Overview
Today was about scale and discipline, from a “small” tsunami with huge force to a shark twice its rival’s size, from rocket-sled Gs to the grind behind AI in coding and advertising. We also had clever tools for sysadmins and creators, a crunchy data problem from finance, and a dose of culture, sport, and hobby joy.
The big picture
Japan’s quake and the “small” tsunami that isn’t
A security cam in Aomori caught long, heavy shaking from a Mw7.6 quake at 23:15 JST. Centre 81 km northeast of Hachinohe at 50 km depth, it hit upper-6 on Japan’s scale and prompted alerts for waves up to 0.5 m. Post-2011 building reforms such as base isolation likely kept damage low, a stark contrast with poorer outcomes in places with weaker infrastructure.
A 3 m vs 5 m great white, calm not chaos
An older clip from South Africa shows a juvenile great white dwarfed by a mature female, a neat example of the species’ sexual dimorphism. Studies say great whites grow roughly 25-30 cm per year early on and can take 20-30 years to reach 5 m, living 70-plus years. The two sharks cruise together, undercutting the “always aggressive” trope.
Linus Torvalds on AI, “vibe coding”, and the bubble
Torvalds calls AI both a bubble and a tool that will change skilled work. He sees “vibe coding” as a handy on-ramp for beginners but a poor fit for maintainable systems. The poster pushes back, arguing it weakens fundamentals by skipping architecture, debugging, and edge cases. The thread reads like a sober check on hype.
McDonald’s Netherlands drops an AI-made Christmas ad
The festive spot pits cosy scenes against slapstick mishaps before offering a McDonald’s refuge. The studio says weeks of prompt-writing and shot-tuning went into it, stressing that humans did the heavy lifting. Comments are off on YouTube, and reactions are split between curiosity about the workflow and unease at uncanny visuals.
Sega’s $5m Nvidia punt and the cost of selling early
In the late 90s, Sega took equity in Nvidia after a failed Dreamcast chip deal. It exited after the IPO for about $15m, tripling its stake in four years. Jensen Huang notes that holding would be worth about $1 trillion today, the sort of counterfactual that fuels endless investor lessons about conviction and time.
Woolworths’ trolley disinfectant machine raises eyebrows
A short clip from Australia shows shoppers feeding carts into an automated spray booth. Brought in during 2020, the tech can cut surface bacteria sharply, though health agencies put fomite spread for respiratory viruses under 10 percent. Replies mock the cost and theatre of it, a reminder of how habits from the pandemic linger.
A plug-in display that shows your Raspberry Pi’s IP
An RP2350 gadget with a small LCD plugs into a Pi and shows hostname plus IPv4 across Wi-Fi and Ethernet. It emulates a USB HID keyboard to pull system info, parses the output, and refreshes on a timer. Fully open source, with code and a printable case, it is handy for labs with many boards.
RC racing that looks like a video game
Remote-controlled cars tear round a pro indoor track, flags waving, crowd buzzing. Viewers compare it to classics like Re-Volt, proof that hobby sport can tap straight into gaming nostalgia while standing on its own as a precise, high-skill scene.
An aquarium “bridge” to keep fish busy
A clear acrylic tunnel gives fish a new route to explore. Enrichment like this is linked in studies to lower stress and less aggression in captive fish, since it mimics the complexity of natural habitats and keeps foraging instincts active.
Tarantino’s soft spot for Superman Returns
He once said it is the superhero film he truly loves, praising its mythic swing and even joking about a Cannes-style “Best Director” nod for Bryan Singer. The clip shows off the operatic set-pieces that won him over, while replies revisit the film’s uneven legacy and its baggage.
A quick Photoshop fix with Content-Aware Fill
A snappy tutorial removes a hole in a rusty fence post by duplicating a layer, lassoing the area, and using Content-Aware Fill to synthesise nearby texture. Old-school, yes, but still useful alongside newer Generative Fill tools.
The dyno that humbles weekend climbers
A boulderer floats through a hand-switch mid-air, the sort of move that ruins forearms for days if you are not conditioned. Research on elite climbers shows forces of multiple body weights during such leaps, which explains the wince you feel just watching.
Eli Beeding’s 83 Gs on a rocket sled
Back in 1958, Beeding took 82.6 Gs for a split second on a deceleration test at Holloman. He rode backwards, water brakes did the rest, and he walked away in shock but without lasting harm. It outstripped John Stapp’s famous runs, though extreme crashes have hit higher involuntary peaks.
How to query a 100 GB binary file in seconds, not minutes
A real work problem: you can decode the file but cannot store the decoded version, and piping to grep takes two minutes. The crowd’s answer is to build indexes on ingest and use offsets to decode only the parts you need, an approach that echoes Arrow-style columnar thinking and zero-copy formats such as FlatBuffers.
Gwyneth Paltrow forgot she was in Spider-Man: Homecoming
A light exchange on The Chef Show has Paltrow blank on her Pepper Potts cameo until Jon Favreau jogs her memory. With post-credit stingers shot in isolation, it is not hard to see how bit parts blur over time.
Why it matters
- Risk is about force and preparation, not headlines. A 0.5 m tsunami can still shove cars off roads, so Japan’s quake-ready building stock matters as much as early alerts.
- AI is creeping into both code and commercials, but progress is not magic. Torvalds’ take and the McDonald’s ad both show that skill, review, and taste still set the bar, and they also show how much labour sits behind the scenes.
- The right tool at the right time saves hours. From content-aware edits to a tiny Pi helper and, at scale, index-at-ingest for 100 GB logs, small choices in workflow compound into big wins.
- Tech history rewards patience. Sega’s Nvidia story is a tidy case of why time in the market can beat timing the market.
- Joy and awe keep the internet human. Sharks gliding together, RC cars flying, a climber sticking a dyno, and fish exploring a new tunnel are reminders that not everything needs to be monetised to be worthwhile.
