Interesting Things #35 — Virtual Femto

Hi,

This is Beng Tan and welcome to Interesting Things, a curation of interesting stories and links from tech, work, biz, science and society.

Happy reading!

#tech

Virtual Femto Photography — In most of Computer Graphics, light speed is assumed to be infinite. What happens when we remove this assumption? (hn)

How to criticize code — Similar to learning how to edit other’s essays, you must learn how to critique team member’s programming. (hn)

A reverse chronology of some Python features — What a lot of people don’t realize is that various features are interconnected in ways that may not be obvious. (hn)

TypeScript: The humble function overload — Function overloads are still very useful and, for a lot of scenarios, the way to go. (hn)

Scientists solve the grass leaf conundrum — The mystery of grass leaf formation has now been unraveled using the latest computational modeling and developmental genetic techniques. (hn)

The hand-cranked calculator invented by a Nazi concentration camp prisoner — For two decades, the Curta was the best portable calculator in the world. (hn)

Malicious NPM packages are part of a malware “barrage” hitting repositories — People trust repositories. This makes them the perfect vectors for malware. (hn)

Signing Git Commits with SSH Keys (Nov 2021) — The release notes for git 2.34.0 mention support for signing commits and tags with something other than a PGP key. (hn)

#work

The business phrasebook (Nov 2021) — A short guide to what your colleagues really mean. (hn)

Why I’m Not a Manager (Oct 2021) — On transitioning back to an Individual Contributor. (hn)

#business

The Gig Economy’s Days in Europe Are Numbered — Court cases and a new draft law are chipping away at the controversial industry. What comes next may look very different. (hn)

Every business process secretly wants to fail (Nov 2021) — It just doesn’t know it yet. (hn)

Scaling to $100 Million (Sept 2021) — Benchmarks on how cloud companies grow and scale to $100 million in ARR (and beyond). (hn)

Don’t Overdose on VC: Lessons from 166 startup IPOs — Capital has historically been vastly overrated as a predictor of startup success. (hn)

#science

Study Find First in Human Evidence of How Memories Form — Researchers have identified the characteristics that play a key role in how memories are recalled in the brain. (hn)

11 Million New Oysters in New York Harbor (but None for You to Eat) — They are helping to filter the water and creating habitats for other marine life. (hn)

China’s New Hypersonic Aircraft Is Based on a Rejected NASA Design — And it can go faster than five times the speed of sound. (hn)

A Simple Israeli Invention Could Help 2.5 Billion People – and NASA — There are 2.5 billion people in the world who need glasses but have no access to them. (hn)

Physicists discover special transverse sound wave — The findings shattered scientists' previous beliefs about sound waves. (hn)

#society

Anatomy of a GOAT: What makes Magnus Carlsen the world’s best chess player — Unpredictability and flexibility are his two most striking qualities. (hn)

How to Make Difficult Conversations More Effective — Simple but powerful strategies for improving communication in relationships. (hn)

Edison was right: Waking up right after drifting off to sleep can boost creativity — The state between wakefulness and sleep is a sweet spot for problem-solving. (hn)

Football fans spending millions on club crypto-tokens — Supporters have spent at least £260m on controversial fan tokens from major clubs. (hn)

Unloved by Generations of Soldiers, the M.R.E. Finds a Fan Base (Jun 2021) — Rations have gotten (somewhat) better and become objects of fascination for millions of civilians. (hn)

Against 3X Speed (Oct 2021) — It’s okay to not know everything. The world rewards people who develop expertise through direct experience and deliberate reflection. (hn)

#end

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Enjoy your reading and have a good day, Beng