Henry Markram, Ph.D., Director of the Blue Brain Project, speaks at the International Supercomputing Conference 2011. The videos highlight the project’s goal to create a virtual brain by reverse-engineering the mammalian brain down to the cellular level.

Kyle Orland, Ars Technica, on a proposed violet game tax in Oklahoma:

Before a 5-6 vote against moving forward with the bill, members of the subcommittee expressed skepticism at the idea of singling out video games in particular for causing bullying and obesity. “Why just video games? Why not French fries or rap music or movies?” Representative Pat Owenby (R) asked, according to minutes recorded by the Oklahoma Watchdog. “We could have a task force on a multitude of reasons children are obese,” Oklahoma City rep Mike Reynolds (R) added.

Hey, look at that! Oklahoma legislators got one right. That this bill was written in the first place is a farce.

Here’s an alternative idea: tax parents for obesity or bullying problems and stop looking for scapegoats to absolve us of the problems we create.

Alice G. Walton, reporting for The Atlantic, on new research concerning organizational leadership and its impact on employee morale:

The psychological climate in which you work has a lot to do with your health and happiness. Recent research has found, perhaps not surprisingly, that bad bosses can affect how your whole family relates to one another. They can also affect your physical health, raising your risk for heart disease.

An interesting look at how corporations use statistics to learn your secrets.

Andrew Pole had just started working as a statistician for Target in 2002, when two colleagues from the marketing department stopped by his desk to ask an odd question: “If we wanted to figure out if a customer is pregnant, even if she didn’t want us to know, can you do that? ”

I guess Big Brother is always watching, even if it is in the friendly confines of Target.

A fascinating look at author Nathan Englander’s experiences growing up in a strict Orthodox Jewish family.

In What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Englander writes about his own faith — and what it means to be Jewish — in stories that explore religious tension, Israeli-American relations and the Holocaust.

Jim Dalrymple on the idea that Apple is trying to create a single OS for multiple devices.

This just isn’t what’s happening. Microsoft is trying to shoehorn one operating system into the desktop and mobile spaces, but that will ultimately fail. They are different platforms and should be treated differently.

This idea likely started because Apple has slowly begun bringing features from the iPhone and iPad back to the Mac. Recently, they even dropped Mac from Mac OS X.

Dalrymple nails it though. Apple will continue to make platform-specific operating systems. Their motivation is to incorporate familiar features of each device. The underlying topic of those features is iCloud. In short, Apple is merely trying to enhance the iCloud experience across their entire product line.

As to dropping Mac from Mac OS X. That simply reduces the redundancy. “Hey look at my Mac running Mac OS X” sounds goofier than “Hey look at my Mac running OS X.” It is the same reason they changed iPhone OS to iOS.

An interesting look at how much of the U.S. is still without access to mobile broadband internet. In large cities, we take access to fast internet on our small phones for granted. I guess we aren’t as connected as we thought.

Large portions of the western half of the U.S. do not have access to 3G or faster mobile broadband service, according to a new map released by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission.

If you are like me and are unsure what HTML5 features are supported by each browser, check out this awesome service. They allow you to easily “look up HTML5, CSS3, etc features, know if they are ready for use, and if so find out how you should use them.” I highly recommend it.

If you are interested in HTML5 development and aren’t sure where to start, grab the HTML5 Boilerplate. It is billed as a rock-solid default template for HTML5. I highly recommend trying it out.

Filed under “don’t be evil.” Google was basically tracking iPhone users, even when they opted for no cookies in Mobile Safari.

Google and other advertising companies have been following iPhone and Apple users as they browse the Web, even though Apple’s Safari Web browser is set to block such tracking by default.

When does Google stop pretending to be a group a malevolent nerds? That ship sailed when search became stagnant. That is why they are now into phones and other ventures. I just wish they would shoot straight and say “We are in a corporate battle, we want to make an ass-ton of money, and we are smart enough to beat the other guys.”