Steven Vogel has written another

Steven Vogel has written another book, bless his heart: Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle. He has written several books that focus on the engineering aspects of biological systems, that is, thinking of organisms in terms of their physical design. This is going to be one of the great themes of the 21st century, and he is a real pioneer in the field. Look for lots more books on this theme. In the meantime, considering buying Cat’s Paws and Catapults.

Complex systems

Article in The Atlantic by Jonathan Rauch: Seeing Around Corners. It’s about simulations, complex systems, and applications of systems-based thinking to historical analysis of things like the fate of the Anasazi in the southwest.

Speaking of simulations that help you understand the world, I assume you know that Stephen Wolfram’s book on cellular automata that is going to explain everything is finally coming out in May? Read his Q&A section that has helpful answers to questions like “I want to study your kind of science. Where can I go to do that?” Here he his describing the basic idea behind his book:

What started my work on A New Kind of Science are the discoveries I made about what simple computer programs can do. One might have thought that if a program was simple it should only do simple things. But amazingly enough, that isn’t even close to correct. And in fact what I’ve discovered is that some of the very simplest imaginable computer programs can do things as complex as anything in our whole universe.

I’m pleased with this: a

I’m pleased with this: a stripped-down version of Photoshop called Photoshop Elements is available. I would have paid for it, but it came free with my new D-40 Olympus camera, so I’m doubly pleased. If it’s missing many features relative to the much more expensive Photoshop, I haven’t spotted them yet. I’m sure it IS missing high-end features, but as a non-power user, I’m happy to have a more reasonably priced Photoshop. I’ve used Photoshop for years at work and have gotten very fond of it, but it looks like the Photoshop Elements feature set is all I really need.

Fonts in movies

I love this kind of attention to detail… Typecasting is a discussion of how well movies do getting time period appropriate fonts in their onscreen typeset materials. A sample: In the movie Chocolat (set in the 1950s), we see a sign that features a font that was introduced in (quel horreur) 1978! “Perhaps the mistake is understandable. ITC Benguiat was designed in a quasi-Art Nouveau style. It is likely that Art Nouveau typefaces would still be in use in provincial France of the mid-fifties. But not ITC Benguiat. It didn’t exist. [seen on xplane.com]