Quotes

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. 

We report the design, synthesis, and assembly of the 1.08-Mbp Mycoplasma mycoides JCVI-syn1.0 genome starting from digitized genome sequence information and its transplantation into a Mycoplasma capricolum recipient cell to create new Mycoplasma mycoides cells that are controlled only by the synthetic chromosome. The only DNA in the cells is the designed synthetic DNA sequence, including “watermark” sequences and other designed gene deletions and polymorphisms, and mutations acquired during the building process. The new cells have expected phenotypic properties and are capable of continuous self-replication.

Creation of a Bacterial Cell Controlled by a Chemically Synthesized Genome

The more research I do on this, the more awe-struck I am by the accomplishment and potentials.

“To live, to err, to fall, to triumph, to recreate life out of life” indeed.

However, the beautiful calamity of evolution will seep into the created genetic lines and cause changes that the designers won’t be able to foresee or stop. It’s been that way since Eden (and even frustrated YHWH).

In the end, nature still is in charge.

At that time, Bent Stumpe was an electronics engineer, newly recruited to work on developments for the SPS Central Control room. One of the things his supervisor asked him to build as soon as possible was a device to control a pointer on a screen, also called a tracker ball.

The bowling balls – CERN Bulletin

Fascinating how revolutionary objects often get their start as very practical ideas. 

Over and over again, I find that people’s mental model of who can see what doesn’t match up with reality. People think “everyone” includes everyone who searches for them on Facebook. They never imagine that “everyone” includes every third party sucking up data for goddess only knows what purpose. They think that if they lock down everything in the settings that they see, that they’re completely locked down. They don’t get that their friends lists, interests, likes, primary photo, affiliations, and other content is publicly accessible.

apophenia » Blog Archive » Facebook and “radical transparency” (a rant)

Exactly. 

Speaking to my students about privacy and 6 degrees never seems to hit home.

I should do more demonstrations of how Facebook’s default privacy settings really does expose them in ways they don’t immediately realize.

Find out what basic safety equipment is in the lab. This affects what kind of activities you can plan. Ask ahead of time if notebooks and other consumable materials have been ordered. Once the school year starts, it’s often hard to get things that are not in inventory. Ask what technology will available to you in the classroom, such as an interactive white board, “clickers,” probeware, cameras, or projection attachments for microscopes. If the school does not provide a laptop you can take home, invest in some USB flash drives you can use to take files to work on at home.

Question from a new teacher

Very relevant and timely info for those of our species lucky enough to be entering the teaching profession but that have no clue what they’re in for…

Ourlast big economic driver was engineering and the first stage of the digital age. At Institute for the Future, in our annual ten-year forecast program, we see an underlying shift to biology as a driver, and what I’m starting to think of as the “global well-being economy.” If biology and the global well-being economy will drive the future, what does that suggest for leaders? How can leaders grow their own empathy with nature and the global well-being economy?

Self-interest and competition will not be enough. Business leaders will still need to drive revenue, increase efficiency, and resolve conflicts, but financial mandates (I win/you lose) won’t be enough. Leaders must expand their view of self and embrace the shared assets and opportunities around them — not just the individual takeaways that will reward them alone. Leaders must learn to give ideas away, trusting that they will get even more back in return.

Leadership, Thinking Ten Years Ahead – Imagining the Future of Leadership – Harvard Business Review

Things to remind myself as I work with my 13 and 14 year old students everyday…

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