Nature has famously inspired martial arts schools. It is a pity it did not inspire dance schools as much, or at least that nature themed dance fights have not become popular.

If you wanted to start your own school, this would be a good starting material.

Current Biology has made available the column that Sydney Brenner kept as a pdf

It was an interesting read and gave an idea of science in the pre-genomics era. It was great to get a glimpse into how a great mind works.

In particular the following essays stood out for me (pages refer to pdf)

Page 22 on how to correspond with crackpots, or deal with colleagues’ letters. It is a pity the advice will not work as well with electronic communication.

Page 39 on God’s explanation to Francisco Crick on how imaginal disks work.

Page 42 on performance evaluation.

Big news this week. You may have seen the image. It looks like a hole. But it is 2.6 times larger than the actual object, and there is much more information contained in the image than a quick glance without much thinking reveals.

It is wonderfully explained here.

And the same channel produced a follow up video on the day of the announcement.

You might also be interested in the TED talk of the scientist who developed the algorithm that generated the image.

I recently came across the channel of Gerald Undone who has very succinct but detailed explanations of complex technical issues in photography. If you don't understand them after watching his videos, you are probably beyond salvation.

I have selected some, and there are probably more in his channel.

I was particularly intrigued by the depth of field explanation, which says that it is the same regardless of focal length, but the bokeh looks more pleasing in high focal length lenses because they also magnify the out of focus area in the photo, along with the subject.

The one about crop lenses was also enlightening, and it explains how speed boosters work.

And finally here is one on white balance. It allows you to detect the photographers who really care about it, because they wear something grey on their wrists.

Have you wondered why Youtube videos automatically start playing a new one, once the one you have been watching ends?

It is because many online services compete for our attention. For example, they are interested in which news timeline would grab your attention the most. If you ask yourself, in the end of the day, what sort of news timeline you would consider time well spent, it will probably be a very different timeline than the one served to you.

Here Tristan Harris argues that what teenagers do on social media is different than what they did on the phone in the 70s. The reason is that in the 70s there was no arms race for using the phone more, even though there was still an economic incentive to use the phone.

If you want a more in depth conversation on the same topic, listen to the 2 hour episode from Dan Harris’s podcast.

Similar to using step trackers to help people to monitor their physical health, he calls for something like a timeline tracker or phone usage tracker to help people monitor their smartphone usage.

Just in time for xmas, here is a video that went quite viral. An engineer who had his packages stolen made a special package for the thief, that, among other things, shoots glitter and video that eventually makes it to youtube. The action starts at 5:45.