Subject
4 entries
Curiosity
Bookmarks
I Should Have Loved Biology
James Somers's essay on how biology education killed his interest in one of the most wondrous subjects imaginable. A sharp critique of how rote memorization strips away the genuine mystery from cells, evolution, and molecular machinery — and what biology education should be instead.
btc-heist — Bitcoin Key Generation Educational Tool
btc-heist is a toy Bitcoin key generation tool that generates random private/public key pairs and checks if the address matches any in a list of addresses with non-zero balances. An educational demonstration of why Bitcoin's 2^256 key space makes brute-force impossible in practice.
Eigengrau
Eigengrau is the dark gray color perceived by the human visual system in the absence of light — not true black, but a specific gray around #16161d. The visual cortex generates this background noise spontaneously, which is why total darkness doesn't look fully black.
The Curiosity Rover's Nuclear Battery Explained
Explainer on the Curiosity rover's Multi-Mission Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator (MMRTG) — the nuclear battery that powers it. Unlike solar panels, the RTG works through Martian dust storms and the long polar nights, and its heat output helps keep electronics warm.