Image: The boom is back! This photo is available to licence on EyeEm.
I spent the first week of 2019 back in Dublin's fair city. It was great to be back but the trip was not without its ups and downs. It was great to see that Ireland has bounced back from the recession and now the economy is buzzing. On the downside, Lemon Crepe on Dawson St in Dublin is no more :-( However I did discover Camile Thai in Limerick and Dublin :-) I overdosed on the tofu spice bag though!
Last week I had the pleasure of photographing another amazing Kirkos event, Speaking of Music. The night of contemporary music and art involved a paint filled piano, newspaper stories played through instruments, whistling, space, a fish tank and a microphone massaged with Nivea, to mention but a few of the fantastic pieces performed in Riam Dublin on the night. You can check out the photos I took of the event here.
Image: Github Blog
Github announced unlimited free private repositories this week!
Image: Techcrunch, IBM
At CES this week IBM launched the first ever commercial quantum computer, the IBM Q System One. The 20 qubit complete system is housed in an air-tight 9 foot glass cube. IBM has also launched an open-source quantum computing framework called Qiskit, for use within IBM Q.
Image: YouTube, nullschool
nullschool have released a data visualisation of all the wind systems that covered the globe during 2018, and the video is available in 4K!
Image: Kottke.org
Jason Kottke posted an interesting piece on Kottke.org about Donald Appleyard's book Livable Cities. Research conducted by Appleyard in the book shows the impact of cars and traffic on neighbourhood connects through 3 streets of varying traffic levels.
Image: TodayFM
Environmental write John Gibbons was interviewed by Mario Rosenstock on TodayFM this week about climate change. The 11 minute interview is worth listening to and includes some hard hitting scenarios about how bad the effects of climate change could be, depending on whether we act now or not. The above illustration shows the devastating effect a 3m+ rise in sea levels would have on Ireland.
Image: IFLScience
The government of Shanghai commissioned a 24.9 Billion Pixel photograph of the city by BigPixel. The fidelity and scale of the image is incredible, from the top of a skyscraper you can zoom into leaves on a tree! I dare you not to spend time zooming in and exploring, and just when I thought I had had enough, I realised that the image is 360 degrees, you can turn around and see the rest of the city!
Image: New York Times, Hayden Sherman
The New York Times has an interesting piece on how they developed war game scenarios to train on-call engineers on their web platforms. The procedures have the dual result of preparing documentation and toolkits for recovery scenarios while also making engineers more confident about being on-call.
Image: ynharari.com
Yuval Noah Harari's third book 21 Lessons for the 21st Century is an interesting look at 21 topics where we humans can improve. The lessons are grouped into 5 categories; The Technology Challenge, The Political Challenge, Despair and Hope, Truth, and Resilience. The subject matter for the first part of the book is tough reading. Harari takes a cold and calculating look at the societal organisations and structures that humans have created, from religion all the way up to modern day terrorism, before looking at how the species can be resilient in the face of these challenges.
His writing within each topic flows easily, using the same witty but precise wordsmithing that we saw in Sapiens and Homo Deus, however alot of the discussion on the topics seem to end abruptly without much feeling of resolution or satisfaction. Perhaps that is intentional, given the gravity of some of the material, as well as the presentation of the final group of topics which cover areas such as education and meaning, where work can be done to allow humans to overcome the many challenges.
Where his previous book Sapiens gives us a brief history of humankind, and Homo Deus tracks where the species can progress towards, this book seems to fit inbetween both, a mapcheck moment where humankind need to take stock and maybe make some hard choices to ensure an easier life for the generations to come.
If you use this affiliate link to buy the book on Amazon, the commission will go towards running FoundThisWeek.com (thanks!).
Image: YouTube, MulliganBrothers
If you are in need of some extra motivation this weekend, then look no further than Mr.Universe himself, Arnold Schwarzenegger. This motivation speech by Arnie is fantastic. Say what you want about him, but the man has succeeded, and failed, in bodybuilding, hollywood, politics and philanthropy at the highest levels. His interview with Tim Ferriss is eye-opening as to how much of a high-achiever he is, and this video is brilliant in its simplicity. Cahhm-ahhhn, do the work!
Found This Week is a curated blog of interesting posts, articles, links and stories in the world of technology, science and life in general.
Each edition is curated by Daryl Feehely every Friday and highlights cool stuff found each week.
The first 104 editions were published on Medium before this site was created, check out the archive here.
I’m a web consultant, contract web developer, technical project manager & photographer originally from Cork, now based in Liverpool. I offer my clients strategy, planning & technical delivery services, remotely & in person. I also offer freelance CTO services to companies in need of technical bootstrapping or reinvention. If you think I can help you in your business, check out my details on http://darylfeehely.com
