Category: Technology

Holy Thursday

Holy Thursday

Is this a holy thing to see In a rich and fruitful land, Babes reduced to misery, Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor? It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine,And their fields are bleak and bare, And their ways are filled with thorns: It is eternal winter there.

For where’er the sun does shine, And where’er the rain does fall, Babes should never hunger there, Nor poverty the mind appall.

lickystickypickyme:

Real life Star Wars.

Laser Towards Milky Ways Center.

The color of the laser is precisely tuned to energize a layer of sodium atoms found in one of the upper layers of the atmosphere — one can recognize the familiar color of sodium street lamps in the color of the laser.

This layer of sodium atoms is thought to be a leftover from meteorites entering the Earth’s atmosphere. When excited by the light from the laser, the atoms start glowing, forming a small bright spot that can be used as an artificial reference star for the adaptive optics. Using this technique, astronomers can obtain sharper observations. For example, when looking towards the center of our Milky Way, researchers can better monitor the galactic core, where a central super massive black hole, surrounded by closely orbiting stars, is swallowing gas and dust.

Taken with a wide angle lens, this photo covers about 180° of the sky.

Many users, however, will have to add more memory …

Many users, however, will have to add more memory if they want to run Mac OS X: It requires a minimum of 128 MB of RAM, which is more than Apple included in most of its consumer models until recently. The operating system runs even better with twice as much memory. (Fortunately, RAM is at record low prices, with many vendors now offering 256-MB modules for $50 or less.)

Ah, the good ole days…

Something you don’t expect to say while making waffles unless you are the parent of a 2 yr old (and perhaps a geek): “Please take the Google yoyo off of your neck. Now. Thank you.”

Flickr Says Thanks for All the Fish

It’s really not that big of a deal, but I’ve been a Pro member for the last three years… words like this lead me to think that maybe Yahoo isn’t putting that much long term investment in the Flickr service.

Thanks, Flickr…

Why only until June 1?
We promised you access to your all time data, and we’re disappointed we’ve not been able to deliver on that. We’ve been trying for over a year to get the data ready for you and in the process we have found that it’s just not sustainable for us to offer this access over the long term. What’s available is what we have managed to generate so far, it’s offered as is with no guarantees. We know it’s missing some data but fixing the holes or offering the data for longer would require us to divert too much attention from making the rest of the site better which, as always, is our main goal.

Yikes.

Picasa maybe?


As technological skills become synonymous with literacy, it is imperative that students learn to use emerging real-time technologies for research, experimentation, problem-solving, collaboration and creativity. Tech-savvy teachers are already taking advantage of these very technologies to build their own skills and lesson plans.

The Real Time Web & K-12 Education – In and Out of the Classroom

Amen.

Young digital natives are training their brains for technological expertise but are not developing neural networks that modulate the ability to maintain eye contact during a conversation, recognize non-verbal cues, and perceive and convey empathy.

iHUMAN | Adbusters Culturejammer Headquarters

Even with cheap printed books, you can tell that someone proofed every page. With many e-books, they’ve clearly just been run through a converter with no proofing whatsoever.

Daring Fireball Linked List: Texts, as Opposed to Books

Astute comment from Gruber that reminds me of the transition from handwritten manuscripts and texts (often laboriously copied) to texts manufactured on printing presses at the end of the late Renaissance. 

Over the next five years, I expect for ebook curation and formatting to become a serious issue.  This will be especially true for the education space as we teachers continue to move away from textbooks and towards reading devices. 

Pay Per VOIP

Me initially: “yay! Finally.”

Me after reading description: “wait, really? Sigh.”

I have no issue paying for services. However, paying for 3G calls via Skype even though I already pay Skype and ATT seems a little… opportunistic by the vendors?

Just sayin’