Wednesday, October 7, 2026
ArchiveAs AI Closed In on ‘Unique Games’ Proof, Researchers Raced to Beat the Machines
Three computer scientists heard a rumor that an AI was closing in on the Unique Games Conjecture — and sprinted to publish first. The race is what tells you where mathematics is heading.
Margaret Hamilton, computing pioneer who led software development for the Apollo program, dies at 90
She insisted code was engineering back when the word embarrassed people, then wrote the program that kept Apollo 11 from aborting its own landing. Dead at 90; the discipline she named outlived her.
I witnessed the Pinochet regime’s fall. It offers hope – and a warning – for the US | Ariel Dorfman
Dorfman watched Chileans vote Pinochet out in 1988 and remembers what came next: the man left, the machinery stayed. He thinks Americans are preparing for the wrong kind of victory.
The Hidden Engineering of Pressure Regulators
He sawed a gas pressure regulator in half to show what's inside: a Victorian mechanical computer, silently doing feedback control in the wall behind you. Nearly a million people have now watched it.
How Snakes and Ladders Lost its Soul
The board was a moral map first — squares for lust and greed, ladders for virtue, the whole thing a lesson in karma. Then the British took the theology out and sold it to children.