Really cool work from Aaron Collins (a.k.a. The Mask Nerd) and his team. They're also working on an open source condensation particle counter which can be used for quantitative fit testing (among other things).

If anyone wants to learn more about the nitty-gritty of the respirator prototyping process, there's a longer video in the description, and the projects are all available on OpenAeros' GitLab, where the hardware is licensed under CERN OHL-S v2, software under GPLv3+, and documentation under CC BY-SA 4.0.

They mention that in particular they're looking for artists/designers/industrial engineers to help with the aesthetics of the mask, so if that interests anyone you can reach out to them using the email in the description (or if you know someone who might fit the bill, share this video with them).

There were a few posts showing interest already

https://hexbear.net/post/2909543
https://hexbear.net/post/2955745

so I figured I'd let people know! Idk if there are any scanlations in the works (let alone an official English localization), but if you're decent at Japanese I'd say the first chapter is pretty accessible. My kanji knowledge is pretty terrible but I was able to muscle through with only looking up a few key words and just relying on context for the rest. This is just a setup chapter, so there's not much to go on:

The art is great, IMO--to be expected of the mangaka of Our Dreams at Dusk (highly recommended if you haven't read it already, and a short read at only four volumes!). Also there was a neat touch which I haven't personally seen before: when German is being spoken, it's still written in Japanese but typeset in the typical Western horizontal style which makes it clearly stand out without requiring any annotations. Look forward to seeing where it goes, and I hope it'll get an official localization to maximize its exposure to Western audiences! Also from a raw reading perspective, it's nice to get in on the ground floor since it can feel really daunting to have 100 chapters ahead of you when reading is somewhat slow and effortful.

Love how the rhythmic hitch caused by the "missing beat" makes the bass groove so hard

Oh yeah, post your favorite 7/4 tunes! I went for the low-hanging fruit, but I'd love to hear some others, especially ones with different beat groupings (e.g. 2 + 3 + 2 instead of the 2 + 2 + 3 used in "Money")

This song is somehow simultaneously paint-by-numbers generic anisong #136 and a total banger. Been jamming to it ever since the anime started airing and the full versions just dropped today to coincide with the final episode of the anime!

Honestly, paint-by-numbers is a little harsh; I think it sounds like that at first blush since it doesn't do anything particularly innovative—Cry Baby, it's not (there are English subs!)—but it's well-written and blends a lot of typical J-pop tropes in just the right way such that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. I love that they did a bunch of different versions--the piano one really allows you to appreciate the voice leading, while the acoustic guitar one emphasizes the rhythmic elements. Maybe it's just because it executes something really well that I'm a sucker for: taking the same melody and recontextualizing it by changing the underlying harmony (the first melodic motif in the chorus is repeated three times, and each time it gets different chord changes!). And the hook is such an earworm:

♫ MAGICAL LOVE, BE WITH YOU! ♪

Ever since I got introduced to the joys of Minesweeper by Girl_DM_ I've been having a lot of fun playing it as a little timewaster. I'm specifically playing the version from Simon Tatham's lovely Portable Puzzle Collection (more specifically the Android port via F-Droid) which unlike the original Minesweeper does NOT require guessing. Most of the time, I'm well-versed enough in patterns and testing candidate solutions that I'm able to clear a 16x16 board with 99 mines in about 3-5 minutes. But on a fairly regular basis I'll run into situations where I get stuck and it seems like I'd either have to calculate an inordinate amount of possible solutions or just make a random guess, neither of which are appealing. Here's one such example:

with annotations

without annotations

There's probably some cool Minesweeper shorthand I could use to describe the constraints, but what I tried to show with my annotations is how I understand that, for each of the annotated squares, there is a mutually-exclusive binary choice (or in the case of the 3, two choices) for where a mine could be located. Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, while the choices are internally mutually exclusive, it doesn't seem like there's any permutation of those choices that is invalid so I can't eliminate any possibilities. My usual strategy is to fix one choice and see if it results in a contradiction. For instance, if the other mine for the 2 is the upper choice, we can clear the lower square. That means the lower square for the 1 must be a mine, and this still leaves either of the two bottom choices as valid for the 3 (so this is a possible configuration based on these constraints).

The only remaining sections have a lot of freedom which makes them daunting to analyze. Of the remaining unanalyzed squares, from top to bottom they have 2, 2, and 3 mines remaining, respectively, which is quite a lot of options to fully check, and I can only eliminate a few heuristically (e.g. the top 3 must have at least one mine in either the east or southeast space, since otherwise the 4 to the south can't be fulfilled; the 4 must not have the remaining mines all in the east column because otherwise the 2 and 1 can't be fulfilled). I'm sure if I went through them methodically I would eventually arrive at an answer, but that's pretty tedious, so I usually just give up and generate a new board in this kind of situation.

TL;DR: am I missing some neat heuristic(s) that will allow me to either slash the possible solutions to a more manageable number or eliminate individual solutions very quickly, or is this kind of difficult spot just an inevitable outcome for some boards?

I like all of Scootertrix's videos, but I found this one to be particularly delightful

Uhhh let me play Nier

It's always a good day when a new Dolphin progress report drops!

Great video which systematically investigates the factors which cause electric guitars to sound different from each other (hint: it's not "tonewood") and manages to do so in an engaging and entertaining way. I think one of the best things about it is that the dude doesn't have terminal redditor brain--rather than wasting time putting down people that believe or perpetuate the myths or gloating about his superb intellect, he just does the experiments and lets the results do the talking.

Jim Lill put out a great video today (Tested: Where Does The Tone Come From In A Microphone?) which I would definitely check out if you enjoy the video I submitted, but it's a little more subtle/niche which is why I chose to lead with the guitar one. My next favorite after the guitar tone video is probably the one on guitar amps--equally good, and perhaps even more surprising.

I'm an impossibly out-of-touch boomer and was honestly only vaguely aware of Laufey having seen a few videos of hers on a music transcription YouTube channel I'm subbed to, so I felt pretty stupid for not realizing just how popular she was. Adam Neely does good work, and this is no exception; he does a great job breaking down the components and influences of her music and comparing them with the essential elements of "traditional" jazz. It's a well-organized and carefully thought-out video from an actual jazz musician--not just some hot take artist--and it's also not gatekeeping or denigrating Laufey's music.

Even if you have no interest in either jazz or Laufey, there was one really historical tidbit in there I think Hexbears will appreciate (@7:23-8:09):

Between 1942 and 1944, there were no new instrumental recordings due to a general strike organized by the musicians' union trying to get musicians paid fairly. Imagine that happening today right? No new recordings for the next couple of years until Spotify pays musicians fairly...wow, a boy can dream.

Vocalists were not part of the Union, though, and so could still record; this led to musical innovations. They started singing acapella arrangements and developing an acapella style mimicking the popular big band jazz arrangements of the day: popular jazz big band arrangements which use stuff like these mechanical voicings. Singers mimicked the big band saxophone solis popular at the era and backed up popular up-and-coming stars like Frank Sinatra.

Pretty wild that the distinct style of dense vocal harmonies heard in American WWII-era music was born out of desperation due to a prolonged strike! And impressive that the union had the strength to maintain a two year strike.

Also definitely check out Live from Emmet's Place--can't go wrong with "After You've Gone" featuring Patrick Bartley on alto sax and Bruce Harris on trumpet as a starting place.