Science
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Why Bell Labs Worked
An essay on how Bell Labs produced the transistor, information theory and Unix, and how management culture and funding c…
Why Busy Beaver Hunters Fear the Antihydra
A science journalist explains the busy beaver game, the Antihydra program that resists proof, and why it ties back to th…
Why Do Electronic Components Have Such Odd Values?
A clear explainer on why resistors and capacitors come in values like 4.7 and 22, the E-series preferred numbers and the…
Why do railway tracks have crushed stones alongside them?
A clear explainer on track ballast, the crushed stone beside railway tracks, covering how it spreads load, drains water,…
Why Edge Detection Doesn't Explain Line Drawing
A researcher argues that line drawings are not simply traced edges, with examples from art and vision science that chall…
Why Everyone Hates the Electronic Medical Record
A long read tracing how medical records turned from a clinician's notebook into billing-driven software, and why doctors…
launiusr.wordpress.com
Article
Why Explore Space? A 1970 Letter to a Nun in Africa
The full text of Ernst Stuhlinger's 1970 reply to a nun in Zambia who asked why money goes to space while children starv…
Why Haven't Quantum Computers Factored 21 Yet?
Craig Gidney explains why quantum computers factored 15 in 2001 but still have not factored 21, and what that really say…
Why Intelligence Doesn't Improve Reasoning
An essay arguing that real-world rationality depends less on IQ than on timing, framing, and incentives, and why smart p…
plantscientist.wordpress.com
Article
Why is my orange green?
A plant scientist explains why oranges grown in the tropics often stay green when ripe, how chlorophyll breakdown depend…
Why is the sky blue?
An explainer that goes beyond the name Rayleigh scattering to actually show why the sky is blue and sunsets are red, eve…
Why jalapeno peppers are less spicy
An explanation of why modern jalapenos have lost their heat, tracing decades of deliberate breeding at Texas A&M and deb…
Why Jet Engines Aren't Made in China
A deep explainer on why China still struggles to build top jet engines, and what the metallurgy, tooling and decades of…
Why Medieval City-Builder Games Are Historically Inaccurate
A medievalist's look at what city-building video games get wrong about medieval towns, from tidy street grids to the way…
Why Modern Chinese is Just English with Hanzi
An essay on how modern Chinese grammar and vocabulary were reshaped by European languages in the 20th century, with exam…
Why So Many Control Rooms Were Seafoam Green
An explainer on the color theory and industrial psychology behind the pale seafoam green used in control rooms and facto…
Why Solarpunk Is Already Happening in Africa
An essay arguing that African countries are leaping past fossil infrastructure, with distributed solar, mobile money and…
Why Time Seems to Pass Faster as We Age
An essay exploring the psychology and neuroscience behind the feeling that years speed up as we get older, and what we m…
Why Wavy Walls Use Fewer Bricks
An explainer on crinkle crankle walls, the serpentine garden walls popular in England that are stronger and use fewer br…
Why What3Words is not suitable for safety critical use
A security researcher digs into what3words and finds near-identical word triples sitting close together, showing how eas…
Wide-band WebSDR Twente
Listen to and tune a live wide-band short-wave receiver at the University of Twente, scanning the whole spectrum from yo…
Wikiciv
A community-edited wiki manual for building civilization from scratch, with practical guides on agriculture, medicine, m…
WikiHouse
An open-source, digitally manufactured building system for simple zero-carbon homes, with downloadable guides, case stud…
Wild Edible Plants
The Wild Foodies of Philly guide to wild plants for food, fibre and medicine, with plant profiles, foraging tips and the…
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