Items of Interest

Maxwell's Demon

#261
Jonathan O'Callaghan published an interesting article in Quanta Magazine about the history of Maxwell's Demon and how the concept has moved from a thought experiment in thermodynamics in 1867 into physical experiments from 2007 onwards.
Science

Podcast of the Week: Armchair Expert - Bill Gates Book Talk

#260
In a recent episode of The Armchair Expert podcast, Dax & Monica interview Bill Gates about his new book How To Avoid A Climate Disaster. The interview is a frank and informative discussion about the scale of what is needed to tackle the climate crisis, with a fair bit of high level detail from Bill Gates about the different areas that need to be progressed, whcih are described in detail in his book.
Environment
Podcast

How To Test UIs

#260
Varun Vachhar on Storybook.js published a useful framework for testing UIs which covers visual, composition, interaction, accessibility, and user flow testing. The framework gives an overview looks at how to test in each category and scores each using dimensions such as iteration speed, maintenance, and isolating failures.
Design
Web Dev

Music Bubble

#260
The Pudding published an interactive map that shows which songs reach number 1 in the last month around the world. The map allows the user to see how different songs are popular across different cities and regions within a country.
Data Vis
Music

Flying & COVID

#260
The New York Times published a very impressive data visualisation that explains how air is processed and circulated in the cabin of an aircraft. They simulated two million air particles to track how COVID would spread in a cabin if a positive passenger with a mask on sneezed. The takeaways are that the aircraft cabin is safer than the airport, and to keep your mask on all the time.
Data Vis
Life

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