I found it really interesting he frames privacy, surveillance, and power through the lens of information asymmetries.

Requirements are pretty flexible, but the inspiration is largely iNaturalist, and also this very cool project put together by Google Creative Lab back in 2019 https://patternradio.withgoogle.com/

Best place to learn more is to stop by the community Zulip chat (https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/) and ask questions, it's full of really knowledgeable people. Also you can explore the entire codebase here: https://github.com/orcasound/orcasite

https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/deep-listening/

https://depts.washington.edu/uwb/revolutionizing-marine-cons...

Very cool and very powerful technology, it'll be interesting to see how fiber sensing progresses, especially with how much undersea fiber already exists. For subsea power cables, is there a parallel fiber dedicated just for DAS monitoring? Do these get bundled in with data fiber runs as well? I've been curious how well DAS can work over actively lit / in-service fiber.

https://live.orcasound.net/

These hydrophones are a bit more expensive (~$1k per deployment) but still very accessible compared to how much it usually costs. And the goal is to bring the cost down to the ~$100 range (so $5 is very impressive!):

https://experiment.com/projects/can-low-cost-diy-hydrophones...

All the data is being saved (used for scientific research & ML training), with some of the hydrophones going back to 2017, and yes it's quite difficult to listen to and review so much audio. Better tools like the hydrophone explorer UI are much needed (been working on something similar).

One of the things that's surprised me the most is how difficult to keep hydrophones up and running. I can sympathize with both the technical and social challenges—underwater is not a friendly environment for electronics, and it can be difficult to get permission to deploy hydrophones. But it's incredibly rewarding when it works and you capture some cool sounds.

For anyone interested, all the code is open source and acoustic data is freely available:

Code: https://github.com/orcasound/

Data: https://registry.opendata.aws/orcasound/

Community: https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/

> When General Magic finally shipped in 1994 — under the threat of Apple’s Newton — they hadn’t made the Pocket Crystal that Porat first dreamed of in 1989. Instead, they released something they called the Sony Magic Link. It weighed 1.5 lbs (0.68 kg) and was priced at US$800 (US$1560 in 2022 dollars). It offered futuristic features like a touchscreen, downloadable apps and animated emojis — the first of its kind. Fadell thought it would be revolutionary — people could now carry a personal computer with them wherever they went. But nobody bought it. In the end only three to four thousand Magic Link devices were sold, and mostly to family and friends.

There's a documentary too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uTdyb-RWNKo

Absolutely, we all need to filter the overwhelming amount of information we're faced with. The part that seems terrifying is that occasionally our filters can line up in such a way as to pick up what's just pure noise and escalate it into an enormous positive feedback loop.

And of course there's a whole discussion about how those filters are shaped (by the media we consume, authorities we decide to trust, direct experience) and how that's changed over time.

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We're building open source tools to listen underwater, focused on monitoring endangered orcas (killer whales) along the west coast of North America. We operate a network of hydrophones that anyone can listen to live (https://live.orcasound.net/). We have a community of over 6,000 citizen scientists who use our tools to help us detect orcas & other marine life. Short-term our goal is to help conservation, long term we want to contribute to scientific research (orca behavior & communication).

It's an incredibly broad project that ranges from:

- hardware (building hydrophones & deploying electronics underwater)

- embedded systems / IoT (capturing & streaming data from our locations)

- live streaming & audio processing

- machine learning & data science (our dataset is nearly 10tb, all open data)

- mapping & GIS

- full-stack web

- design, UX, UI

Tech stack: Python, Elixir, Javascript/Typescript, React, C#, PostgreSQL

We need so many things that there's almost certainly something you can contribute to, regardless of skill level.

If you're interested, come say hi in our community chat on Zulip! https://orcasound.zulipchat.com/

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I got a vintage Sunbeam toaster recently, and in the process I found this guy who restores vintage Sunbeam toasters for almost $300!

https://www.timstoasters.com/

That's not including the toaster itself, which generally runs somewhere around $100 on eBay.

It makes me wonder if it's a better business to restore old toasters (and even other kitchen gear) rather than to make new ones. I haven't used his services ($300 is quite a bit more than I'd like to spend), but it seems like he goes to great lengths to fix up these toasters, even ordering custom power cords from a wire supplier. I bet it would be easier to start off recreating some replacement parts rather than manufacturing a whole toaster.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Market_for_Lemons [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresham%27s_law

Besides the fact that the lake area will still be partially flooded, as other replies have said, fish are complicated and there are a lot of dam related issues that affect fish passage. Just a few:

- Downstream passage would have to be through spillways. Survival rates are pretty good (95%+) [1], much better than turbine passage, but not as good as not having a dam in the way.

- Conventional spillways open from bottom, which fish have a hard time finding. [2] Granted, if the water levels are reduced this could be less of an issue.

- Time spent in slow moving water increases predation on salmon. [3] If you visit a dam you'll see ospreys all around. Slow water can also favor some species over others.

- There are a bunch of other water quality issues that dams cause, most notably water temperature. The 2002 Klamath fish kill [4] (the largest in history and a major impetus for un-damming the Klamath) was caused by high water temperatures. [5]

- Even shadows can cause significant issues, from structures as small as docks or piers. [6]

- Upstream passage is not solved by opening the spillway and would still be an issue, requiring fish ladders or transportation. All the existing problems with fish ladders apply. [7]

- Besides salmon and trout, other important species get blocked by dams, including sturgeon and lampreys [8], and each are affected by dams in their own way.

[1] https://www.salmonrecovery.gov/Hydro/Structuralimprovements/...

[2] https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/endangered-species...

[3] https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/west-coast/endangered-species...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Klamath_River_fish_kill

[5] https://www.waterboards.ca.gov/waterrights/water_issues/prog...

[6] https://wdfw.medium.com/casting-shadows-on-the-sound-3a9a555...

[7] https://medium.com/re-form/whats-the-dam-problem-3b5cd839ae7...

[8] https://e360.yale.edu/features/sea-lampreys-pacific-lampreys...