Links
AWS Lambda
You can trigger an AWS Lambda function to automatically create a thumbnail when an image is uploaded to Amazon S3, verify address updates in an Amazon DynamoDB table, or process click-stream data in an Amazon Kinesis stream, without having to manage any compute infrastructure.
Billing is metered in increments of 100 milliseconds, making it cost-effective and easy to scale automatically from a few requests per day to thousands per second.
Relationship Test - Dataclysm
My team and I wrote an app that will apply findings from a recent research paper to your Facebook graph. The app won’t post to your wall but it will show you both the shape of your friend network and which of your friends are most mathematically important to your life.
Instead of looking at a metric like the number of friends you have in common, this algorithm takes it a step further. It looks at how well connected your mutual friends are with each other, and suggests that having more diverse mutual friends indicates a stronger, more important relationship.
If everyone at work is connected via Facebook, then you will have many friends in common with your coworkers, but this doesn’t mean that these are your most important relationships. Since all of your common friends are within the same social circle, you know that these relationships are limited in scope.
But if you and a friend’s mutual connections include coworkers, college roommates, and cycling buddies, then you know that your relationship with this person spans many social circles, and they are more likely to be important to you. This also is effective at picking out romantic relationships.
There seemed to be issues with outliers when I tried it because there were a number of people with little or no mutual friends with very high scores, but in general the results were surprisingly accurate.
It’s also fun to look at the graph of your network and see the clusters of different social circles.
How to Be Polite
Most people don’t notice I’m polite, which is sort of the point. I don’t look polite. I am big and droopy and need a haircut. No soul would associate me with watercress sandwiches. Still, every year or so someone takes me aside and says, you actually are weirdly polite, aren’t you? And I always thrill. They noticed.
Politeness buys you time. It leaves doors open. I’ve met so many people whom, if I had trusted my first impressions, I would never have wanted to meet again. And yet — many of them are now great friends.
An excellent piece by Paul Ford on the often underestimated value of politeness.
Euclid The Game
Euclid The Game is a puzzle game that challenges you to use simple methods like drawing circles, translating lines, and bisecting angles to solve geometric puzzles. Very addicting, and it made me remember just how powerful tools like a compass can be.Nobody. Understands. Punctuation.
Peter Welch has published an excellent piece on punctuation and writing style in the English language.
Yes, you can use punctuation in incorrect ways, but that does not mean there is only one way to use it. A friend recently told me publishers don’t care whether you use an oxford comma or not, as long as you pick one and stick with it. This is stupid. If punctuation obscures or distorts the meaning of a sentence in an unintended way, it is wrong, but apart from that, punctuation is about rhythm. An Oxford comma is not a flip switch in an author’s voice, it’s a decision made in the moment to maintain the flow of the idea. Momentum, syncopation, rhythm and pattern make a sentence flow, because writers are trying to transfer the voices in their heads into yours.
I own a copy of The Elements of Style which is one of the most prescriptive books around regarding what “good writing” is. Though Welch’s essay has a nearly opposite message, urging writers to do what they must at the expense of constrictive rules, I love both for describing excellent writing and leading by example.
I do believe that there can be a single guiding principle for good writing. At their core, the two contrasting works in fact have the same core message: be deliberate.
The Internet With A Human Face
An excellent talk by Maciej Cegłowski on the bleak state of mass surveillance the internet.iWatch Concept
If you could see the future, what would you watch?
Neat concept design by @frandiCosta
If The Moon Were Only 1 Pixel
A tediously accurate scale model of the solar system
I can’t even begin to grasp how big things in space are, but this does a pretty good job explaining.
Tokyo's Cityscape Recreated With Stickers
By artist Yukino Ohmura.
My Last Days: Meet Zach Sobiech
Story by Upworthy.
Zach Sobiech was diagnosed with terminal cancer at age 14. He used the small amount of time he had left to produce music, which has reached and touched millions.
I want to be remembered as the kid who went down fighting and didn’t really lose.
Zach passed away on May 20, 2013. Buying his album on iTunes will support a cancer research fund set up on his behalf, or you can donate directly.
