Saturday, 21. November 12020
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IBM Apologizes For Firing Computer Pioneer Lynn Conway For Being Transgender... 52 Years Later.

You’ve likely never heard of 82-year-old computer scientist Lynn Conway, but her discoveries power your smartphones and computers. Her research led to successful startups in Silicon Valley, supported national defense, and powered the internet.

The Power of a South Pole Sunrise After Six Months of Darkness.

Astrophysicist Robert Schwarz has spent more winters at the southern tip of the world than any human in history.

You can handle the post-truth: a pocket guide to the surreal internet.

Yes, things on the internet are confusing and chaotic and weird right now. That’s because the goal of the bad actors we’ve covered is to deliberately manufacture confusion and make you feel apathetic about what’s real vs. what’s fake. My hope is that exposing some of these techniques makes them a little less mysterious and a little less surreal. You can handle the post-truth. Because you can learn the truth about how these so-called “post-truth” movements work.

Use decision records already!

Decision records also serve as historic documentation when someone questions the decision. You can revisit the argumentation and check why the decision looks stupid now.

Leap second hiatus.

Bulletin A is a weekly summary of predictions from the latest Earth Orientation model. It includes the projected difference between Earth rotation angle (UT1) and UTC, which in turn determines when a leap second is needed. The notable thing about the latest Bulletin A is the factor 0.00000 (…) This implies that unless something wild happens, we are very unlikely to have a leap second in the next few years.

FrontPage: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Because as nice as Facebook and Twitter are, let's face it, we all kind of miss the old days of lovably terrible hand-crafted sites.

Source: invisibleup.com

How to know who’s trustworthy.

Knotty problems call for sound advice. Use philosophy to find the intellectually dependable amid the frauds and egotists.

What Is the Hardest Language in the World to Lipread?

Lipreading might be more art than science.

Most lipreading studies don’t involve people who actually do it as part of their daily lives.

Subprime Attention Crisis.

(…) digital advertising—the beating heart of the internet—is at risk of collapsing, and (…) its potential demise bears an uncanny resemblance to the housing crisis of 2008. (…) And if online advertising goes belly-up, the internet—and its free services—will suddenly be accessible only to those who can afford it.

Your first attempt at making anything accessible will be awful.

98 % of websites are completely inaccessible. You couldn’t possibly do any worse than they are. The starting point is giving a damn.

Relevant: Atkinson Hyperlegible font.