Author Andre Agassi Summary The life and career of Andre Agassi, former professional tennis player and ATP number one, told from his own perspective. Takeaways Andre Agassi played professional tennis from 1986 to 2006 and won eight Grand Slam single championships. He grew up under a dominant farther obsessed with tennis and the success of his children. Andre rose to fame early and struggled for a long time to find out who he was and what he stood for....
Author Andy Weir Summary The story of a high school teacher and former molecular biologist sent on a space mission to save humanity from becoming extinct. Takeaways Breakthroughs can be made quickly when the scientific community works together towards a common goal and is unobstructed from political interference and misaligned incentives. Faced with an extential threat, the human habitants of earth combine resources and consolidate power to streamline the successful execution of project Hail Mary....
Author Norman B. Keevil Summary The history of Teck Resources, Canada’s largest diversified mining company, from 1912 to 2023. Takeaways Commodity prices can fluctuate widely through economic cycles. It is important for a mining company to retain a strong balance sheet to survive tough times and be ready to act on opportunities when they arise. The mining business is characterized by frequent mergers and acquisition and often complex financing arrangements involving multiple mining and investment companies....
Goal Visualize NASA true-color data on a toy globe. Data preparation Topgraphy: NASA topography data NASA blue marble images (360x180px): NASA blue marble The code to create a combined table capturing topography (height) and r, g, b, values per latitude and longitude can be found in the toy-globe Github repo. Animation The animation is created in Blender using geometry nodes....
Author Ray Dalio Summary A historical account of the rise and fall of empires and the reasons behind them. Takeaways History is repeating itself in well-defined cycles that determine the world order and the relationship of countries. Empires and dynasties rise and decline in a Big Cycle that is driven by universal cause and effect relationships that are in turn determined by fundamental characteristics of human nature such as fear, greed, jealousy, and other basic emotions....
Purpose A biome is a distinct geographical region with specific climate, vegetation, and animal life. It consists of a biological community that has formed in response to its physical environment and regional climate. This project describes the creation of an animation of the distribution of biomes per latitute created in Blender. Data preparation Biome description: NASA earth observatory Vegetation index data: NASA NDVI Average land temperature: NASA LSTD The code to create the distribution of biomes per latitude can be found in the biomes-world Github repo....
Author Tim Palmer Summary An introduction to the geometry of chaos and the important role it plays in understanding scientific phenomena. Takeaways The climate and the economy are examples of highly complex non-linear systems. The evolution of these systems follows a fractal geometric pattern along an attractor, i.e. a set of allowed states in a high dimensional state space. Despite the fact that an exact future state is often uncomputable, mathematical models have been successfully developed to characterize possible future behavior in the form of ensembles along the attractor....
Summary A historical analysis of the working mechanisms of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Takeaways The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been the sole legitimate governing authority in China since 1949. By the end of 2009 when the book was published, the CCP had 78 million members. The Party consists of a giant network of people that are involved in every important decision and its members have built up the skills and experience to run the country....
Author Sabine Hossenfelder Summary Scientific answers to existential questions. Takeaways Existential questions deal with the origin and working mechanisms of the universe, and the role of humans in it. While the fundamental theories of the standard model of particle physics and the theory of general relativity have been very successful in providing explanations, many questions have no scientifically sound answer yet. In their attempt to extend our knowledge, some scientists include assumptions in their theories that are unnecessary to explain observations, conflating scientific reasoning and belief....
Video about Eight ways to organize nodes in BLENDER!. Collapse (0:19): click on node Hide (0:33): ctrl-H Labels and colors (1:01): N Frames (1:46): ctrl-J, ctrl-P to take an item out, X to delete Node groups (2:53): ctrl-G, tab to switch in and out. Custom node groups can be sold as customer shaders. Asset browser (5:27): make node groups available for re-use Reroutes (6:26): shift-A > reroute Noodle curving (7:20): edit > preferences > themes node editor noodle curving Node preview (7:45): add-on to show thumbnails ...