Quick links

What caught my attention lately:

• Fun data: "How to tell someone's age when all you know is her name" ([1])
  
  
• "The possibility of proper tricorder technology in the future, scanning a bit of someone's blood and telling you if they have any diseases or anomalous genetic conditions" ([1])
  
  
• Will self-driving vehicles appear first in trucking? ([1])
  
  
• "Apple's moves into the world of fashion and wearable computing" ([1])
  
  
• "Few people try to or want to use tablets like laptops" ([1] [2])
  
  
• "While managers do indeed add value to a company, there’s no particular reason to believe that they add more value to a company than the people who report to them ... [You want] an organization where fairly-compensated people work together as a team, rather than trying to work out the best way to make money for themselves at the expense of their colleagues." ([1])
  
  
• "Each meeting ... spawns even more meetings ... The solution ... reduce default meeting length from 60 to 30 minutes ... limit meetings to seven or fewer participants ... agendas with clear objectives ... materials ... distributed in advance .. on-time start ... early ending, especially if the meeting is going nowhere ... remove ... unnecessary supervisors." ([1])
  
  
• Fun article on the history of the modern office: "The cubicle was actually intended to be this liberating design, and it basically became perverted" ([1])
  
  
• "We were wrong about the first-time shoppers. They did mind registering. They resented having to register when they encountered the page. As one shopper told us, 'I'm not here to enter into a relationship. I just want to buy something.'" ([1])
  
  
• Private investment in broadband infrastructure is actually dropping in the US ([1])
  
  
• "Not only are packets being dropped, but all those not being dropped are also subject to delay. ... They are deliberately harming the service they deliver to their paying customers ... Shouldn't a broadband consumer network with near monopoly control over their customers be expected, if not obligated, to deliver a better experience than this?" ([1])
  
  
• Fascinating data on cancer shows a surprising lack of linear relationship between aging and cancer ([1] [2])
  
  
• "A wayward spacecraft ISEE-3/ICE was returning to fly past Earth after many decades of wandering through space. It was still operational, and could potentially be sent on a new mission, but NASA no longer had the equipment to talk to it ... crowdfunding project ... commandeer the spacecraft ... awfully long shot ... They are now in command of the ISEE-3 spacecraft." ([1])
  
  
• I love the caption on this comic: "Somebody please do this and post it on YouTube so I can live vicariously through your awesomeness." ([1])
  
  
• Hilarious SMBC comic on privacy and technology ([1])
  
  
• Great SMBC comic: "Wanna play the Bayesian drinking game?" ([1])
  
  
• Hilarious John Oliver segment on net neutrality ([1]) directs people to FCC website to comment, crashing FCC website ([2])
  
  
• Very funny, from The Onion: "New Facebook Feature Scans Profile To Pinpoint Exactly When Things Went Wrong" ([1])

Project Euler and blending math and computer science for education

Project Euler is a simple and surprisingly good educational tool for a blend of computer science and math. Highly recommended.

You are given a problem (good examples: [1] [2] [3] [4]), go off and work on it in whatever programming language you like using whatever tools you like, and submit your answer (multiple submissions allowed). Simple, but surprisingly fun and interesting.

It's been around for a while (since 2006), and, though I've looked at it a few times, I only recently got addicted to it. It's not, as I first thought, just a series of interview-style coding questions, but a much more interesting set of deeper challenges in math that require programming to explore and solve. It's a great way to refresh on math and fun too.

Honestly, I can't say enough good things about it. I've blown hundreds of hours on some addictive video game before, addicted to the point that it occasionally interferes with work and sleep even, and this has the same feel. It's a great little educational tool and fun as well.

Definitely worth a look. Seems like it'd work for older teenagers too if you're looking for a summer project for a teen that already has some programming skill.