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  RE: https://mastodon.online/@9to5Mac/117241380520696050 Of course my question is whether we'll see substantial improvements to the iPhone camera hardware. Vs what's so common these days, a half-assed upgrade that recycles 2 or 3 of last year's phone's cameras. I understand incremental progress has prevailed in phones for better than a decade and RAM prices are making everything look more expensive, but fingers crossed we'll see something good.

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  This is always cool. Pumping a lot of power out of our home battery onto the grid during a three-hour virtual power plant event. Very hot temperatures in California today, so lots of air conditioning running. We get paid for this power.

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  "The symbolism of Apple tackling the problem of trust in the visual record is significant. The problem of fake content is no longer a minor issue when one of the largest tech companies in the world decides to get into the game." –Hany Farid, longtime expert in this domain, re. Apple iPhone camera's new "reference mode." https://www.axios.com/2026/09/10/apple-ambient-ai-hardware-event

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  It's fair to ask whether fusion energy will be economical/competitive. The progress we've made nailing the physics and engineering fundamentals is what makes that discussion about commercialization worthwhile. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-09/fusion-technology-attracts-14-billion-in-race-for-commercial-power #FusionEnergy

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  For @mwichary: Designing unusable keyboards day 3 https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTUmKcPSs/

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  Just look at all the fricking galaxies in this JWST photo. I mean yay they found a new oldest galaxy, but look at all the rest, then extrapolate. It fills me with awe. https://www.skyatnightmagazine.com/news/webb-galaxy-mom-z14 #universe #space #JWST

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  Got this poll about AI today. Kind of engagement bait, but also thought-provoking. #AI

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  RE: https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/117294410102664240 copycat crimes

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  I'm pretty good about using a chinstrap with my hat when it's windy, but I confess that seeing all the lens caps retrieved out of Yellowstone makes me pretty nervous. https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/environment/yellowstone-geysers-record-trash-cleanup-2026/ #Yellowstone #trash

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  I just saw a guy ride past my hotel on a penny farthing in Manhattan. Pretty fat tire on such a big wheel! Only one speed though! #bicycling

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  RE: https://techhub.social/@Techmeme/117314994185974554 Ground truth still matters.

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  This glosses over a lot of important points (regulations, camera-only sensor suite...) but has some interesting technical details about Tesla's Cybercab that I wasn't aware of. https://austinvernon.substack.com/p/an-ode-to-teslas-cybercab

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  Ten years later, MIT's Alcator C-Mod tokamak is *still* of use. I see new research papers circulating that include what we learned on C-Mod. For example, you can validate computer models to see if your simulations match actual results recorded on C-Mod. Here's a blog post I wrote about the 10th anniversary of the final day of operations at C-Mod, the progenitor to CFS's SPARC and ARC tokamaks. https://blog.cfs.energy/how-the-alcator-c-mod-tokamak-blazed-the-cfs-trail-to...

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  Our fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth TF magnets are now in place in tokamak hall. Our SPARC fusion machine will have 18 total — two sets of nine we'll later join into a single donut-shaped arrangement. #FusionEnergy https://www.youtube.com/shorts/vNu0qtwJPfI

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  Interesting RMI recap on emissive, not just reflective materials to passively cool buildings instead of using AC. Includes estimate of cost drops with manufacturing increase. https://rmi.org/resources/clean-energy-101-passive-daytime-radiative-cooling-really-cool-roofs/

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  Anybody here used satellite communicators like Garmin InReach? Any advice? #thruhiking

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  Western tanager that showed up at my mom's house in New Mexico for a few days in July. Pretty unusual at her house, though I've seen them at lower elevations near the Rio Grande. It looks kind of chunky here but I saw it stretch its neck a lot to peer around. #birds #birding #NaturePhotography #NewMexico 🐦

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  https://kilovar1959.substack.com/p/equipment-outages-the-hidden-drag Wildfire Smoke, the Gas Turbine’s Enemy A gas turbine is a mass-flow engine: it moves enormous volumes of air to make power, and to protect the precision internals from erosion by airborne grit; it relies on large, high-efficiency filters on its intakes. Wildfire smoke is almost entirely PM10 and PM2.5 — exactly the particle sizes that foul those filters fast. As the filters load up, airflow drops, and so does output.

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  My mom bought "Fiery Feast" birdseed infused with chile pepper that birds are supposed to like while squirrels don't. Here's the scorecard on who actually likes to eat it, based on my last week visiting her in New Mexico: ❌ birds ✅ black bears ✅ skunks ✅ squirrels #Wildlife #NewMexico

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  30 hours of US history, highly recommended by a friend of mine for the USA's semiquincentennial. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNezTQrY_6XMNBWaZqLRdgpoq #history

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  Woo hoo! JPEG XL image support is in the new Chrome v145: https://www.phoronix.com/news/Chrome-145-Released I had to enable via a flag: chrome://flags/#enable-jxl-image-format You can test support here: https://jpegxl.info/resources/jpeg-xl-test-page.html #JPEGXL #web #Chrome #photography

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  Terence Tao on AI solving mathematics problems: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01246-9

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  A quintet of California quail dropped by the house over the weekend — a first, though I've seen them in the neighborhood before. They're very round! And usually pretty hard to see lurking in the underbrush. But for about 5 minutes some of them perched in a nearby oak at a spot where I could point my lens through the foliage. #birds #birding #telephoto #California #NaturePhotography

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  John Kerry on the "sovereignty premium": "Policymakers, corporate boards, and investors must internalize what we might call a sovereignty premium. Every unit of energy produced domestically carries a strategic value that goes well beyond its levelized cost. That value is resilience." https://www.semafor.com/article/05/05/2026/the-largest-energy-crisis-in-modern-history-is-only-beginning

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  Whale watching in Monterey Bay last weekend. Three moms and their calves form pod CA51, plus Jimmy from CA50 hanging around, showing off a huge dorsal fin. The moms would surface and then the calves would surface right next to them. I found the calves chubby and cute (caveat: I'm not a sea lion). #NaturePhotography #California #Orca #Whale #PacificOcean

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  Some of the 27 Hudsonian whimbrels I saw yesterday at Asilomar State Beach in Pacific Grove, California. There used to be just whimbrels, but ornithologists split them into Hudsonian whimbrels (Americas) and Eurasian whimbrels (Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia) in 2025. #birds #birding #California #NaturePhotography

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  Huh, Google is getting into neutral atom quantum computing, too, in addition to its earlier superconducting qubit approach. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/neutral-atom-quantum-computers/ #QuantumComputing #Google

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  University of Arizona making more noise about commercial fusion energy. https://research.arizona.edu/news/powering-future-u-accelerates-fusion-energy-commercialization #FusionEnergy #Arizona

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  As long as we're talking about em dashes and AI — can the Google Gemini team please put spaces on either side of them? I know it's a styling choice, but I find it visually easier to parse with the spaces. "system efficient enough—to keep that heat" vs "system efficient enough — to keep that heat" #AI #style #StyleBook #Google #Gemini

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  My MacBook (latest MacOS Tahoe) no longer remembers window positions when I connect my external monitor, so I have to manually drag my app windows to the second screen. It used to remember my dual-monitor arrangement. Anybody have any advice or pointers? #TechSupport #MacOS