1. This research into homelessness in SimCity is so, so interesting.

"SimCity players have discussed a variety of creative strategies for their virtual homelessness problem. They’ve suggested waiting for natural disasters like tornadoes to blow the vagrants away, bulldozing parks where they congregate, or creating such a woefully insufficient city infrastructure that the homeless would leave on their own. You can read all of these proposed final solutions in Matteo Bittanti's How to Get Rid of Homelessness, 'a 600-page epic split in two volumes documenting the so-called 'homeless scandal' that affected 2013's SimCity."

2. Ian Bogost makes an argument about what algorithms are.

"If algorithms aren’t gods, what are they instead? Like metaphors, algorithms are simplifications, or distortions. They are caricatures. They take a complex system from the world and abstract it into processes that capture some of that system’s logic and discard others. And they couple to other processes, machines, and materials that carry out the extra-computational part of their work. Unfortunately, most computing systems don’t want to admit that they are burlesques. They want to be innovators, disruptors, world-changers, and such zeal requires sectarian blindness. The exception is games, which willingly admit that they are caricatures—and which suffer the consequences of this admission in the court of public opinion. Games know that they are faking it, which makes them less susceptible to theologization. SimCity isn’t an urban planning tool, it’s a cartoon of urban planning. Imagine the folly of thinking otherwise! Yet, that’s precisely the belief we allow ourselves to hold of Google and Facebook and the like."

3. After years, an orbiter spots the resting spot of a failed mission to Mars.

"So near and yet so far. New images show that the UK’s Beagle 2 successfully landed on the surface of Mars in 2003 but failed to fully deploy its solar panels. Without these, it could not communicate with Earth and scientists lost contact. The discovery images come from the HiRISE camera on Nasa’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. They show a bright shape that looks like the lander with some of its solar panels deployed. The pictures are not yet sharp enough to tell exactly how many of Beagle 2’s four panels unfolded. More images are currently being planned to help work out what happened. The final panel would have uncovered the radio antenna, allowing the spacecraft to make contact."

4. This guy recreated Antarctica in Minecraft.

"Martin O'Leary, a glaciologist from Swansea University, has recreated the frozen continent of Antarctica in Minecraft. The map, which is at 1:1000 scale and contains more than three billion blocks, was inspired by recent recreations of Denmark , the UK and 19th-century Manhattan in the wildly popular sandbox game. 'I wanted to transpose [that idea] to somewhere a bit less accessible -- somewhere that's outside most people's experience,' said O'Leary."

5. Flipped icebergs are gorgeous.

"While on an expedition in Antarctica, photographer Alex Cornell had the rare opportunity to photograph a recently flipped iceberg. Defining to the old adage "just the tip of the iceberg," it turns out the underside can be illuminated with unbelievable bright blues and striation that reveal visually stunning secrets of these sleeping giants. Witnessing a flip is uncommon, and moreover the surreal texture and colors distort the scale making it a truly incredible encounter."

democrat(ic). Democrat is a noun, democratic an adj. The Democrat (for Democratic) party, used presumably to indicate that the party has no exclusive claim to democracy, is a recent variation.

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How to Get Rid of Homelessness