Scientists Work to Contain Modified Organisms to Labs →
The scientists have given a common type of bacterium a unique genetic code that makes it dependent for survival on unnatural amino acids that must be fed to it. If such organisms escaped into the wild, where those amino acids are not available, they would die.
I think this was tried before. They clearly did not learn the lesson.
Facebook Data Know You Better Than Your Own Mother →
Given the average number of Facebook Likes—i.e. 227—the algorithm handily bested all but spouses in more accurately predicting the subject's personality. And for subjects with 300 or more Likes, the computer beat even significant others.
Personal relationships, you are no longer needed.
The End of Gangs: Cleaning Up Los Angeles, California →
The changes on Southern California streets over the last few years are unlike anything I've seen in my decades of writing about gangs. For the first time, it seems possible to tame a plague that once looked uncontrollable—and in doing so allow struggling neighborhoods, and the kids who grow up in them, a fighting chance.
Encouraging and very interesting.
The New Science of Building Great Teams →
With remarkable consistency, the data confirmed that communication indeed plays a critical role in building successful teams. In fact, we've found patterns of communication to be the most important predictor of a team's success. Not only that, but they are as significant as all the other factors—individual intelligence, personality, skill, and the substance of discussions—combined.
The Stunning Scale of AWS and What it Means for the Future of the Cloud →
Amazon has designed and built their own power substations. It only saves a little money, but they can build them much faster. Utility companies are not used to dealing with the rate AWS is growing at, so they had to build their own.
There are only a few things that have recently surprised me about the scale of datacenter development and operations these days. The fact that Amazon turned into a power company in order to feed its datacenters did.
You Are a Musical Expert →
When we acknowledge how, just by living and listening, we have all acquired deep musical knowledge, we must also recognise that music is not the special purview of professionals. Rather, music professionals owe their existence to the fact that we, too, are musical.
We are not Charlie, in other words, because we risk so little for what we claim to value so much.
— Philip Gourevitch, The Life-Giving Defiance of the Charlie Hebdo Cartoonists
Our NBC News Group Standards team has sent guidance to NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC not to show headlines or cartoons that could be viewed as insensitive or offensive.
— "An NBC News spokesperson", Many Outlets Are Censoring Charlie Hebdo's Satirical Cartoons After Attack
A Mile Wide, An Inch Deep →
Most Internet companies would build better things and create more value if they paid more attention to depth than breadth.
Ev Williams of Medium takes the page view and monthly user metrics camps to town. Your service frequently cares about less qualitative things.
Amazing visualization of code base sizes. Interesting that Windows 7 has significantly fewer lines of code than Windows Vista did.