Month: December 2008
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Food Production: Where ‘TV Dinners’ Come From
The video of the production line at a Goodfella’s frozen pizza factory (originally via Richard Holden) has been widely shared and I’m sure you’ve already seen it (and been fascinated by the machine that puts the tomato base on). Some may also have seen a few of the slightly less appetising videos such as this one on hot…
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Love–It or Hate–It Films, and the Miss Congeniality Problem
An addendum to my previous post on the Netflix Prize: When someone noticed that the top five most frequently rated movies on Netflix were neither particularly popular nor critically acclaimed (Miss Congeniality, Independence Day, The Patriot, The Day After Tomorrow and Pirates of the Caribbean), another competitor mused: Seeing Miss Congeniality on the list of…
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Genetic Programming and the Evolution of Mona Lisa
Roger Alsing used a genetic algorithm to create a brilliant approximation of da Vinci’s Mona Lisa using only 50 semi-transparent polygons, evolving over approximately a million generations. You can see the end result, after 904,314 generations here, but even after roughly 100,000 generations the image is impressive. I loved scrolling through the pictures, slowly seeing…
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Miscellaneous Transport Maps
After seeing this map of the US Interstate system (via Link Banana), I wanted to find an equivalent for the motorway system here in the UK. The closest I came wasn’t exactly what I was looking for, but very impressive nonetheless: Harry Beck’s London Underground-inspired UK motorway map. After a bit more searching I came…
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MIND08 Talks
Videos of talks from MIND08; the Design and the Elastic Mind Symposium. Collaboration between science and design is yielding a radical new way of visualizing, understanding, and manipulating the natural world. MIND08 is a conference […] which aims to catalyze this convergence. Bringing together an eclectic group of speakers and participants, including leading scientists, designers, and…
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Advice for Potential Graduate Students (and Employees)
Poignant advice for potential graduate students (originally by the Johnsen Lab, Duke University). Finally, have your fun now. Five years is a long time when you are 23 years old. By the end of graduate school, you will be older, slower, and possibly married and/or a parent. So if you always wanted to walk across…
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The Myth of Urban Loneliness
Urban loneliness is the idea that people in densely–populated urban areas are lonelier than people in disperse areas such as the countryside. However, a fascinating article in New York Magazine looks at the ‘science of loneliness’ and suggests that urban loneliness is a myth. I found this comment, on an evolutionary psychology theory of loneliness, intruiging: Cacioppo, co-author…
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A Modern Depression
An excellent look at what a modern economic depression would look like. We are separated from the 1930s by decades of profound economic, technological, and political change, and a modern landscape of scarcity would reflect that. What, then, would we see instead? And how would we even know a depression had started? It’s not a…
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How to Take Notes Like an Alpha-Geek
It’s been a year since Tim Ferriss pressed ‘Publish’ on an article that I find myself going back to whenever I feel disorganised and overcome by endless pieces of paper: how to take notes like an alpha-geek. I trust the weakest pen more than the strongest memory, and note taking is—in my experience—one of the…
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What’s the Difference: Shia vs. Sunni
What’s the difference between Shia and Sunni Muslims? An article reprinted from the mental_floss book, What’s the Difference? Like Christianity, Islam is home to a spectrum of sects espousing different beliefs and practices. And just as Christianity can be divided into two large groups – Catholic and Protestant – from which other subsects have emerged,…