Links
Remove.bg - Remove the Background of Any Photo
Remove.bg is a great service that makes it easy for anyone to remove the background of a photo. You can use it with small images for free, and pricing for HD photos seems very fair: you can pay $2 per image, or get a subscription starting at $9 per month.
The World's Most Beautiful Data Center
The Torre Girona Chapel was deconsecrated in the 70s, and now houses the MareNostrum supercomputer.
“We were in need of hundreds of square meters without columns and the capacity to support 44.5 tons of weight,” Maspoch told me in an email. “At the time there was not much available space at the university and the only room that satisfied our requirements was the Torre Girona chapel. We did not doubt it for a moment and we installed a supercomputer in it.”
Automating Materials Science with Machine Learning
A robot arm dips a pipette into a dish and transfers a tiny amount of bright liquid into one of many receptacles sitting in front of another machine. When all the samples are ready, the second machine tests their optical properties, and the results are fed to a computer that controls the arm. Software analyzes the results of these experiments, formulates a few hypotheses, and then starts the process over again. Humans are barely required.
The setup, developed by a startup called Kebotix, hints at how machine learning and robotic automation may be poised to revolutionize materials science in coming years. The company believes it may find new compounds that could, among other things, absorb pollution, combat drug-resistant fungal infections, and serve as more efficient optoelectronic components.
This sounds like a perfect application for machine learning. It’s a great combination of smart design and brute force effort.
Picular - Google, but for Colors
Picular is a site that lets you search for words like “water” or “summer” and see a list of related colors. It seems to work by running a Google image search and extracting the primary color of that image.
This is the kind of project I love. It’s simple and easy to understand, but fun to play with.
Perils of Eroded Civic Knowledge Forewarned by Former Justice Souter
This is extremely important.A Striking Perspective on New York City Property Values | Metrocosm
Property values across the U.S., where the area of each state has been substituted for its total property value.The Night My Girlfriend Dissociated and Forgot Who I Was
Because of her dissociative identity disorder, I was a stranger in the eyes of the woman I loved.
Beautifully written, and a reminder that something like 50 First Dates is actually a terrifying situation.
Ricky Jay’s Magical Secrets
Ricky Jay is a legend, and is without a doubt one of my favorite magicians to watch. His shows leave you with a greater appreciation for the magician’s craft, rather than just the immediate illusion they present.Homer's Last Theorem
A look into the deep, dark, strangely complicated world of Simpsons mathematics.
I knew that Futurama has a lot of great mathematics involved, but I didn’t realize that it started in the Simpsons.
Pipino: Gentleman Thief — EPIC MAGAZINE — Medium
Magicians, Mafiosos, a Missing Painting, and the Heist of a Lifetime
