Welcome and thanks for being here. Today I found the answer to a fun question: if you plug your phone into a watermelon, will it charge? There’s also links about Plus Codes which provide addresses for any location on earth. That helps refugees get emergency services, set up banking, vote, and other critical tasks. There’s also links about a poet trying and failing to get ChatGPT to write poetry, raising chickens (they’re divas, turns out), and how AI hurts junior developers. Plus the usual Dad joke, this time about a melon that likes water. Let’s start exploring and reading…
Can a Watermelon Power a Cellphone?
Short answer: no. Longish answer: watermelon and other fruits can conduct electricity. But it’s too weak to power or recharge your phone.
What does work, somewhat, is a lemon pressed down and rolled to loosen its insides. Then you stick a nail galvanized with zinc into one end. And stick a copper wire into the other end of the lemon. You then connect the nail and copper to generate low voltage from a flow of electrons. How does it work? The galvanized nail anode sheds electrons. The copper cathode attracts those electrons. The lemon’s acidic fluid carries electrons from anode to cathode.
How to Make a Lemon Battery
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhbuhT1GDpI
Fruit Battery Power
http://www.sciencefairadventure.com/ProjectDetail.aspx?ProjectID=154
What Fruits & Vegetables Conduct Electricity?
https://www.sciencing.com/fruits-vegetables-conduct-electricity-8289020/
Will an iPhone charge with a watermelon?
http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=5417
Using watermelon rind and nitrite-containing wastewater for electricity production in a membraneless biocathode microbial fuel cell
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S095965262101525
Addresses for Everyone Anywhere
People live in all kinds of places on the Earth. In the US, most people live in places with a unique street address. Each street address includes a number, street name, and city or town. Zip codes help identify a location. However, there’s an alternative more accurate way to identify where people live. It’s called Plus codes. It’s a street address for people who don’t have one. But it also can identify our everyday street addresses.
Addresses turn out to be extremely important. If you need an ambulance, for example. Or to get a bank account. Or vote. In these cases and more, a unique address is critical. Yet billions of people lack a unique address. Plus Codes help solve this problem. To find any plus code address, go to https://plus.codes/map and enter a traditional address. If you use a phone and have Location Services active, the Plus Code map will show your address. Or click anywhere on a Google map and click the dropped pin to show the Plus Code.
Find a Plus Code
Plus Codes
https://maps.google.com/pluscodes/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJ9zEkXearU
Open Location Codes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_Location_Code
A simple and accurate address for your home using Plus Codes
Find & share a location using Plus Codes
https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7047426?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid
STEAM Bits and Bytes
Links I’ve come across recently that might interest you.
- Chat Orpheus. A poet tries to get ChatGPT to write poetry. While AI can mimic poetry, it can’t write original poems like humans. We should think about what AI cannot do that humans can.
1. https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/on-poetry/chat-orpheus
2. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/education/glossary/oulipo
3. https://poets.org/text/brief-guide-oulipo
4. https://poetrysociety.org/poems-essays/interviews/poet-novelists-an-interview-with-travis-nichols - So you want to buy chickens? Here’s what I’ve learned since raising my six chicks. Turns out, chickens are divas. And everyone’s buying them because egg prices are high due to an ongoing epidemic. https://houseofgreen.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-buy-chickens-heres
- YouTube is about to turn 20. An unusual research method is unveiling statistics about the platform that Google would rather keep hidden.
1. https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20250213-youtube-at-20-a-computer-that-drunk-dials-online-videos-reveals-statistics-that-google-doesnt-want-you-to-know
2. https://journalqd.org/article/view/4066/3766 - New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code. We’re trading deep understanding for quick AI fixes, and while it feels great in the moment, we’re going to pay for this later.
1. https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-and-learning
2. https://nmn.gl/blog/ai-midlevel-engineer - Trials of the Witchy Women. For seven centuries, the meaning of witchcraft only reveals the anxieties of human societies. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2024/01/22/witchcraft-a-history-in-thirteen-trials-marion-gibson-book-review
This Week
Our Sunday email this week will have fun often offbeat links about a feral child, Kasper Hauser, and the mystery of his origin. Recent DNA analysis shows one possible solution is incorrect and leaves his mystery intact. Other links explore the reasons Neanderthals died out and Other links explore the reasons Neanderthals died out and how sea otters use their pockets to store rocks. And a link to the history of peanut butter, in case you wondered. Plus how scientists are learning what birds really talk about. Look for the email this Sunday.
