Beginner’s Guide to Microprocessors
Read it. I can definitely vouch for this one. It can make you understand the very basics with great economy of both words and time. First edition published in 1977 by TAB books. Still very relevant today.
“I want my heart to be open”
This is a moving and engaging presentation given by Karen Sandler, executive director of the GNOME foundation, at OSCON 2011. After she received a hypertrophic cardiomyopathy diagnosis, she realized that the source code running her defribrillator implant was closed, proprietary,…
Genetic Premunition
BUENOS AIRES — An Argentine laboratory announced that it had created the world’s first transgenic cow, using human genes that will allow the animal to produce the equivalent of mothers’ milk. “The cloned cow, named Rosita ISA, is the first…
Interview with Ben Fry (Where 2.0 2011)
I found this on Nathan Yau’s excellent blog, Flowing Data. The video link comes from Ben Fry’s firm Fathom Design, and features a talk on data visualization with Mac Slocum, O’Reilly Radar’s editor. One of Fry’s answers will get anyone…
Excerpt from “Transhumanism Meets Design”, an Interview with Natasha Vita-More
What do you think are interesting nascent signals of biology extended through technology taking shape in current apps/services/products? Usually a signal is a flashing red light, or a sharp sound. The nascent signals my brainwaves are picking up are somewhat…
Imagination, the Self and Mathematical Reasoning, according to Peirce
§1. Ground, Object, and Interpretant†1 227. Logic, in its general sense, is, as I believe I have shown, only another name for semiotic ({sémeiötiké}), the quasi-necessary, or formal, doctrine of signs. By describing the doctrine as “quasi-necessary,” or formal, I…
Parallel Processing and Open Science
“As a society, we dont understand biology yet,” says Melanie Swan, a genomics researcher and principle at MS Futures Group in Palo Alto, California. As she sees it, there are all sorts of problems with the way we conduct biological…
Biotic Games
One of Riedel-Kruse’s recent article abstract states: Games are a significant and defining part of human culture, and their utility beyond pure entertainment has been demonstrated with so-called ‘serious games’. Biotechnology – despite its recent advancements – has had no…
DNA Sequencing Cost Falls
I found the news first on Slashdot to realize they’re a little everywhere. Although they misleadingly tend to depict the contemporary cost of sequencing a genome as a cheap affair compared to what it was, the graphs, coming from the…