Fermi calculations or how to extract good approximates of scarce data
https://hapax.github.io/physics/hacks/mathematics/statistics/fermi-log-normal/ - How the properties of logarithms and geometric mean create a tool to guesstimate reasonable values from guesses of different orders of magnitude.
https://hapax.github.io/assets/fermi-estimates.pdf - The same from the same author, but slightly simpler and different examples
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/PsEppdvgRisz5xAHG/fermi-estimates - More examples and some of them based on knowing information about a phenomena, for example following a power law. This is the case for the interesting section 'Example 4: How many plays of My Bloody Valentine's "Only Shallow" have been reported to last.fm?
https://www.av8n.com/physics/dimensional-analysis.htm - Related: extracting qualitative physical relationships just doing some ol-school dimensional analysis of the constants and parameters involved in the system. By the way, I would recommend almost all the articles in the site of av8n.
An operative system that could be used by the scavengers of a hypothetical future society
https://collapseos.org/ - I highly recommend following all, or at least a big part of the hyperlinks of the site. Also the Related efforts. I will just simple paste a part of his introduction to give a feeling of this interesting project: Electronics yield enormous power, a power that will give significant advantages to communities that manage to continue mastering it. This will usher a new age of scavenger electronics: parts can't be manufactured any more, but we have billions of parts lying around. Those who can manage to create new designs from those parts with low-tech tools will be very powerful.
Among these scavenged parts are microcontrollers, which are especially powerful but need complex tools (often computers) to program them. Computers, after a few decades, will break down beyond repair and we won't be able to program microcontrollers any more.
To avoid this fate, we need to have a system that can be designed from scavenged parts and program microcontrollers. We also need the generation of engineers that will follow us to be able to create new designs instead of inheriting a legacy of machines that they can't recreate and barely maintain.
Miscellanea (odd things)
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-old-old-very-old-man/ - The case of Tom Parr, that allegedly lived for 150 years. This article feels more scholarly than its wiki sibling.
https://placesjournal.org/article/step-by-step-repair-manuals-political-ecology/ - an interesting history of the notion of manuals for daily objects.
https://placesjournal.org/reading-list/the-pasts-and-futures-of-the-floating-city/ - Some articles on the concept of floating cities
The gears inside our machines
Useful or highly pedagogic resources for interacting with SPM machines: electronics, UHV, lock-in, feedbacks,etc. You should understand this part as more of a bucket than anything else.
Addining a minican to a 6 mm line. The ideal setup is: minican valve - fitting for valve - fitting for tube - tube
Minican valve to line fitting https://products.swagelok.com/en/c/straights/p/SS-6M0-1-2.
Linde minican valve: 37610014 or, the one i prefer, from messer CANgas dosing valve Z742375
The 6 mm tube frankly can be obtained anywhere. The same for the swagelok parts (nut-ferrule-fit). For this, I recommend checking the rather 'obscure' or unknown guide videos of Swagelok in youtube (here as episodes) https://www.swagelok.com/en/toolbox/tube-fitting-manual
Tip making, etching and that sort of things:
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/2632-959X/abb6c4/pdf
https://www.ttakami.com/DCtipEtching/DCtipEtching.html - a great vault of images on how etched tips look like (good and bad ones)
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/0957-0233/10/1/006/pdf - Nice reference paper for tungsten tips
https://pubs.aip.org/aip/rsi/article/74/2/1027/348811/A-double-lamellae-dropoff-etching-procedure-for - electromechanical etching of qplus sensors
https://www.precisionmechatronicslab.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/2020_J_QPlus_Analysis_v12_final.pdf - Beautiful characterization of qplus sensors in different modes of vibration/ Great detail explaining how does it look in reality.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1567173915001923 - More qplus electroetching
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304399115001424 - Building up a tuning fork from scratch in qplus configuration using a FIB.
Several Zurich instruments blog posts. (I dont even have one of their devices in the lab, but they have nice articles)
https://www.tek.com/en/documents/whitepaper/improved-method-differential-conductance-measurements
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/content-review-lock-in-detection
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/resonator-characterization-pound-drever-hall-method
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/boost-your-signal-noise-ratio-lock-detection
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/resonance-engineering-quality-factor-q-control-method
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/top-10-tips-for-your-lock-in-measurement
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/using-pid-controller-generate-frequency-modulation-fm-signal
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/understanding-specifications-lock-in-amplifiers
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/time-domain-response-lock-filters
https://www.zhinst.com/europe/en/blogs/ring-down-method-rapid-determination-high-q-factor-resonators