Fluffy

Image: Fluffy, this image is available to licence on EyeEm.

#166

Friday, July 5, 2019

In This Edition:
Kate Tempest, dogs, molecular storage, fake video, Google page speed, generating PDFs, Anima & Vice!

Last weekend I binged on Glastonbury coverage on the BBC and on the BBC iPlayer. I was floored by Kate Tempest's set, which you can watch here on the iPlayer. Her spoken word poetry rap, with fantastic musical accompaniment by Hinako Omori (I think) on keys, delivers a searing commentary of everything that is wrong with society. After she kicks the shit out of your emotions, she picks you up off the floor with supporting pontification about the core emotional recharging capactiy of love. Amazing.

Best Dogs

Image: Information Is Beautiful

Check out the great and informative plot dataviz from Information Is Beautiful. The graphic shows the best breeds of dog and also differentiates between clever breeds and dumb breeds, like the poor Irish Wolfhound.

Molecular Storage

Image: Eamonn Kennedy, Christopher E. Arcadia, Joseph Geiser, Peter M. Weber, Christopher Rose, Brenda M. Rubenstein, Jacob K. Rosenstein

Researchers at Brown University have demonstrated a system to store information in metabolomes, arrays of liquid mixtures containing sugars, amino acids and other molecules. The team successfully encoded a 2KB file image file.

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Spotting Fake Video

Image: The Washington Post

The Washington Post has published a great instructional site about the different ways video can be faked, with recent examples including adding repeated frames to Jim Acosta's interaction with The White House intern grabbing the mic, and how to spot them.

Google Page Speed

Image: Calibre

Calibre have published an informative article about the changes to the Google search algorithm recently, in particular how page speed and mobile first have become the primary factors looked at by Google's algorithm. The article breaks down the details fo page speed and identified time to interactive as the most important factor in achieving a good page speed score.

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Review: Anima

Image: Netflix

This week Netflix released Thom Yorke's Anima, a musical short film that is very 1984 and very good.

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Review: Vice

This week I watched Vice, the true story dramatisation about Dick Cheney's rise to power from aid to Donald Rumsfeld during Nixon's White House to Vice President to George W. Bush. The film is directed by Adam McKay who directed The Big Short and has a similiar style of engaging narrative mixed with sometimes unorthodox delivery of information. My favourite of these is the restaurant scene where the main characters choose from the menu on offer which includes enemy combatant, enhanced interrogation, Guantanamo bay and extraordinary rendition. The film makes for an entertaining and somewhat harrowing depiction of what went on pre and post 9/11 within the Bush administration. In particular, decisions made by Cheney and his team directly influenced the deregulation of the energy industry and de-prioritisation of climate protection, the invasion of Iraq in search of fabricated WMDs and the creation of ISIS. Christian Bale is excellent in his multi-decade portrayal of Cheney and co-wrote the final scene together with director McKay. Notable mentions to Steve Carell as Rumsfeld and the Macbeth/Shakespeare scene between Amy Adams and Bale.

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About Found This Week

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.

Daryl Feehely

I’m a web consultant, contract web developer, technical project manager & photographer originally from Cork, now based in London. 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

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