August 2012

Mourning Our Specialness

We’re not alone… BBC Nature – Birds hold ‘funerals’ for dead: “Giraffes and elephants, for example, have been recorded loitering around the body of a recently deceased close relative, raising the idea that animals have a mental concept of death, and may even mourn those that have passed.” One day we’ll realize that humans aren’t …

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What Am I Listening To?

Streaming Now: Phish – Cities http://t.co/9eXc9NGb — Sam's Music (@SamsHouseMusic) August 27, 2012 I’m always shocked that people want to know what I’m listening to, but I’m pretty open about what comes across my iTunes and Spotify accounts via the @SamsHouseMusic. Thanks to Last.FM’s Scrobbler, iTunes, Spotify and Twitterfeed, I’m able to stream whatever is …

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Best Computer I’ve Ever Owned

Beyond my iPhone(s), this new Macbook Pro 15.4 inch Retina display (with 2.6 GHz and 16 gigs of RAM) is, hands down, the best computer I’ve ever owned for too many reasons to describe… Macbook Pro 15 Inch Retina Display – Apple Store (U.S.) Yes, it’s insanely expensive. No one said winning was cheap.

Neil Gaiman, Neil Armstrong, and Neal Stephenson

Wow, what a pic… Neil Gaiman’s Journal: Neil Armstrong: “Neal Stephenson and I were not standing in order to make it quite clear who Neil #1 was and would always be.” That pretty much sums up my life as a fanboy.

Here We Go

I’m excited that Andy, Kevin and I will all be starting the year with the same challenge in our 7th and 8th Grade Science classes… Beginnings | andylammers: “This year I am rolling out the Marshmallow Challenge (MMC), a design activity that Autodesk‘s Tom Wujec uses in his innovation workshops. The MMC seems to have what I …

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We Cho(o)se To Go to the Moon

Not because it was easy, but because it was hard… I hope we go back someday for the same reasons.

New Biz Cards

Awesome thick (like hard card stock with red in between) business cards from the always awesome Moo shop for The Harrelson Agency… You have to love that Apple-like design aesthetic of their entire presentation.​ These cards are amazing. You should ask for one soon.​

We Made the Move

Decided to go with the amazing SquareSpace platform for the new blog. ​ ​SquareSpace 6 is a really mature platform that has come of age and is definitely impressive for our needs and the needs of many of our clients. ​Highly recommend!

RFID in Schools

Here we go… Papers, Please! » Blog Archive » San Antonio public schools plan to make students wear radio tracking beacons: “Unless the school board changes its mind, public school students at Jay High School and Jones Middle School in San Antonio, Texas, will be required to wear ID badges containing RFID chips (radio tracking …

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700 Decisions in 3 Days

That’s about 10 decisions per hour if the jury worked 24 hours straight. Given that it was probably 8 hours a day, that’s about 29 decisions per hour. Or 1 decision ever 2 mins: Live: Apple vs. Samsung: jury decision – The Verge: “Given the complexity of the task, a verdict back this soon is …

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Discontent

I’ll agree…

New Business Card

Awesome thick (like hard card stock with red in between) business cards from Moo for The Harrelson Agency…

Split Open and Melt

crescit cum commercio civitas? Arctic ice cap set for record-breaking summer melt session | Ars Technica: “While predictions of a total melt during the summer months and its potentially devastating effects on the planet have many worried (Serreze says the rapid melting may have contributed to severe storms in the US in recent years), commercial …

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What I Did This Summer

What did you do this summer? It’s the question we ask of all our returning students we haven’t seen since June. It’s been a bit of a crazy summer for me. Well, more than a bit, really. Our Middle School technically let out June 14. That following Monday, I boarded a plane with our new …

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Vertical Rhythm

Beautiful and helpful post… 24 ways: Compose to a Vertical Rhythm: “On the Web, vertical rhythm – the spacing and arrangement of text as the reader descends the page – is contributed to by three factors: font size, line height and margin or padding. All of these factors must calculated with care in order that …

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R.I.P. OnLive

Wow… Streaming video game site OnLive collapses and restructures – Aug. 18, 2012: “‘OnLive may be the future, but the future is not here today,’ Levitan says.”

Breaking Down Monoliths 1990’s Style

As a dorky/geeky middle schooler in the early 90’s, I remember the frustration of not being able to have my messages flow from Prodigy to users on other services such as CompuServe. We were locked in to virtual message board monoliths… Prodigy (online service) – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: “Two of Prodigy’s most popular services …

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Retention, Not Acquisition

The mantra (I know, I hate using that term out of context as well) I use with my clients is “Retention, Not Acquisition.” That means businesses should put 75% of their efforts into retaining customers or users or community or whatever the relationship-model is with their constituents and 25% of their efforts into acquiring new …

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