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matt harbowy
matt harbowy

174 Followers

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Aug 18, 2022

Doing experiments on my power usage

So, I’ve been doing some experiments to help uncover the sources of my power usage and to better understand areas where I can conserve more with minimum impact on my lifestyle. Recently, SCE has gone to TOU pricing, so my power bill varies depending on usage by time of day…

4 min read

Doing experiments on my power usage
Doing experiments on my power usage

4 min read


Jul 7, 2021

China ADRs

I’m just taking a second to write a quick note: I think, personally, that the market nervousness for the Chinese ADRs is overblown. …

Adr

3 min read

China ADRs
China ADRs
Adr

3 min read


Nov 6, 2019

Is now the time to be buying shipping companies?

I’m a big follower of shipping companies. My grandfather worked on Liberty Ships during World War 2 for Bethlehem Steel, and so you might say that floating steel is in my blood. But it’s definitely a sector of stock investment where you can…

Investing

6 min read

Is now the time to be buying shipping companies?
Is now the time to be buying shipping companies?
Investing

6 min read


May 17, 2019

TSLA gets interesting

It’s been a while since Tesla stock has gone on sale. The worry about these “sales” is, of course, that the stock is going to keep continuing downward. Personally, although Elon Musk’s behavior is occasionally problematic and there are always deep questions as to whether electric cars are truly a…

Tesla

2 min read

TSLA gets interesting
TSLA gets interesting
Tesla

2 min read


Jan 12, 2018

Do creams with “plant stem cells” help to fade scars?

This question really has two parts. First, let’s talk about the appearance of scars. Your skin, the epidermal layer of your body, changes significantly over time. The connective tissue underlying the skin is made up of proteins such as elastin and fibrillin, that as you age, becomes less able to…

Stem Cell Research

6 min read

Stem Cell Research

6 min read


Nov 16, 2017

Can you propel a rocket by combining an electron and positron in a controlled chamber?

Take a small battery, and put a switch between the positive and negative terminals. Now press the switch. What happens? If your answer is “the battery gets warm”, you might notice that what you didn’t say is “the battery moves dramatically across the surface of the table”. …

Science

4 min read

Can you propel a rocket by combining an electron and positron in a controlled chamber?
Can you propel a rocket by combining an electron and positron in a controlled chamber?
Science

4 min read


Nov 11, 2017

How much energy is released when hydrogen is fused to produce one kilo of helium?

One kilo of helium what? Which hydrogen? :) Hydrogen (the single-proton, no neutron kind) doesn’t fuse directly with hydrogen to form helium. It’s a multistep reaction. See, for example, The Sun’s Energy Doesn’t Come From Fusing Hydrogen Into Helium (Mostly): 1. Proton/proton fusion into deuterium accounts for 40% of the…

Science

8 min read

How much energy is released when hydrogen is fused to produce one kilo of helium?
How much energy is released when hydrogen is fused to produce one kilo of helium?
Science

8 min read


Nov 5, 2017

Why don’t physicists write human-readable formulas, like developers do?

For example, energy = mass * speed_of_light ** 2 instead of E = mc² The problem in your question is bias: you’ve decided that a particular practice that programmers use, namely, the plain-english naming of variables in a program to improve human readability, should be done everywhere. To illustrate it, you’ve taken a particular equation, a very simple and apparently straightforward one that appears…

Physics

9 min read

Why don’t physicists write human-readable formulas, like developers do?
Why don’t physicists write human-readable formulas, like developers do?
Physics

9 min read


Oct 15, 2017

How/where does one invest in natural resources, like gold, wood, and so on?

Strictly speaking, you don’t. You can invest in companies or assets that produce (or are capable of producing) such commodities, because such an investment can be expected to have a return and produce a profit. You can invest in the stocks of gold miners, or timber companies, and so on…

Investing

6 min read

How/where does one invest in natural resources, like gold, wood, and so on?
How/where does one invest in natural resources, like gold, wood, and so on?
Investing

6 min read


Oct 9, 2017

The tragedy of the question: “what if we could go faster than light?”

There’s nothing tragic about approaching the speed of light. …

Science

7 min read

The tragedy of the question: “what if we could go faster than light?”
The tragedy of the question: “what if we could go faster than light?”
Science

7 min read

matt harbowy

matt harbowy

174 Followers

no job too dirty for the f*%&ing scientists. --Burroughs

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