16 Dec 2009 - permalink
The unbelievably beautiful renderings of the Mandelbrot set is known the world over. Now, mathematicians with particular interest have attempted creating a three-dimensional version, called the Mandelbulb. Though I haven’t read through the mathematical background, the images themselves are impressive illustrations of the complex self-similarities so characteristic of fractals but with an entirely new dimension to them.
It is a marvel that the simple formula zn+1 = zn2 + c is the foundation and perhaps one of the best examples of why math is so fascinating.
Many more images and a thorough explanation in the unravelling of the real 3d mandelbulb
3 Dec 2009 - permalink
I only recently discovered Aaron Swartz blog and he seems to be doing some very interesting pieces. This one is about John Maynard Keynes and the current financial situation. I like this bit on investment:
It used to be, Keynes says, that wealthy men just thought investing was the manly thing to do. They weren’t going to sit around and calculate what kind of bonds yielded the greatest expected return. Bonds are for wusses. They were real men. They were going to take their money and build a railroad.
The stock market is, in many ways, a ridiculously abstracted concept, removed from the actual goods that we need.
The scary thing is that the more open our markets get, the faster people can move their money around and the more trading is based on this kind of speculation instead of serious analysis.
Go read Keynes, Explained Briefly by Aaron Swartz.
25 Nov 2009 - permalink
Today marks the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s “On the Origin of Species”, one of the most influential scientific publications in modern time. Modified from its original form through advances in fields like chemistry, archaeology, biology and, particularly, genetics, the basic concept of blind selection through survival remains.
Though it is disputed in some parts of the world, the fact remains that our combined knowledge of life on Earth overwhelmingly supports the foundation of his thoughts; From fossils and genetic analysis to modern medical research and modifications of foods and animals through breeding and genetic engineering.
To celebrate this milestone in modern science, the National Science Foundation has released a special interactive report on the influence of Darwin. There’s the always educating Wikipedia entry on Evolution and PBS has an Evolution page too.
11 Nov 2009 - permalink
An extraordinary visionary, Steve Jobs was recently named CEO of the Century by Fortune.
The difference between me and Steve is that I’m willing to live with the best the world can provide. With Steve that’s not always good enough.
A quote from Larry Ellison, that’s a remarkable goal!
6 Nov 2009 - permalink
Canadian filmmakers David and Ian Purchase has made a remarkable sci-fi short film set in the Half-life 2 universe. It is a testament to what can be done with personal computers these days and a tribute to the brilliant game that Half-Life 2 is.
Combining objects from the game with hand-held video, it is yet another example of the creative mashups that are possible when not stopped by unimaginative copyright holders.
31 Oct 2009 - permalink
Thomas Worall sums up an important change in the way we think about windows and the content within:
In the user’s terms, it used to be that the window was the document. The two were equivalent. Now, in a trend that started with the World Wide Web and has now moved into the rest of the operating system, a window is merely a container for one or more documents. That’s a fundamental change in the user’s concept of what a window is.
27 Oct 2009 - permalink
Om Malik interviews CEO of Symbian Lee Williams. Lee shares some unusually frank thoughts on Android, particularly in relation to how Google makes it’s money: Through knowing enough about the user to present valuable ads.
Google makes some amazing things online, but I think there’s a growing and valid fear, proportional to their size, that they just might know too much about us.
19 Oct 2009 - permalink
Daniel Tenner explains Google Wave
Wave is not a social tool. It’s not Twitter, it’s not GTalk, it’s not Facebook. It was never designed to appeal to the crowds of geeks who are currently trying it out.
14 Oct 2009 - permalink
10/GUI is a remarkable concept for a new interaction model and user interface system.
The mouse and the windowed desktop are perhaps the two greatest innovations in the history of human-computer interaction. But like all innovations, they are best seen as part of a continuum rather than a terminus.
While there are certainly problems for people like me with +30 windows open at any given time, the brilliance lies in how 10/GUI manages to embrace the potential of multitouch while keeping the best of the desktop metaphor. It is the best concept I’ve seen for implementing multitouch in the desktop computer.
13 Oct 2009 - permalink
Tim Berners-Lee on choosing a computer language
Nowadays we have to appreciate the reasons for picking not the most powerful solution but the least powerful. The reason for this is that the less powerful the language, the more you can do with the data stored in that language. If you write it in a simple declarative from, anyone can write a program to analyze it in many ways.
It’s the programmer’s version of choosing the simplest file format for storing data.