Hey yo! Everyone knows about the US elections so no point discussing that, won’t pretend it doesn’t affect the world, because it does. Anyway, I have been bragging about how I finished the book The Martian through the weekend. In reality, I couldn’t do anything else but read the book so I have been overcompensating. By the way, you must know about Sarah’s Scribbles, right?
Here’s a collab graphic novel of Andy Weir of The Martian and Sarah Anderson.
Also, btw, Eric Schmidt just became a citizen of Cyprus.
I suppose news like this hasn’t gone overlooked by you. Linked here is a decent spread on the vaccine and it’s effectiveness and what it means for us in the short run at least. Pfizer might not be something you would want to read about but I suppose BioNTech is completely worth reading about. Especially the couple who founded it: Özlem Türeci and Uğur Şahin.
This technique of hiding data collection and also the inner workings of a computer program to create a cryptographic master tool from which nearly every other cryptographic protocol could be built. Computer scientists have tried to create versions of iO since 2013, but so far, all but one attempt has failed. A paper posted in August describes how to build iO using only standard security assumptions. The protocol is still far from ready for real-world use. Btw, here’s the illustrator who made the amazing artwork at the top of the page.
As insightful as Yuval Noha Harari’s writing and depth of knowledge is, having an illustrative take on the book just makes it that much more interesting. The book is out only for pre-order right now. Here’s also an animated adapt from the graphic novel.
Bureau Oberhaeuser, a Hamburg based Agency has been doing digital product design since 2011, but they also specialize in information design a spectacular field that draws in so much intellectual bandwidth in today’s world and yet goes unnoticed in the face of UX/UI. Here’s a spread done on the agency by Van Schneider.
Btw, I was recently introduced to another legend in the field whom you might want to check out: Giorgia Lupi.
Interviews.school is a website to help developers prepare for software engineering interviews. It covers topics such as resumes, mock interviews, and algorithms. The site was created by an ex-Google software engineer who has had job offers from Google, Facebook, Uber, and Amazon. Each section has exercises and questions at the end to help the reader better understand the material.
Large scale upsets are sources of universal truths which can help us better navigate the future. Canadian veterinary epidemiologist, David Waltner-Toews writes about the wisdom mankind can pick up from the pandemic that has hit us this year and what it stands to teach us about communication, immigration and cultural integration.
An interesting case study on the colour intensive, ‘Among Us’, a popular game and the difficulties the colour blind people face when accessing such colour intensive interfaces. Making designs more friendly for colour blindness is making it more accessible to maximum users and hence the importance of this approach is all the more necessitated in the present world. The developers of ‘Among us’ are working on this and a colour blind mode is already available in the public beta version.
Apple launched its first laptops and desktops built on processors designed wholly in-house – M1 and built on a processor, the M1 and thereby abandoning the industry’s dominant supplier, Intel. The M1 is similar to Apple’s iPhone and iPad processors, allowing mobile apps to run on its new PCs and bringing improved power efficiency and added features as supported in its phones.
China recently sent a 6G satellite into space on top of a Long March-6 carrier rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. The satellite will be used to verify the performance of 6G technology in space. 6G is expected to be over 100 times faster than its predecessor, allowing lossless transmissions over long distances with less power.
Alright until next time!
