While we might take the phrase “bright lights, big city” for granted, the fact is that for most of recorded history, nocturnal urban darkness was the norm, not the exception. —Jeet Heer —Cultural history of the night (National Post) By the way… the oft-repeated story about “blackout babies” born nine months after a major power outage…
“In the old days, there used to be a term, ‘buying your gross’,” said Rick Sands, chief operating officer at Miramax. “You could buy your gross for the weekend and overcome bad word of mouth because it took time to filter out into the general audience.” But those days are over, because the technology of…
If we find what we’re looking for, we will suddenly know life on another planet is highly probable and that we may not be alone. The discovery would arguably be the most profound one in human history. But what then? —William Speed Weed —starTREK: NASA thinks we can find another Earth in another nearby star… (Discover)…
This is Dan Rather’s profile. Expanded to the nth degree. Taken to infinity. Overlayed on the back of Patrick Stewart’s head. It’s recombinant phrenology. The elements of phrenology recombined in ways that follow the rules of irrational logic, a rigorous methodology that follows nonrational rules. It is a structure for following your intuition and your…
“Art and technology mean essentially the same thing,? says Montfort,” explaining that, contrary to his interviewer’s suggestion, poetry and computer science do go together. “Go back to the Latin ars and the Greek tekhne — both refer to ways of doing things that aren’t in nature already. In new media, the computer is being employed…
Baby books have gotten way weird. Today’s bookstore shelves spill over with tot-oriented “toybooks” shaped like cats, dogs, hens, horses, lions, elephants, insects and other things… —Linton Weeks —Touchable and Teachable, Toybooks are Big Business (Washington Post (registration; will expire)) Can’t be a toy… can’t be a book. Must be… a toybook! (Thanks for the suggestion,…
He was that rarity among physicists, one who could write in a clear, persuasive and entertaining way. His “Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems,” in which three noblemen, Salviati, Sagredo and Simplicio, meet in Venice to argue over the relative merits of Ptolemy’s ancient Earth-centered cosmos and the newer Sun-centered Copernicanism, may be the…
I have stage-fright. Teaching starts today, you see. I have stage-fright far worse than when I present a paper in front of a few hundred people at a conference, even though I taught all last semester, and loved it, and the stuff I’m planning on doing today is based on a recipe I’ve used three…
Inspectors from the TV Licensing Agency patrol neighborhoods using wireless detectors to attempt to pick up the “local oscillator” signal from a television in use. Anyone caught using a TV without a license is subject to a fine of up to $1,600. It doesn’t matter if you watch TV once a month; it doesn’t matter…
Why should my child work on a Mac in class when most people use PCs at home and in the office? I’ve heard this lament time and again in my son’s schools over the years. To listen to these parents, you’d think the schools were forcing children to use a history book that says the…
With a bachelor’s in chemistry, a Ph.D. in history (with a concentration in the history of science) and publications in hand, I applied for the job. The director never interviewed me. He hired a 22-year-old communications major but promised me work as a landscaper and all-purpose cipher as long as I wanted it. | He…
Alas, the searches prove fairly elusive. But boynton found Sylvia Plath Engineering so intriguing and poetic a concept that she thought the only thing for it was a Googlepoem. Here are some edited couplets freshly compiled: plath sylvia plath on engineering engineering, accounting, working Nonfiction Technical Romance Sports the engineering part poets own sketches the:…
“NOAA today posted online satellite images taken before and after… the historic blackout of the Northeastern United States, which plunged millions of people into darkness.” —Satellite Images of Northeastern US Blackout (NOAA)
One day in the future all the lights in the city go out. The turbines stop, the telephones become quiet, the traffic lights shut down, TVs dim and computers download, and elevators wedge between the office towers’ floors. Hospitals with battery-run backup supplies stay functional, but the banks and the stock exchange with their E-Money,…
“Many had wondered beforehand if there would be any foul play involved in the rematch. But Pirates first baseman Randall Simon, who made national headlines on July 9 after hitting the Italian Sausage in the head with his bat during a race at Miller Park, promised Friday afternoon not to get involved with the race.”…
In lieu of a truly good design, often people on the team will accept any design that makes the specific feature they care about (because they like it, because it‘snew, because they work on it, etc.) discoverable, regardless of it‘srelative importance compared to other features (note that this corollary is often applied without knowledge of…
“In solitude, he continued his mathematical and physical studies, but also embraced alchemy and esoteric biblical scholarship. He felt himself to be seeking ancient knowledge that had been lost or hidden in the dark centuries of the more recent past. Today’s scientists tend to be embarrassed by Newton’s religious and alchemical studies, but Newton was…
—I Feel Faint (Weblogg-Ed) Will Richardson finds a third NYT article on blogging, and a whole page in Technology and Learning magazine. Now we have more dead trees to hand to faculty members who shift uncomfortably and ask, “What is this ‘weblog ‘ of which you speak?”
“I always wanted my work to be read by someone else, someone out there who would grade me seriously, a regular person,” [10-year-old Raya Allen] said. “With a teacher, it’s their job. When someone else is reading it, they are doing it on their own free will.” —A Young Writers’ Round Table, via the Web (NY…
Weingarten shifts uncomfortably in his chair and stares at the glittering gems on his dining room table. “Unless they can be detected,” he says, “these stones will bankrupt the industry.” —The New Diamond Age (Wired) Long but interesting deconstruction of the diamond industry. See also “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?“