Interesting Thingies

"I'm not sure why, but browsing through utility disks has a calming effect on me. The content selection and menus are interesting in themselves, and sometimes I even find a little hack I might include on one of the disks I release my own scene productions on. Browsing through the config files and examining the startup scripts feels like peeking at the past life of someone. It's a glimpse into the mind of a young boy, who sat down in front of his Amiga one rainy autumn day in 1989. His heart was filled with purpose and his head with hopes of making his handle known and spreading some software - possibly written by himself or someone in the very group of which he was a member. Perhaps what's so calming is the contrast this provides to fast paced SaaS apps and terabyte SSD drives. I don't know. But I do know it still gives these disks a purpose today. And I'm very happy about that." Carl Svensson https://www.datagubbe.se/utildisks/#gallery

The ancient Romans were masters of engineering, constructing vast networks of roads, aqueducts, ports, and massive buildings, whose remains have survived for two millennia. Many of these structures were built with concrete: Rome’s famed Pantheon , which has the world’s largest unreinforced concrete dome and was dedicated in A.D. 128, is still intact, and some ancient Roman aqueducts still deliver water to Rome today. Meanwhile, many modern concrete structures have crumbled after a few decades. For many years, researchers have assumed that the key to the ancient concrete’s durability was based on one ingredient: pozzolanic material such as volcanic ash from the area of Pozzuoli, on the Bay of Naples. This specific kind of ash was even shipped all across the vast Roman empire to be used in construction, and was described as a key ingredient for concrete in accounts by architects and historians at the time. Now, a team of investigators from MIT, Harvard University, and laboratories in...

It was not until the 14th century that scientists created the first sophisticated astronomical clocks. The Antikythera mechanism, with its precision gears bearing teeth about a millimeter long, is completely unlike anything else from the ancient world.  It seems that the device could be used to predict the positions of the sun, moon and planets on any specific day in the past or future. The maker of the machine would have had to calibrate it with the known positions of these bodies. A user could then simply turn a crank to the desired time frame to see astronomical predictions. The mechanism displayed positions, for instance, on a “zodiac dial” on the front of the mechanism, where the ecliptic was divided into a dozen 30-degree sections representing the constellations of the zodiac. 

The Design of Everyday Things is a best-selling book by cognitive scientist and usability engineer Donald Norman about how design serves as the communication between object and user, and how to optimize that conduit of communication in order to make the experience of using the object pleasurable.  One of the main premises of the book is that although people are often keen to blame themselves when objects appear to malfunction, it is not the fault of the user but rather the lack of intuitive guidance that should be present in the design. Norman uses case studies to describe the psychology behind what he deems good and bad design, and proposes design principles. The book spans several disciplines including behavioral psychology, ergonomics, and design practice. Read More ...

 Over the automotive industry’s 100+ year history, companies such as Ford, Chevrolet, and Mercedes-Benz have produced some truly iconic cars. Whether they’re designed for excitement, luxury, or just simple transportation, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu notes that these vehicles offer a set of features that make them highly desirable to consumers. The most successful models will undergo numerous revisions over time, sometimes sticking around for many decades. To learn more, this graphic from Alan’s Factory Outlet lists the 35 vehicles with the longest production runs of all time. Here are the top 10 below.  Read More ...

The Source Code i s   here . This not a joke. We can wonder about the license though. Maybe we should ask the walking product of this source:   Craig Venter   (update: not quite true, it is mostly someone else). The source can be viewed via a wonderful set of perl scripts called   ‘Ensembl’ . The human genome is about 3 gigabases long, which boils down to 750 megabytes. Depressingly enough, this is only 3.6 (update: used to be 2.8, apparently Firefox decreased in size, huh.) Mozilla browsers. DNA is not like C source but more like byte-compiled code for a virtual machine called ‘the nucleus’. It is very doubtful that there is a source to this byte compilation - what you see is all you get. Illustration of a DNA molecule. The language of DNA is digital, but not binary. Where binary encoding has 0 and 1 to work with (2 - hence the ‘bi’nary), DNA has 4 positions, T, C, G and A. Whereas a digital byte is mostly 8 binary digits, a DNA ‘byte’ (called a ‘codon’) has three d...

In Garfield Heights, Ohio sits one of the most toxic shopping centers constructed in the United States.  After nearly 2 years of construction, City View Center opened in 2006 as a power center, containing big-box stores such as Walmart, Giant Eagle, Circuit City, PetSmart, Jo-Ann Fabrics, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Bed Bath & Beyond, Office Max and Marshalls.  Issues arose due to the center being built atop a landfill. One tenant after another moved out over the years due to health concerns and structural issues, and the center was eventually abandoned.  So how exactly did all of this arise, and why was the center built here anyway? Read More ...