im dying over this thread of algorithmically-generated/otherwise low-effort Kindle covers
don’t forget
grossly inappropriate copy of animal farm that is on my nightstand at this very moment
…When you’re getting ready to design a book cover and you’re not sure what you do is going to be good enough.. it’s always reassuring to see something like [all of the above].
mattel seeing barbie’s success and going all-in on a “cinematic universe” is such a comical morbius-level misunderstanding of why that movie did well. barbie has a long & contentious place in our culture where it’s oscillated back and forth, from the “ideal” american woman, to a vapid & toxic female beauty standard, back to something newer generations have an ironic reverence for. love or hate it, you have entire swathes of women who embrace the whole “bimbo barbie” aesthetic and view it through the lens of “women can do both” empowerment. the barbie movie was simply made by a competent director who understood the cultural cache and capitalized on it. that’s why it’s doing well. none of this shit fucking exists for hot wheels or polly pockets. hot wheels has never been part of a conversation around beauty standards & female empowerment. you don’t see male sex workers posting “hot wheels-themed” photoshoots on their onlyfans. there is no greater cultural discussion to be had around any of these movies. mattel’s rival hasbro has made bank on the transformers movies and they’re still in financial dire straits now because all their other non-tformers movie ventures bombed. your hot wheels movie is going to crash like a toy car skipping off its orange track and hitting your friend in the dick. go die in hell.
Typical commercial white paint gets warmer rather than cooler when subjected to sunlight or other light sources. Paints on the market that are designed to reject heat reflect only 80% to 90% of sunlight and can’t make surfaces cooler than their surroundings.
In comparison, the world’s whitest paint reflects 98.1% of solar heat away from its surface.
Because the paint absorbs less heat from the sun than it emits, a surface coated with this paint is cooled below the surrounding temperature without consuming power.
Using this formulation to cover a roof area of about 1,000 square feet could result in a cooling power of 10 kilowatts, more powerful than the air conditioners used by most houses. At SXSW, researchers demonstrated the effects of the difference with two model barns sitting under direct halogen lights: one painted in commercial paint and one in Purdue’s white paint. Judges were able to compare thermometers reading the barns’ internal temperatures and to feel the difference in the roofs. The barn painted in Purdue’s technology consistently held cooler internal temperatures by 8-10 degrees Fahrenheit. The “whitest white” barn roof was also much cooler to the touch, prompting many surprised responses from judges and viewers.
While Ruan’s original paint formula is massively efficient, it required a layer 0.4 millimeters thick to achieve subambient radiant cooling. The newer, thinner formulation can achieve similar cooling with a layer just 0.15 millimeters thick.
The new paint also incorporates voids of air, which make it highly porous. This lower density, together with the thinness, provides another huge benefit: reduced weight. The newer paint weighs 80% less than the original paint yet achieves nearly identical solar reflectance – 97.9%, compared to the original formula’s 98.1%.
This could be an important piece in fighting global warming. Imagine if the city of New York City repainted all the skyscraper roofs with a paint that cools down buildings.
Children’s playgrounds. Safety railings. Tool handles. Car doors. Everything you’ve hesitated to touch in high summer because it had been outside in the sun and you knew it was going to hurt your hand.
I have no idea if they can use it on cars and window-screens to keep them from turning into little ovens in the parking lot, but I’d like them to find out.
I don’t think I ever feel more like I’m living in the future than when I’m walking my dogs across some grass in my neighborhood and one of the robot lawnmowers owned by our housing association rolls by and we have to sidestep a bit to avoid it but the dogs mostly ignore it and we continue on our way.
I was born well before the internet and smartphones but there’s just something about seeing a little machine roughly the size of my dogs so perfectly part of the landscape that animals aren’t even afraid of it. They’re so sensitive to touch now I’ve seen it bump into a hedgehog and stop.
Of all our innovations it was a little robot buzzing around in the grass that got me.
@kvistwig I understand the assumption because they’re called lawnmowers but the ones in my area aren’t actually cutting lawns. They maintain paths through grass that is otherwise allowed to grow tall and wild for biodiversity for pollinators and for animal like hares and hedgehogs to hide in 😊
