Everything About This Tiny, Adventurous Lego Photographer is Awesome →
Legos and photography? Perfect.
Crimea: Where Ukraine could explode →
A good all-up look at the strategic importance of Crimea to both Ukraine and Russia and its history as a focal point of conflict.
Video Processing at Dropbox →
Insightful look at Dropbox's custom implementation for video processing, transcoding, and streaming (through HLS).
Just. Fix. It.
Apple's SSL/TLS bug →
It's a one-line bug that should have been caught in code review, but unfortunately wasn't. The result is a failure to properly validate the server being connected to possesses the private key matching its certificate.
Facebook Data Science on Love →
Facebook's Data Science team tackles some interesting analysis around love, romance, and relationships just in time for Valentine's Day.
Interesting highlights include people almost always marry within their own religion; Texas is good for single guys seeking relationships, the West Coast is awful (and Silicon Valley is atrocious); and Facebook traffic drops off when a relationship starts, presumably due to more real-world interactions.
(via Highly Educated, Highly Indebted: The Lives of Today's 27-Year-Olds, In Charts)
A higher-than-expected home-ownership rate. I'm not sure if that's a sign of economic success or if it contributes to the 55% of 27-year-olds surveyed that have more than $10K in debt.
Massive Open Lab Gets Volunteers to Beat Computers in Designing RNA →
37,000 enthusiasts were given the chance to take on algorithms in designing new RNA molecules. And once the gamers had a chance to vote on the best designs, the winning designs were sent to a lab, synthesized, and tested. After a few rounds of this, players were not only handily beating the computers but providing rules that went into designing the next-generation algorithm.
More support for crowdsourcing, gamification, and the power of human intelligence and intuition.