It’s good to know your waxing (growing) from your waning (shrinking), and that a gibbous is the shape of the moon when you take a crescent of shadow from a circle of light, and that the hardest moon to see is a new one.

If it’s light on the right, it’s gonna get bright. If it’s light on the left, it ain’t.

Like the moon? Apparently so do I: See the moon illusion, super moon, one side of the moon or just sketchplanations > astronomy.

Phases of the moon

Translation: The energy efficiency of computers doubles roughly every 18 months.

In a new twist beyond Moore’s Law, which shows signs of reaching it’s limits, there’s Koomey’s Law. In his own words, the idea is:

“…at a fixed computing load, the amount of battery you need will fall by a factor of two every year and a half.”

Why does this matter? It means we can fit more more computing power into smaller and smaller devices. Which is much of the reason the phone in your pocket is probably more powerful than the EDVAC there in the chart.

Koomey’s Law

A helpful observation from not following this many times in my life.

Front load names to cue attention