Why Big Data Matters

Read "The Perfect Milk Machine"

Books on Web Design

Don't Make Me Think: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug

Sketching User Experiences: Getting the Design Right and the Right by Bill Buxton

About Face 3: The Essentials of Interaction Design by Alan Cooper

The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity by Alan Cooper

Brave NUI World: Designing Natural User Interfaces for Touch and Gesture by Daniel Wigdor

Designing Mobile Interfaces by Steven Hoober

Mobile Design Pattern Gallery by Theresa Neil

Go Programming Language

Go is an open source project developed by a team at Google.  See the example of Fibonacci Closure below:

package main
// fib returns a function that returns
// successive Fibonacci numbers.
func fib() func() int {
 a, b := 0, 1
 return func() int {
  a, b = b, a+b
  return a
 }
}


func main() {
 f := fib()
 // Function calls are evaluated left-to-right.
 println(f(), f(), f(), f(), f())
}

Go is garbage collected and supports a concurrency model derived from "Communicating Sequential Processes," which is a message-passing model.

Go is available @ http://golang.org/#

There are 2 books on it:

David Chisnall's "The Go Programming Language Phrasebook"

and

Mark Summerfield's "Programming in Go: Creating Applications for the 21st Century"

Version 1.0 of the language was released in late March 2012 and binary distributions are available for Linux, FreeBSD, OS X and Windows. The language is open source and BSD-licensed.

Software To Design Genes & Networks

"...many synthetic biologists ... are developing software of their own. Some programs make drawing up the plans for a new plasmid so effortless that high school students and untrained bio-hobbyists can do it. Others include simulators so researchers can predict how a new genetic circuit will work..."

Racket Programming Language

Racket (formerly called PLT Scheme) is a multi-paradigm programming language in the Lisp/Scheme family, that also serves as a platform for language creation, design, and implementation.

Learn more about it @ http://racket-lang.org and @ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racket_(programming_language)

There is an intriguing introduction @ http://docs.racket-lang.org/quick/

Productivity Applications:

Scott Hanselman’s annual list of productivity applications:

http://www.hanselman.com/blog/ScottHanselmans2011UltimateDeveloperAndPowerUsersToolListForWindows.aspx

Clothing Art

Smoke Art

Mehmet Ozgur is an engineer with BS, MS and PhD degrees, all in electrical engineering. He is also an artist, as you can see below.  There are more @ http://mehmet-ozgur.com/index.php?cPath=13

TonidaPlug2

TonidoPlug is a tiny, low power, low cost home and small-business server that allows you to access your applications, files, photos, music and media from anywhere via a web browser or mobile applications. You can effortlessly access and share your TonidoPlug's files through native iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry or Windows 7 mobile applications.

http://www.tonidoplug.com/tonido_plug.html

Really neat!

Chevy Volt Tear Down

http://www.driveforinnovation.com/powertrain-teardown

 “This vehicle seems more complex than a Space Shuttle! After such vehicles are several years old and have been exposed to vibration, pressure changes due to altitude, dust, salt, water, temperature extremes, etc….. it seems that it'd take a pretty complex repair shop to diagnose a problem. For a vehicle that has 100 microprocessors, what happens if 5% of them fail? How does that affect the car's ability to run correctly? Once out of warranty, will anyone want to own one especially if a problem develops?”

More on Stuxnet

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?_r=2&hp

http://www.propublica.org/article/behind-the-u.s.-cyberattacks-on-iran

Flame Malware

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/flame/

HomeOS from Microsoft

To simplify the management of technology and to simplify the development of applications in the home, Microsoft is developing an "operating system" for the home. 

Learn more about it @ http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/homeos/

Google Knowledge Map

http://www.google.com/insidesearch/features/search/knowledge.html

Free jQuery Book

https://skydrive.live.com/?cid=58aac97211c98e70&id=58AAC97211C98E70%21185

Generative Jigsaw Puzzles

http://n-e-r-v-o-u-s.com/projects/puzzles/

They are using Diffusion-Limited Aggregation model in condensed matter physics as well as reaction-diffusion type of partial differential equation for pattern formation in their work.

Fascinating, or so I think.

5 Ways to Bring AI to Your Application

From Software Development Times:

http://www.sdtimes.com/TOP_FIVE_WAYS_TO_BRING_MACHINE_LEARNING_INTO_YOUR_PROJECT/By_Alex_Handy/About_AI_and_BIGML_and_MACHINELEARNING_and_MAHOUT_and_OPERA_and_PYBRAIN_and_STANFORD/36603

Larry O'Brien on Functional Programming

We read:

"Functional programmers have applied modern advances in type theory to yesterday's Smug LISP Weenie to generate today's Insufferable Haskell Prick. Just as LISP advocates carefully avoid the reality of decades of Scheme- and LISP-exposed CS students who happily left those languages behind, functional advocates carefully avoid acknowledging the programmers who have filed in to the functional programming room, listened to the conversation for a bit, read the literature, and quietly left."

Computers Left On Overnight

This is what happens on your computer if you leave it on overnight:

http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs13/f/2007/077/2/e/Animator_vs__Animation_by_alanbecker.swf

Significant Cyber-Security Incidents Since 2006

From the Center for Strategic and International Studies:

http://csis.org/files/publication/120504_Significant_Cyber_Incidents_Since_2006.pdf