Letters Remain

Author: Lloyd Morgan

  • The (Data) Visualisation Lab

    I’ve been playing with The New York Times’ Visualization Lab lately and am enjoying it quite a lot, even though the current data sets you can play with are quite limited. However, the system uses IBM’s ‘Many Eyes’ tool, a project of their Visual Communication Lab, and if you head there you can register and…

  • Revolutionary Scientific Minds

    Revolutionary Minds is a new(ish) video series from Seed Magazine well worth your time. Each instalment profiles a number of scientists with one thing in common: their ideas are revolutionising how science advances. So far: The Game Changers Competition, legal difficulties, information overload, a lack of money, and public relations problems can impede the progress…

  • International Taxi Fare Calculator

    Travelling abroad and afraid you’re going to get ripped-off on a taxi ride? Worry no more: World Taximeter provides you with taxi fare estimates for journeys in cities around the world. I couldn’t have found this at a better time: tomorrow afternoon I’m off to Prague and now know that my journey from the airport…

  • DIY Home Improvement Tips

    I suck at DIY: when it comes to manual labour common sense eludes me like originality to a James Bond script. Maybe with the help of DoItYourself.com, a website packed full of useful information on skills I really should know, this will change.

  • Making O’Reilly Animals

    Like many others, I, too, have wondered about the reasoning behind O’Reilly Media’s animal-themed book covers. While it doesn’t reveal all, this article describes the history of, and the creative process behind, O’Reilly’s iconic covers. Lorrie tries to imbue her illustrations with the historical, somewhat less-than-accurate style of the old Dover engravings. Her technique has…

  • Is Unlimited Vacation a Good Thing?

    With a number of companies beginning to offer unlimited vacation time, Alison Lobron of The Boston Globe asks whether unlimited vacation is really a beneficial perk for employees. Because of technology’s reach, some activists rightly worry that “unlimited vacation” is nothing more than corporate-speak for “no vacation at all.” They worry that employees without a…

  • Dopamine and the Social Brain

    In a recent article for Seed, Jonah Lehrer writes about new research from the neuroscientist Read Montague linking dopamine to complex social phenomena. There is so much great stuff in the article that I find it difficult to quote just one piece. I’ve decided on this anecdote that I happen to find slightly amusing: The…

  • The Lazarus Sign

    The Lazarus Sign; something I have never heard of, and hope I never see. Occasionally, brain-dead patients make movements, owing to the fact that the spinal reflexes are still intact. The most complex, and presumably the most terrifying, is called the Lazarus Sign. It is where the brain-dead patient extends their arms and crosses them…

  • Freudian Projection: An Evolutionary Explanation

    Some interesting research has been attempting to give an evolutionary psychology explanation for psychological projection. Using Silence of the Lambs, Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead and Koyaanisqatsi, no less. We project emotions on others based on our own emotional state, but those projections are functional: We don’t project fear if we’re afraid…

  • British, American, and German Senses of Humour

    The reason why Britons believe that the Germans have no sense of humour is a language problem, not a humour problem. One example: The German phenomenon of compound words also serves to confound the English sense of humour. In English there are many words that have double or even triple meanings, and whole sitcom plot…