Category: technology
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If a HDD’s Read/Write Head Were a Boeing 747
From an article discussing Seagate’s plant in Ireland (where 80% of the company’s read/write heads are produced): an impressive analogy of a HDD’s read/write head. The dimensions of the head are impressive. With a width of less than a hundred nanometers and a thickness of about ten, it flies above the platter at a speed of…
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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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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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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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The 90-9-1 Principle: Participation Inequality in Social Communities
Jakob Nielson, the leading usability consultant, discusses the participation inequality of social communities, in which: 90% of users are the “audience”, or lurkers. 9% of users are “editors”; or those who participate. 1% of users are “creators”. More information at 90-9-1: a website dedicated to this ‘principle’ where you can view, among other things, these…
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Why Local Content Matters
Google.org on helping technologically developing countries in Africa gain a global voice: allowing them to be producers, not just consumers, of knowledge. Today, Swahili books online for example, number in the hundreds compared to the hundreds of millions of books in English available online. What message does this send to young people about the relative…
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The Napoleon Dynamite Problem
Or maybe, “The One Million Dollar Algorithm”. A competition to improve the recommendation engine of the online DVD rental company, Netflix, has been running in to problems. As the contestants edge toward an improvement rate of 10% (the point at which the $1,000,000 prize will be awarded), their progress grinds to a halt thanks to…
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The Nerd Handbook and Caring for Your Introvert
Rands In Repose’s Nerd Handbook is an essay on understanding geeks; from our insatiable appetite for knowledge to our hard-to-decipher social interaction ‘skills’. The Handbook is at times painfully precise. The nerd has based his career, maybe his life, on the computer, and as we’ll see, this intimate relationship has altered his view of the…
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Online Web Design Tools
Mashable’s list of over 130 web design tools looks like it may come in handy. Tools mentioned include CSS optimisers, colour scheme generators, attractive background design generators, and many more.
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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…