PARC Design and Digital Manufacturing Team’s List of Best Websites, Books, and More

PARC’s Design and Digital Manufacturing (DDM) team of leading scientists and researchers are shaping the future of manufacturing. But what are they currently exploring both inside and outside of their field? Where do they go for information and inspiration? Or just for sheer entertainment value?

We asked and members of the DDM team answered. From learning new programming to perusing Reddit to reading an existentialist novel, it’s all here.

We’d love for you to add your reactions (or share what you’re reading!) in the comments below. Next month, we’ll feature researchers from another PARC focus area to discover more favorites as well. And check out last month’s list from PARC’s Innovation Services group.

Walter Kim

Blogs, magazines, or websites
BLDG Blog – “Interesting things on architecture, landscape, urbanism, etc.”
Democracy Now – “Keeping perspective by staying aware of what is happening in the world and the range of human problems that Silicon Valley culture is insulated from.”
Reddit IAmA’s – “Online question and answer sessions with people who have been in or are in extraordinary circumstances from the amazing to the heart-wrenching.”
Make – “Interesting things in the happening in the maker/DIY movement.”
Wired – “A wide range of interesting news on technology and society.”

Books
“Material Computation:  Higher Integration in Morphogenetic Design” by Achim Menges (Book 216 in the Wiley published series Architectural Design) – “Interesting ideas and examples about the convergence of architecture/design and computation/materials/fabrication. And I like flipping through other books in the Architectural Design series.”

Software libraries using, learning, or find interesting
Max by Cycling ’74 – “Max is a visual programming environment using the dataflow paradigm for interactive/realtime processing of sound and graphics. I don’t use this too much now, but it is the software that introduced me to technology-based art and thinking about the relationships between technology and society.”
Grasshopper for Rhino – “Grasshopper is a plugin for the 3D modeling program Rhino. It is also a visual programming environment using the dataflow paradigm but for generative design in 3D.”
Three.js – “Super useful JavaScript library for building websites with WebGL.”
AngularJS – “A client-side JavaScript MVC framework. Excellent for managing complexity of an interactive web application.”
D3.js – “A data visualization library for JavaScript. Very powerful and expressive.”

Saigopal Nelaturi

Blogs, magazines, or websites
Wired – “For tech”
TrueReddit and Slashdot – “For community recommended articles”
Amoeba – “For music”
BBC News, Al Jazeera, The New York Times – “For unbiased reporting and great opinion columns”

Books
“Thinking, Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman – (Reading now) “Explores conscious and subconscious heuristics that guide the (often risky) choices we make.”
“From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf” by Robert Manson Myers – (Reading now) “An astounding and wholly unauthorized history of English literature (this is actually the title – hilarious).”
“Nausea” by Jean-Paul Sartre – (Reading now) “Classic, incisive existentialist novel.”
“Dealers of Lightning:  Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age” by Michael A. Hiltzik – (Recommend) “An inspiring book about the amazing breakthroughs in personal computing made at PARC.”
“The Argumentative Indian:  Writings on Indian History, Culture, and Identity” by Amartya Kumar Sen – (Recommend) “How emphasis on dialogue and argumentation has shaped ancient and modern Indian culture.”
“The Shape of Space” by Jeffrey Weeks – (Recommend) “How to visualize topological spaces, entertainingly written at the college freshman level, and a great introduction to topology.”
“Siddhartha,” “Steppenwolf,” “Narcissus and Goldmund” by Hermann Hesse – (Recommend) “Probably my favorite writer. A great mind.”

Ajay Raghavan

Blogs, magazines, or websites
Naatbatt Weekly – “To stay on top of developments in the Lithium-ion battery industry.”

Books
“Innovation:  The Five Disciplines for Creating What Customers Want” by Curtis R. Carlson and William W. Wilmot – “Because it is essential to align one’s research with important customer/market needs, not just with what one finds interesting!”

Christian Fritz

Blogs, magazines, or websites
Slashdot
VentureBeat
Brad Ideas (self-driving cars, smart cities)

Software/framework libraries using, learning, or find interesting
Learning about “automatic differentiation” and using the CppAD library
Meteor

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