Notes on the passing of John Conway, but also, a delightful set of comments sharing first-hand memories of Conway – particularly being taught by him – that bring him to life.

CDM on Buchla – lots of great links and videos, great explanation of why we all care so much.

The Guardian's Buchla obit.

A favourite to borrow from the library as a child. And: what a life. I did not know he played guitar.

"Rancho Electro is a series where a guest artist is invited to Ojai, California to collaborate on a new musical composition with Mikael Jorgensen. Utilizing traditional and electronic instruments, each group heads into the mountains above Ojai to film and record the performance of this new composition." I loved this first piece from Graph Rabbit. So nice to see interesting, melodic, electronic music performed live.

"Its weird really. You’re standing there in front of something, perhaps its an ancient artefact, buried for thousands of years – perhaps its a mummy, partially unwrapped. A real human being, you can see their face from all those years ago, see how they lived, what they ate. History, right there… But whatev’s. Look! There’s a telly over there!" Yep.

Brian Sutton-Smith has died; this is a solid – and impressive – obituary.

"Mavis Batey, who has died aged 92, was one of the leading female codebreakers at Bletchley Park, cracking the Enigma ciphers that led to the Royal Navy’s victory at Matapan, its first fleet action since Trafalgar." Today's Bletchley obituary; as expected, a completely excellent life by all accounts.

Bookmarked to return to at some point. Some of these I've heard, some I'd like to hear.

"The Po-2 biplanes flown by the Night Witches had an advantage over the faster, deadlier German Messerschmitts: their maximum speed was lower than the German planes’ stall speed, making them hard to shoot down." Flying by night, with no radar or radio, dropping bombs on German positions; remarkable women, all.

"I think recognising this – when there is a path from a crisis that involves risk but rewards you hugely – with something you wouldn’t have imagined, is at the very heart of design. It’s certainly an incredible feeling when it works, when the judo-flip flows just so, and you end up somewhere brilliant." Yeah. I really, really need to trust that more when I feel it.

"Though adept at mathematics and engineering science, his inventions were all human-centred and focused on the experience and enjoyment of the user. He abandoned his design of a steam motorboat engine, for example, because once he had developed it to rival diesel power it lost its suppleness and "was not a nice thing any more". His car suspensions and the cycle developments were entirely aimed at providing a superior experience for the user. He was very taken, through his association with Bridgestone, with the Japanese sense of the "spirit" of an artefact, reflecting its origins and the care with which it was made. He liked the idea that by seeing and using something one can detect this "spirit", which fitted his own conviction that manufacture and industry are morally rewarding. "Man should make things … Make a profit, of course, but don't take the money gain as the prime judgment."" Great paragraph from this obituary of Alex Moulton.

Wonderful article about Hackney – and, specifically, a natural history of the borough as it is right now. The history of social housing throughout the area is particularly interesting; also, I found the distinction between "gentrification" and "yuppification" useful. Ignore the title – it is a meaty piece, with about 2% of it being about hipsters.

"…if any one of the participants at the meeting starts to deviate away from the subject, repeat themselves or get a little carried away with their topic, the "Scrum master" presents them with the baseball cap to wear – the idea being to "cap" the conversation at source! This indicates that the person presented with the cap is now prohibited to speak until asked to contribute again, or until the cap is passed to someone else during the course of the meeting." Iiinteresting.

"Molesworth sa on the contry the most beatiful form in art is a Ronald Searle GURL from St Trinian’s in a tunick with black suspenders and armed with a hockey stick to beat the daylites out of another gurl or maybe just a teacher chortle chortle." Economist obituaries are always worthwhile, but this Ronald Searle one is marvellous

"All operating systems know when they were born. Their internal clocks start counting then, so they can calculate the date and time in the future. It is unclear whether it was Mr Ritchie or Mr Thompson who set the so-called start Unix time at January 1st, 1970. That moment came to be known as the epoch. Mr Ritchie helped bring it about. And with it, he ushered in a new era." Which is as poetic a way as any of expressing how deeply rooted K&R are in the modern world.

"Martin Woodhouse, who has died aged 78, was a psychologist and medic, but worked variously as a novelist, scriptwriter, engineer, programmer, government planner, artificial intelligence researcher and perfumer." Early AI and writing for the Avengers. Blimey. When I grow up, I would like life to be like this.