This is a post from Robin Sloan’s lab blog & notebook. You can visit the blog’s homepage, or learn more about me.

Found art

February 4, 2026

Sheesh look at this gor­geous graph from the great Daniel J. Bern­stein:

Daniel J. Bernstein's graph comparing sorting algorithms
Daniel J. Bernstein's graph comparing sorting algorithms

Somewhere, Julie Mehretu is raising a single eyebrow; per­haps jot­ting a note.

P.S. Bern­stein is one of those amazing fig­ures in com­puter science, and tech­nology generally: whose algorithms are exe­cuted millions … billions? … of times every second around the world, yet who are (1) not superfamous, even among com­puter people, and (2) not very rich, at least not rel­a­tive to their contributions. I sup­pose that’s how you know they are really scientists … and/or really artists.

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