Hello everyone. Lots of reading has happened in the last week, and I hope that you like this week’s issue. Also, about the format - I think I’ll stick with the old format this week; whenever I have a bunch of pieces that deserve to be together, they will be. PS. It has turned out that there are a lot of technology-related pieces this week. It wasn’t intentional.
- The Surgeon Giving his Patients VR Instead of Sedatives - When sedatives are not available, Jose Luis Mosso Vazquez resorts to virtual reality to ease the pain and stress of operations. Quite a radical step, but it seems to work well. Of course, this technology is not displacing any existing practice in the medical practice, but it is another of the cool ways new technology is being used.
- The Hi-Tech War on Science Fraud - As somebody who is about to embark on an academic science career, this is something that was very enlightening. Falsification of data is a major impediment to science’s progress, and it’s about time that we use digital tools to combat this. Enter a software/tool called Statcheck, which has read nearly every paper published in the last twenty years and attempted to verify the data present. “Nothing like this had ever been seen before: a massive, open, retroactive evaluation of scientific literature, conducted entirely by computer.”
- One Fundred Dollars - This is an obit of a certain J.S.G.Boggs, an artist who drew his own US dollar notes. Fun read.
Here’s the text on the note, magnified.
- The Painstaking, Secretive Process of Designing New Money - A case study of Australia’s recent overhaul of its $5 notes. Each banknote is literally an exhibition of the most advanced printing techniques that money can buy. The tougher it is to recreate the money, the lesser it will be counterfeited. There’s a plethora of techniques used, including bumps and ridges, holograms, 3D holograms and a host of others.
- Self-Control Is Just Empathy With Your Future Self - This is a nice wake-up call. Self-control is just you being nice to you in the future. Neuroscience also proves it - the same part of the brain that allows us to step into the shoes of others also helps us restrain ourselves.
- The Stunning Early Infographics and Maps of the 1800s - Just beautiful. Here’s a sample.
- The Troll Taunter - A young Wikipedia editor withstood a decade of online abuse. Now she’s fighting back — on Wikipedia itself. Emily Temple-Wood faced a lot of flak for being a young female Wikipedia editor, and now what she does is this: For every harassing email, death threat, or request for nude photos that she received, she resolved to create a Wikipedia biography on a notable woman scientist who was previously unknown to the free online encyclopaedia. Neat? You bet.
- How a 2011 Hack You’ve Never Heard of Changed the Internet’s Infrastructure - This is interesting. Many thousands of users were unable to log onto Google services, and it was all because of the abuse of a very unsophisticated certificate exchange system on the internet. We hardly know about this because it all happens behind-the-scenes, but when things go wrong the end users of the internet are in the firing line. The issue is more serious than being unable to log onto your accounts, with hackers and malicious agents injecting your computer with malware.
- Russians Engineer a Brilliant Slot Machine Cheat—And Casinos Have No Fix - I seem to have a penchant for sharing pieces about casinos, gambling and tech. This is fascinating.
- The $99 Billion Idea - The story of how Uber and Airbnb are the behemoths they are today. Together they are valued at nearly a hundred billion dollars, and they’ve done this without owning much of what they dispense. Airbnb is the largest hotel company and owns no hotels. Similarly with Uber. Great long read from Bloomberg that describes the history and relevance of these firms now.
- Three minutes with Hans Rosling will change your mind about the world - He has influenced leaders from Melinda Gates to Fidel Castro. Now, he is on a mission to save people from their preconceived ideas. A truly inspirational person. Open the link and look at the beautiful data visualisations, also. They’re beautiful.
That’s it for this week. Have a great Sunday, and feedback is always welcome. Just reply to this email.