Fascinating bio piece of the founder of 23 and Me who also dated Sergei Brin and A-Rod (you read that right). -Brian
Bitcoin and the Blockchain Will Stomp Out Wall Street Fraud
I’ve been loosely following the blockchain for 5 or 6 years. While I’ve avoided actually buying any sort of crypto-currency (I leave the judgement of the wisdom of that up you...I still don’t know whether that was good or bad) I do think the block-chain has the potential to be as impactful as the internet in modern life. Here is a good podcast explaining the implications of it for finance and economics.
And here is a super rambly but still quite short voice note from me if you just want the TL;DR. – Brian
I know you've been eager to use "Fermi Paradox" and "Kardashev Scale" during those water cooler convos, so just read this and you'll be ready to put Fred in his place on Monday.
But for real, this is a cool thought experiment so just read it.
The Coming Software Apocalypse
I would probably label myself as anti-regulation because I think regulation slows progress and limits creativity. And the word is gross; makes me feel un-American. But we really really really need to start regulating software development in the automotive industry the same way we do aviation.
This article is very dense, but it made me think about how much of life is dependent on lines of code that were largely hand-written, by a human for a computer, and humans and computers are very different. What if humans did the part humans are good at (creatively designing a solution to a problem) and then computers wrote the code?
“Virtual Autism” May Explain Explosive Rise in ASD Diagnoses
Really, really interesting and really, really terrifying. I'll definitely be doing some more of my own research on this, and might even read one of the books by this author that sounds particularly intriguing: A Disease called Childhood: Why ADHD became an American Epidemic. Thanks to Meagan M. and my wife Amanda for sharing.
Are Notifications A Dark Pattern?
This one is more "and stuff" than "science" but I put it in this category because it relates to tech. That might not actually make any sense. Anyway, this article is important because more consumers should understand the concept of a dark pattern now before they become so sophisticated that we don't notice them. It's also important because it introduced me to a term that I'll be thinking about a lot now: tech/life balance.
On pseudo-notifications becoming more sophisticated:
This begins to open the door to manipulation not only by fellow humans, but also by faceless algorithms that eventually learn to present each of us only with information that we already want to see — perhaps even only the news stories that are consistent with our present worldview.
Yikes.
AWAIR | Know what's in the air you breathe
In case you didn't know, I work for Simple Focus, a digital agency here in Memphis. We built the website, store, and blog for this company last year (and won a bunch of awards for it too, might I add). Anyway, the product is awesome and I'll probably be buying one soon for my daughter's nursery. This device scores the air you're breathing and gives you smart (and simple) recommendations for improving your air quality. Plus, they just added an Alexa integration. Check it out!
Three new discoveries in a month rock our African origins
I'm an archeology hobbyist, I think (if that's a thing). By that I mean if someone shares a link about dinosaurs or ancient humans on the Internet I'm gonna click it 92% of the time. This is a good primer on how archaeologists try to map the path of our genetic origins and the author's writing style keeps it from being too dry and science-y. I learned a lot of new words and took a pretty harrowing dive into the Wikipedia rabbit hole after I got done reading this.
Study: Fetuses Prefer Face-Like Images Even in the Womb
This kind of research has a loooonnngggg way to go, but this is a really interesting hypothesis. And no, I've not been shining lights at my wife's stomach. But I kinda want to. But I won't. Probably.
Not here to talk about whether or not climate change is real (it is). But I am here to share good content and goofy drawings, so here ya go.
But while we're on the topic I'll ask a bunch of questions that bounce around in my head when I hear the phrase "climate change": what if the earth is just getting warmer at an alarming rate because that's what the earth is doing right now? So what if it's just time for it to get real hot, and then it'll be time for it to get real cold? But if it is our fault, maybe stop buying crap. Because factories. All of them. Or maybe it's cows. Because cow farts. No more steak. Or breathing! Stop breathing and it'll be better maybe.