This is a terrific spot-on piece by Rachel. I firmly believe that healthy competition and diversity in the browser market is vital for the health of the web (which is why I’m always saddened and frustrated to hear web developers wish for a single monocultural rendering engine).
A deep, deep dive into biomicry in digital design.
Nature is our outsourced research and development department. Observing problems solved by nature can help inform how we approach problems in digital design. Nature doesn’t like arbitrary features. It finds a way to shed unnecessary elements in advancing long-term goals over vast systems.
Time-shifted reports from the Russian revolution, 100 years on.
All the texts used are taken from genuine documents written by historical figures: letters, memoirs, diaries and other documents of the period.
Every day, when you go onto the site, you will find out what happened exactly one hundred years ago: what various people were thinking about and what happened to each of them in this eventful year. You may not fast-forward into the future, but must follow events as they happen in real time.
Philip Ball certainly has a way with words.
A lovely interactive demonstration of evolution, based on the original code Richard Dawkins used for Climbing Mount Improbable.
Thoughts on artificial intelligence, computation and complexity.
Wonderful musings from Matt on meeting the emerging machine intelligence halfway.
You'll need to use Instapaper/Readability/Safari Reader to make it legible, but this conversation is well worth reading. Now I want to get those books.
Matt Ridley's new book sounds like a corker.
Conway's Game of Life executed using the canvas element.
To counter the creationists' lists of "scientists who doubt evolution" here's a list of scientists named Steve who support Darwin's theory. (via Steven Pinker's Q&A after a lecture last week)
A blog devoted entirely to reshelving books in their correct categories in bookstores, specifically the science and religion categories. I approve.
The Dunbar number gets bandied about a lot in conversations about social networks these days. Here's the original paper that shows the research behind the oft-misused term.
A profile of Will Wright. I'm really looking forward to hearing him speak at SXSW this year.
Brilliant! I need to get some sticker paper so I can print out this picture and put it on my laptop.
Spore fascinates me. It looks like the kind of thing that could change gaming forever.
Seeing a full-grown wasp crawl out of a roach suddenly makes those Alien movies look pretty derivative.
Podcasting has an anthem.