordle: A Solver Tool
Carlos Granier has developed a clever tool named "Worldexcel," which acts as a Wordle solver within Excel using its formulas.
To use it, simply download the Excel file. Input your guess into the Wordle game and note the feedback—letters that are "green," "yellow," or "grey." The solver contains a comprehensive list of possible words and helps identify the most likely answer based on your inputs, streamlining the guessing process.
This innovative use of Excel showcases its potential as a computational tool, often underestimated in its capabilities. Many programmers have discovered the world of coding through Excel, building complex spreadsheets that eventually led them to learn programming languages like Python.
- 🪵 Wooden Wind Turbines: A Sustainable Innovation
Wood is emerging as a low-carbon alternative in construction, showing promise in applications like wind turbine manufacturing.
Engineers are now utilizing laminated veneer lumber for wind turbine construction, capitalizing on its superior weight-to-strength ratio. This approach eliminates the need for constant bolt inspections, as components can be glued together. As reported by New Scientist, the decommissioned turbines can be repurposed into building materials, ensuring a sustainable lifecycle.
Modvion has successfully erected a 30-meter wooden wind turbine in Sweden, with plans for a larger 100-meter model underway. This initiative could transform the wind energy landscape by offering a renewable solution to traditional materials.
- 🔵 The Cyanometer: Measuring the Sky's Blue
A fascinating historical invention, the cyanometer, was created by Swiss scientist Horace-Bénédict de Saussure in the 1780s to measure the shades of blue in the sky.
Inspired by his observations on Mont Blanc, Saussure developed a tool featuring a spectrum of blue hues on paper. This innovation allowed him to quantify the variations in sky color with altitude, making a significant contribution to the study of atmospheric science.
I find the cyanometer to be a beautiful blend of art and science, and I would love to hang a high-resolution print of it on my wall.
- 🔈 Archiving Obsolete Sounds
"Obsolete Sounds" is an intriguing website that collects and preserves audio clips of sounds that have largely faded from our daily lives.
From the dial-up modem's classic tones to the hum of old appliances, this site offers a nostalgic look at the sonic landscape of the past. It serves as a reminder of the sounds that were once integral to our experiences but are now relics of a bygone era.
- 💎 The Chivas Regal Effect and College Tuition
A recent article in the New York Times discusses how some private colleges are slashing their tuition rates by as much as 50%. For instance, Colby-Sawyer College has reduced its tuition from $46,000 to $17,500.
This significant decrease stems from the realization that high tuition rates often deter potential applicants. The majority of students benefit from financial aid that effectively lowers their actual tuition costs. This shift in strategy reflects changing perceptions around tuition pricing, contrasting the previous trend where higher prices were associated with prestige.
The complexities of the private college system in the U.S. reveal intricate psychological dynamics that influence enrollment and pricing strategies.
Chapter 2: Additional Reading Material
As we conclude this week's Linkfest, here are some additional intriguing topics to explore, ranging from cyber security innovations to the discovery of new life forms. Each offers a unique glimpse into the evolving landscape of technology and culture.
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I'm a contributing writer for various magazines, including New York Times Magazine, Wired, and Smithsonian. You can find me on social media as @pomeranian99 on Twitter and Instagram.