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Revision as of 17:01, 25 May 2023 by Aardvark (talk | contribs)

The Portal Community

We are a project-driven community spread over many interest areas and a variety of backgrounds. We are dreamers and doers who use the tension between these two states. If you are too, then find something that interests you and contribute what you can.

Community Projects

Graph, Wall, Tome

Fundamental physics seems unreachable for many. This project and its subprojects aim to map and convey the information necessary to understand the most vibrant realm of human knowledge. (On Discord)

Slipping the DISC

In almost any field of human activity, mechanisms emerge to suppress or downregulate low-quality ideas in order to maintain an institution's functions. These mechanisms become pathological when they are repurposed to suppress truth, research, and innovation that may upset or drastically alter the institution's structure, ultimately in betrayal of its purpose.

Quest Board

Helpful Tasks

This is the spot for those who don't have expertise in STEM, or are busy with life, but still want to help us. Whether you have only 5 minutes or unlimited time and energy, you can help us and the community.

Explore and Catalog

Transcript Editing

Wiki Editing
  • Write a strong, one-sentence description of ideas on their wiki pages
  • Rewrite disorganized pages on the wiki
  • Build out pages that are stubs (underdeveloped).

Praxis

Help to retell the story of our sciences to new generations of students

  • Read
  • Make a visualization from calculations in what you've read

Mathematics

  • Request visualizations of principles or constructions
  • Outline sequences of thought to reach a particular idea

Physics

  • Write pages on hard physical problems independent of mathematics

Engineering

  • Onboarding to CAD for mechanical engineering (elasticity and fluid sims)
  • Affordable projects/kit concepts to understand physics principles in engineering
  • Contribute to realizable engineering challenge ideas to improve our world

Computing Science

Programming

Build a useful piece of software.

Data Visualization (d3-js, chart-js, p5-js)

Discord Bots (JavaScript)

  • Discord Pin Archive + Management Bot
  • Bot that cross posts from Eric's Instagram to the server
  • Bot that relays messages across servers

Instragram Bots

  • Bot that cross posts from Eric's Instagram to the server

Three-js

Twitter Bots

  • Twitter Archival Bot
  • Twitter Bot that responds to tweets from Eric containing keywords with wiki articles.

Be Creative

Show us what you got!

Music

  • Learn a silly or fun drinking song, and record yourself playing or singing it, preferably with friends from The Portal
  • Make a song that incorporates the podcast's music

Visual Art

Writing

  • Write an essay, blog post, or twitter thread on a topic covered on The Portal.

Portal Ideas

General Knowledge

Reference

Video/Audio

Podcasts

Mathematics

  • 3Blue1Brown - YouTube channel for educational mathematics content
  • Richard E. Borcherds - YouTube channel for mathematics lectures by Fields medalist Richard Borcherds
  • Richard Behiel - YouTube channel for maths and physics content

Physics

Spaceflight

  • Cosmic Perspective - YouTube channel for documentaries and interviews about spaceflight
  • Everyday Astronaut - YouTube channel for spaceflight news and educational content
  • NASASpaceflight - YouTube channel for spaceflight news and video journalism
  • Scott Manley - YouTube channel for news and educational content on spaceflight and astrophysics

Websites

Portal

General Resources

Mathematics

Physics

Culture

  • Astral Codex Ten - Blog by Scott Alexander, of former Slate Star Codex
  • Common Sense - Newsletter by Bari Weiss featuring journalism, interviews, and guest columns on "curiosity about the wrong topics"
  • Continuing Ed - Blog by whistleblower Edward Snowden writing about civil liberties and technology
  • Natural Selections - Blog by evolutionary biologist Dr. Heather Heying about biology and culture
  • New Discourses - Website by James Lindsay on the workings of social justice ideologies
  • Quillette - Online magazine for free thought

Tools

Software

Audio/Image/Video Editing

  • Audacity - Free audio editing tool
  • Blender - Free 3D modeling, rendering, and animation tool
  • Figma - Free web design and diagramming tool
  • Gimp - Free image editing tool
  • Inkscape - Free vector graphic tool
  • Krita - Free image editing/drawing tool
  • Resolve - Free video editing tool

Programming

  • Jupyter Notebooks - Free interactive Python environment
  • Manim - Animation python code used to create the videos on 3Blue1Brown
  • Spyder - Interactive development environment for scientific python
  • Threejs - Javascript 3D Library
  • WordPress - Free and open source software for developing websites

Productivity

Websites

Wiki Tools

Other Sites