Untangling the Tale of Ada Lovelace

From Stephen Wolfram's Blog (yes, the Mathematica/Wolfram Alpha guy):

It’s charming to read Ada’s letter as she works on debugging her computation of Bernoulli numbers: “My Dear Babbage. I am in much dismay at having got into so amazing a quagmire & botheration with these Numbers, that I cannot possibly get the thing done today. …. I am now going out on horseback. Tant mieux.” Later she told Babbage: “I have worked incessantly, & most successfully, all day. You will admire the Table & Diagram extremely. They have been made out with extreme care, & all the indices most minutely & scrupulously attended to.” Then she added that William (or “Lord L.” as she referred to him) “is at this moment kindly inking it all over for me. I had to do it in pencil…”

More than an interesting peek at the life of Computer Science's historical figures, it's a testament to the nobility of all mathematics (not just "business" or "practical" mathematics). 

"Zuckerberg has not donated anything..."

From jwz:

When a multi-billionaire puts out a press release saying that eventually they will transfer all-but-a-billion-or-so into a "charitable foundation" that they also completely control, that is not a donation, that is just moving your money from one bank account to another! And it's not even that, it's claiming that he's fixin' to get ready to do that some day.

Airbnb’s worst problems are confirmed by its own data

From The Verge, a flipside to this networked, algorithmic future:

The company wanted to counter the portrait painted last year by the New York state attorney general, which accused Airbnb of enabling illegal hotels, allowing a small number of hosts to earn millions while cutting down on the amount of affordable housing available to the average citizen.

Here's the Most Comprehesive Anime Recommendation Chart You'll Ever See

From GoBoiano.

 Looks like I'll be occupied for a while.

Nintendo’s next console will be a big departure from the Wii and Wii U

From The Verge

Nintendo still isn't talking about its next big console, codenamed NX, in detail until next year. But new company president Tatsumi Kimishima, who took over for the late Satoru Iwata in September, has revealed that the device won't just be a new take on the Wii like the Wii U was. "I can assure you we're not building the next version of Wii or Wii U," Kimishima explained in an interview with Time. "It's something unique and different. It's something where we have to move away from those platforms in order to make it something that will appeal to our consumer base."

Inori no Nagasaki

We decided to celebrate the end of the first school quarter by spending a weekend in Nagasaki. Ruby and I just hopped on a train and we arrived in less than two hours - I think I'm going to enjoy Japan's railway system. 

The first day was a somber - if grim - pilgrimage through the  "Peace Course" - the cluster of museums and parks that commemorate the atomic bombing of the city.  It is a bit depressing, but these difficult moments have to be confronted.

I'm sort of a military otaku, but I never liked nuclear weapons. From a tactical standpoint - they're just too messy. You're likely to harm your own troops and resources in the process of employing them (and poison the terrain, which sort of moots the point of tactics). The strategic "options" that nukes give you (apocalypse or not apocalypse) are so inflexible and horrifying that they can't be used as leverage. Meanwhile, their very presence makes the world a very dangerous place. So, I never liked the ghastly things.   

How scientists fool themselves – and how they can stop

From Nature:

“People forget that when we talk about the scientific method, we don't mean a finished product,” says Saul Perlmutter, an astrophysicist at the University of California, Berkeley. “Science is an ongoing race between our inventing ways to fool ourselves, and our inventing ways to avoid fooling ourselves.” 

Edward Snowden Explains How To Reclaim Your Privacy

From The Intercept:

What we do need to protect are the facts of our activities, our beliefs, and our lives that could be used against us in manners that are contrary to our interests. So when we think about this for whistleblowers, for example, if you witnessed some kind of wrongdoing and you need to reveal this information, and you believe there are people that want to interfere with that, you need to think about how to compartmentalize that.

Windows turns 30: a visual history

From The Verge:

 It's only now, with the popularity of modern smartphones and tablets, that Windows faces its toughest challenge yet. Microsoft may yet weather its mobile storm, but it will only do so by rekindling its roots as a true software company. 

Google releases critical AI program under a free/open license

This could be a latchkey discovery for universities.

From Boing Boing:

Google says it opened the code because "machine learning is a key ingredient to the innovative products and technologies of the future" and "we hope to create an open standard for exchanging research ideas and putting machine learning in products."