I explore the strange ubiquity of Peter Weinberger's face, which was etched onto everything from CDs and circuit boards to water towers, serving as a legendary inside joke within the Bell Labs and AWK communities.
I highlighted two glowing reviews of Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings adaptation. I especially enjoyed the specific level of detail provided by both Stephanie Zacharek and Jackson himself in their discussions of the film's creation.
Researchers at the University of Sussex used genetic programming to evolve a sound-producing circuit. Unexpectedly, the evolutionary process exploited ambient electromagnetic signals, effectively turning the hardware into a radio receiver instead of the intended oscillator.
I'm sharing research indicating that recordable CDs can fail in as little as two to five years due to dye degradation. This shorter-than-expected lifespan makes them unreliable for long-term digital archiving compared to manufactured discs.
I share Peter Norvig's talk on managing massive datasets, where he explains why having vast amounts of data can be more effective for problem-solving than complex algorithms, a core principle in modern machine learning.
I shared a link to a classic joke about Jeff Bezos and Amazon's early growth. Hosted on NetFunny, the piece offers a lighthearted perspective on the company's rapid expansion and business model during the 2000s.