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#264

Friday, May 21, 2021

In This Edition:
Slow TV, Ireland's first computer scientist, ancient storytelling memory technique, single piston hydrogen engine, & 100 cars on a treadmill race!

Slow TV

Image: YouTube, Mikko Alroth

Slow TV is a TV format popular in Norway that shows scenes or movement at the rate at which you experience them or that they happen naturally, as opposed to the speed of normal TV. Examples of Slow TV are long slow train journeys, watching sheep grazing, or a log fire burn in real time.

Ireland's First Computer Scientist - Percy Ludgate

Image: Wikipedia

The Irish Times published a piece this week about Percy Ludgate who is believed to be Ireland's first computer scientist. In 1914 the accountant and inventor from Skibereen presented designs for the worlds second analytical engine, a mechanical computer of the time. Unlike Charles' Babbage first computer designed in 1820, Ludgate's machine was capable of addition and multiplication, was smaller in size, and used a series of stepped rods to perform the calculations and preserve numbers in the machine's memory. There are now calls to fund the building Ludgate's machine to validate the designs.

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Ancient Storytelling Memory Technique

Image: Unsplash, Dan Asaki

Researchers in Australia conducted a memory test study where participants were asked to remember and recite a list of butterfly names. Using ancient aboriginal story telling techniques to encode knowledge, one group in the study were taught how to construct a story around the names. Another group were taught how to use the memory palace technique to remember the names, and the control group were left untaught. When asked to recall the names, both the storytelling and memory palace groups were able to recall more than the control, with the storytelling group making far less mistakes.

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Single Piston Hydrogen Engine

Image: Aquarius Engines

Aquarius Engines in Israel have developed a small single piston engine that runs on hydrogen, without the need for a more complicated hydrogen fuel cell. Applications for the clean burning engine with a small 10kg footprint are being explored by Nokia to power remote communicatinos towers.

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100 Car Treadmill Race

Image: YouTube, Steve Wilkins

100 toy cars on an increasingly fast treadmill. Start your engines!

About Found This Week

Found This Week is a curated blog of interesting posts, articles, links and stories in the world of technology, science and life in general.
Each edition is curated by Daryl Feehely every Friday and highlights cool stuff found each week.
The first 104 editions were published on Medium before this site was created, check out the archive here.

Daryl Feehely

I’m a web consultant, contract web developer, technical project manager & photographer originally from Cork, now based in Liverpool. I offer my clients strategy, planning & technical delivery services, remotely & in person. I also offer freelance CTO services to companies in need of technical bootstrapping or reinvention. If you think I can help you in your business, check out my details on http://darylfeehely.com

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