It was mentioned in this article: https://medium.com/@breid.at/ultra-pure-quantum-crystals-from-an-abandoned-mine-in-a-mysterious-desert-93cc87d12314

...and it seemed so obscure, I couldn't help but read it. I mean, who doesn't want to read about bizarre states of matter that are somehow naturally occurring‽

Did you just look askance at some writing that uses an uncommon word, thinking, "I keep seeing this word... has it suddenly become popular?"

It could be the Frequency Illusion!

Decades ago, I moved from Massachusetts to Florida. When I moved from that house to a new one, I discovered an unopened bathroom fan motor + blower wheel in the attic (left by a previous owner). "Nice" (head nod) I said to myself, and threw it in with everything else in the moving boxes.

Of course, my wife told me to "just leave it" and "you're such a hoarder!" It stayed in that box when we moved again a decade later.

Today, one of our bathroom exhaust fans stopped working (for the 2nd time) so I decided to reach deep into my hoard of random crap. "I have just the thing!" I still remembered which box it was in and where I stored it in the attic above the garage!

BONUS: The old bracket nuts didn't fit the new motor so I had to fish around in my collection of random nuts, bolts, and screws to find two exact matches. Which I had, of course—because I save all the screws of all the things 👍

I saved ~$37 and a trip to the hardware store today!

River Monsters was cancelled because they ran out of monsters! They literally caught them all (Note: This is the real reason; I'm not making that up!).

Because of this—and the impressive staying power/popularity of the show over time—the executives have decided to fund continuing research to discover a new world, and this research has finally bore fruit!

A new world—full of rivers—has finally been found! Because of their continuous funding, they get first crack at it.

A daring crew is assembled, they start recording, and enter the portal...

I'm guessing that we'll see lots of news in 2026 about how companies are hiring developers to help improve the memory efficiency of their software because they just can't get enough servers. Also, the servers they do get will have reduced RAM compared to what they wanted.

He gets out of Windows! 😀👍

The fire extinguisher in my garage is almost 20 years old now and the pressure gauge is right at the edge of the red zone. That means it's time to order a new one!

Decided to get two because it seems like a good idea to have one out by the grill (and they're a better deal that way) 👍

Very excited because this means I get to play teach the kids how to properly use a fire extinguisher with the old one! Been a while since we used the fire pit out back...