Published by António Lopes on July 12, 2018
Categories: Science, Society, Technology

The term clean meat does not refer to the act of actually cleaning a piece of meat but rather the technology of producing meat in a laboratory through cell replication. How does that work? Well, it’s just easier to watch this video that gives you a nice intro on the subject:

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Published by António Lopes on May 17, 2018

When people tell me they are worried about the incoming robot revolution, I know they’ve probably seen a clickbaity article based on some well-known quote by a famous person (like Elon Musk) in which they predict an artificial intelligence-based doom for humanity. Either that or they’ve seen Ex Machina or the latest episode of Westworld or some other catastrophic movie, tv-show or book on the aforementioned theme.

This is a normal reaction. It’s the same with sharks. Even though they are responsible for a very small fraction of human deaths in the entire world per year (less that vending machines), people still have that image of the relentless killing machine from Jaws. So, the same concept applies to artificial intelligence and the image of the impending robopocalypse.

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Published by António Lopes on May 16, 2018

I’ve always been a fan of podcasts ever since I bought my first iPod (which is now over a decade ago), because I’m able to listen to them anywhere while doing other things (like driving, cooking, etc.). And the world of podcasting content has only gotten better. In the past few years, podcasts have gain more notoriety and stopped being viewed as that niche media that only geeks use. They have become massive online repositories of interesting audio content, specially after major radio broadcasting networks have adhered to this format so intensively.

But one of the things that I like the most about podcasts is the freedom they give to content creators to go back to one of the most interesting features that radio broadcasting used to have: telling smaller less-known stories about individuals or places that you may not have heard before. And I’ve been focusing more on listening this kind of podcasts.

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Categories: Technology

 

Now that I’ve seen this trailer, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to like this movie (much in the same way I didn’t like Man of Steel). But while there’s some hope (because I haven’t actually seen the movie yet), here’s some thoughts on this trailer:

Click here to see my ramblings

Categories: Geek, Internet, Technology, Videos

I admire those people that take some of their personal time to come up with a redesign of popular services such as Facebook, Twitter or YouTube. And what amazes me the most is that some of these proposals look better than the original, which kind of makes you think: “Why aren’t these people getting hired by these companies?”

Here’s a Twitter redesign proposal (by Estie Carrillo):

Twitter redesign

Click here to see more awesome redesigns

Categories: Funny, Geek, Images, Technology

Programming is not only about knowing how to use specific words and abstract constructs to build a program. It is also about being able to design and develop complex structures of data and algorithmic workflows. And most of the time, these complex elements are interconnected, which means that when you decide to mess with one of them, you’re actually messing with several others.

The by-products (or side-effects) of some functions can affect the rest of your system.  Thus, programmers generally need to keep a mental picture of the entire system to avoid creating bugs. That is why it is so important for a programmer to maintain complete focus while building such elements.

Derek Johnson sums it up:

Interruptions are to developers what kryptonite is to Superman—they kill productivity and there’s a significant recovery period.

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Categories: Geek, Internet, Technology

I’m not a web designer, I’m a programmer. I do suffer from the typical programmer syndrome of trying to solve everything with a piece of code. But I also understand the importance of UI design and experience. I always take the opinions of the design people very seriously since I’ve seen the wondrous effect of taking their advises translated into web site visits and engagement.

This example from Reddit is just a sample of what that means.

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Categories: Apple, DIY, Geek, Mac, Technology, Videos

Tl;dr

ffmpeg -i input_file.mov -vf scale=640:-1 -t 10 -r 10 output_file.gif

Click here to learn the details

I’m quite fascinated with Sugru, the magical mouldable glue that turns into rubber and that fixes (almost) everything. I bought a black and white 8-pack and used it to fix a bunch of stuff around the house.

Click here to see some Sugru-fu.

Published by António Lopes on June 22, 2014