Found This Week #11
In this week’s post: Gene drives, funny code comments, workplace automation, traffic in Cork, Hyperloop One, Edward Snowden and a mini-NES!
Each Friday I share some of the best things I encounter, from the internet mostly but also from real life! Hopefully what I find interesting will also be interesting to you :-)
Photo Of The Week
Another flight to Dublin this week, another aerial shot :-p This is Swansea bay between the clouds.
CRISPR Gene Drive
This is a fascinating TED Talk by Jennifer Kahn describing gene drives and CRISPR, the technology which allows us to not only rewrite/modify DNA, but also save and propagate the change through descendants. If you let that sink in for a minute, theoretically, we can now fix a genetic disease and release the fix as a vaccine to make its way through the population to eventually eradicate the disease. Obviously that is a completely over-simplified scenario, but it’s slowly becoming science fact rather than science fiction. (HT to my friend Brendan Cleary for sharing this video).
BURN_BABY_BURN — MASTER_IGNITION_ROUTINE
On July 7, a former NASA intern published the assembly code for the Apollo 11 Guidance Computer on Github. This quartz article describes the funny comments the NASA programmers added to the code, which have now been made public thanks to the publication on Github. One of which is the addition of burn baby burn to the filename of the master ignition routine, which was later described in the comments:
Workplace Automation
Continuing from my thought of the week in Found This Week #9, this McKinsey article includes a nice breakdown of what sectors and types of work are open to being automated by our future AI work colleagues. According to the article, 60% of all occupations could see at least 30% of their constituent activities automated using technology available today. The article also includes this handy info-graph showing which job sectors are more/less likely to be disrupted by automation. The managers and educators among us are safe for the time being it seems :-p
What Is Investor Bias?
Seth Godin does a great job at describing investor bias in a recent blog post. As usual, telling a story is one of the best ways to describe a concept.
Contextual Content Marketing
This is a clever use of contextual content marketing by Emmet Murphy over at Carma Carpool. He addresses the issue of traffic congestion in Cork with some ethnographic research of the situation as he experiences it and includes some possible solutions from around the world on how people can be incentivised to car pool.
Edward Snowden Captured?
Yes, this headline is click-bait. I got fooled but also had a laugh when I read the article.
Trouble at Hyperloop One :-(
We may have to wait a lot longer for that Finland-Sweden hyperloop mentioned in Found This Week #10. According to this Wired piece, the co-founders of Hyperloop One are fighting and suing each other. The article describes some crazy scenes of office infighting, including one of the co-founders walking through the office holding a hangman’s noose as a weapon of intimidation. This is very disappointing and doesn’t bode well for the launch of and confidence around the hyperloop.
Our Data Is Secure Again!
The EU has approved a new data protection scheme with the U.S. to replace Safe Harbour after it was overturned by the European Court of Justice following referral of Max Schrems case from the Irish High Court. The new framework sounds like something out of a Michael Bay film, it’s called Privacy Shield! Apparently it imposes stronger obligations on U.S. companies to protect European’s personal data.
Cool Thing Of The Week: Mini-NES!
My 10 year old self just did a jump for joy, and it sounded like this. Nintendo of America are releasing a mini-NES loaded with 30 classic games. This Interesting Engineering article lists the 30 games to be included. Cannot wait! :-)
See you next week :-)
About Me
I’m a web consultant, contract web developer and technical project manager originally from Cork and now based in Swansea, South Wales. A lot of my work is done with clients in Ireland & the UK, where I offer strategy, planning and technical delivery services. 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.
