Category: Technology

Don Chance, a finance professor at Louisiana State University, says it dawned on him last spring. The semester was ending, and as usual, students were making a pilgrimage to his office, asking for the extra points needed to lift their grades to A’s. “They felt so entitled,” he recalls, “and it just hit me. We can blame Mr. Rogers.

Blame It on Mr. Rogers: Why Young Adults Feel So Entitled – WSJ.com

Well that explains that.

The question on researchers’ minds is whether all that texting, instant messaging and online social networking allows children to become more connected and supportive of their friends — or whether the quality of their interactions is being diminished without the intimacy and emotional give and take of regular, extended face-to-face time.

It is far too soon to know the answer.

How Does Technology Affect Kids’ Friendships? – NYTimes.com

Here We Go Again (Moving to Tumblr)

After Posterous’ non-cool move with affiliate links, I’ve decided to move my blog over here to Tumblr.

I’ve had this blog on WordPress.com then a self-hosted WordPress plan for a long while then over to Posterous, a few static page iterations and now here on Tumblr.

I’m tired of moving it, so let’s hope this one sticks. Based on Tumblr’s past moves, they seem to be in this business for more than just quick bucks or exponential (spammy) growth.

I like that.

So, we’ll see.

Now I just need to figure out how to get all that content off of Posterous and over here. Looks like it might take some API spelunking.

Google Voice for Safari Hack Updated

Update: See also this Python script (with instructions for use) submitted by a reader in the comments that will take all of your Address Book contacts and convert them to bookmarklet links in an html file. You can import those links to your Safari bookmarks and then sync with the iPhone. I have not yet tested this. I had to make one small fix (it swapped the phone numbers around), but it works!

via ironicsans.com

This is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

Divisible Electrons. Democritus Would Not Be Pleased.

In a one-dimensional (1D) system of interacting electrons, excitations of spin and charge travel at different speeds, according to the theory of a Tomonaga-Luttinger liquid (TLL) at low energies. However, the clear observation of this spin-charge separation is an ongoing challenge experimentally. We have fabricated an electrostatically gated 1D system in which we observe spin-charge separation and also the predicted power-law suppression of tunneling into the 1D system. The spin-charge separation persists even beyond the low-energy regime where the TLL approximation should hold. TLL effects should therefore also be important in similar, but shorter, electrostatically gated wires, where interaction effects are being studied extensively worldwide.

via sciencemag.org

Fascinating.

Basically, this study cooled down a string of electrons (tunneling) to near absolute zero (0 K or very very cold), packed the electrons extremely close together and observed the results.

What happened?

The electrons broke down into two (new) particles, holons and spinons.

So what?

When our children are adults, they’ll be working with quantum computers and looking back on this type of research like we look back on the computer science of the 50’s. Plus, this is incredible science.

AffiliateHack: My New Marketing Blog

AffiliateHack is a blog about affiliate marketing written by Sam Harrelson. Sam is a longtime veteran of the affiliate marketing industry and previous winner of the Best Blogger award at Affiliate Summit and publisher of ReveNews and CostPerNews. Now Sam brings his unique perspective on affiliate marketing back to blogging form with AffiliateHack.

via affiliatehack.com

I miss blogging about the fascinating world of affiliate marketing. Now that I’m no longer an active affiliate marketer, I thought it would be a good time to dust off my blogging skills and give it another go.

There will be some overlap of what I do here and there, but this is a much more personal space (hence the silly .me address) and AffiliateHack is a much more public space.

We’ll see how it goes.

Great Use of Backpack with Pages for Each Day.

work: wed

“I have a page set up for each day of the workweek, and I evenly distribute the action tasks for all of my marketing tactics throughout the week.

On a given day, I simply click on that day’s page and get to work on the tasks, which are within a handy checklist (see image above along the left).

Each Monday, I un-check all the lists on every page, which helps me to stay accountable to my plans and goals for my business. I can clearly see what got done and what did not get done over the previous week. After un-checking the items, I’m ready to begin another week.”

via productblog.37signals.com

I love this implementation of workflow in Backpack.

Personally, I’m using Backpack in the GTD style (main INBOX for dumping everything then sub-folders pertaining to specific contexts or actions that need to be taken).

However, it would be very cool to do a blend of my GTD style with the daily pages style and incorporate individual classes (since I’ll be teaching 4-5 individual classes).

Clearly, I love todo lists more than actually acting upon them 🙂