The tale of how the original Mac take on a calculator program was designed is fascinating: After playing around for a while, [Chris Espinosa] came up with a calculator that he thought looked pretty good. But the acid test was showing it to Steve Jobs, in his role as our esthetic compass, to see what… Continue reading Revealed preferences
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A new angle
Not exactly breaking news about climate change, but unquestionably a neat way to visualise recent temperature changes: The visualization presents monthly global temperature anomalies between the years 1880-2021. These temperatures are based on the GISS Surface Temperature Analysis (GISTEMP v4), an estimate of global surface temperature change. Anomalies are defined relative to a base period… Continue reading A new angle
Station Eleven ended
I’ll have more to say about this, but first just a quick note to confirm that now that the STARZPLAY stream of HBO’s Station Eleven has come to an end I’m delighted I went to the trouble of seeking the show out. The story and the way they chose to tell it took a few… Continue reading Station Eleven ended
Good Law?
The Good Law Project poses a simple question about how senior UK government ministers have used their personal email systems for official business in recent years: [Why…] would Ministers choose to use personal accounts rather than official channels? They seem to believe this is a loophole to avoid scrutiny. If politicians think they can evade… Continue reading Good Law?
Some people
Let’s see how long it takes for Amazon Go-style technologies to spread to other retailers. How long will it take for the rest of us to learn from the attitudes of … some people. (Normally my reaction would be that it’ll be a long time before such technologies get deployed anywhere I regularly shop, but… Continue reading Some people
Apple employee #4 remembers
Paul Ford points us to a recording of a talk from 1997 from Bill Fernandez about life at Apple as employee #4. Fascinating stuff. [Via @ftrain]
Counterparts
Having subscribed to STARZPLAY so I could watch Station Eleven – a very good decision, as it turned out – I’ve decided to compensate for the impending gap in my viewing schedule once Station Eleven ends by catching up with a slightly older show streaming via the same service, Counterpart. As I hoped would happen… Continue reading Counterparts
Fish don’t swim, they’re swum
Matt Webb1 on how human perception limits our understanding of how the world around us really works:2 Fish swim by using the surface physics of their skin to create and exploit low pressure micro vortices in the water. fish somehow exploit the vortices to reduce the amount of energy they need to combat the momentum… Continue reading Fish don’t swim, they’re swum
Hallelujah
Courtesy of xkcd: Hallelujah. Nice to see the classics still getting some respect.1 When you get there, be sure to read the alt text on this one. ↩
The Future
Happy Valentine’s Day from Facebook: Happy Valentine’s Day! Just logging in for a quick scroll? Take your time. You’re not on here as much as you used to be. Still, we’ll never forget you. In fact, we at Facebook love celebrating the moments and people you’ve worked really hard to forget. So now that you’re… Continue reading The Future