weekends are for leisure

2014 Gates Annual Letter: Myths About Foreign Aid - Gates Foundation

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Learn how foreign aid reduces overpopulation, dependency on aid for impoverished countries, and makes a sustainable future for our planet.

This letter is a great read. It invigorates my optimism. “In just 25 years, new cases of polio were reduced from 350,000 annually, to less than 400 in 2013.” Simply, wow.

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What Rare Earths Are Locked in Your Cell Phone? — NOVA Next | PBS

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Wow:

  • The moon is rich in rare-earth elements. Sounds kinda funny when you think about it. The moon is rich in unrare-moon elements.
  • There is a US rare-earth element mine, and it has recently opened back up. If only mining had fewer long term environmental risks.
  • And of course, recycle your cell phones.
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From Antarctica to America, US turns out the lights on science research | Fox News

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Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum

We recently visited the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum, and today I watched the live stream of SpaceX’s launch. Lots of awe lately.

Soon I’ll live nearer to Cape Canaveral and plan to watch future launches in-person. Woo!

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With 28M Users, Art Community deviantART Gets Strategic Funding From Autodesk | TechCrunch

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Online art community deviantART is announcing that it has received a strategic investment from software company Autodesk. The financial terms of the deal aren’t being disclosed, but deviantART co-founder and CEO Angelo Sotira told me this makes Autodesk his company’s largest investor…

Two months ago I started working for deviantART as a software developer. I couldn’t have started at a better time!

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Edward Snowden's not the story. The fate of the internet is

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The Humble Weekly Sale, featuring Jim Guthrie & friends (pay what you want and help charity)

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Pay what you want for 11 breathtaking albums, a game, & a movie, all while supporting vital charities!

Oh cool! Purchased.

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Lawrence Lessig on Government Spying

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Lawrence Lessig and Bill Moyers explore how we can protect our privacy when Big Government and Big Business morph into Big Brother.

Larry and Bill discuss the real issue at hand, which is how to arrive at a surveillance operation that protects civil liberties. The discussion should not be centered around Snowden, whether he’s a traitor, where he’s holed up, or what kind of person he is. That should be the least of our concerns, and is a total distraction.

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Using eval for blazing JavaScript performance

Great video. Blows my mind that string concatenation + eval is faster than object/hash creation + repeated modification.

Now I see why. I’ve run an experiment here.

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Grasshopper lands

A ten story tall rocket hovers in the air and then returns safely to the launch pad. The future is now, and I’m amazed.

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