Last week, I mentioned that the world produced an estimated 1.5 exabytes of information last year. This statistic came from Karl Fisch’s Did You Know? presentation. He got this number from an Ian Jukes presentation, and Ian’s source is a Berkeley study from 2003. As it turns out, the Berkeley study later revised its numbers to 5 exabytes of new information, and these numbers were … Continue reading Information Overload

In 1984, Richard Saul Wurman collected some of the brightest stars in Technology, Entertainment, and Design for a conference in Monterey, California. The Macintosh computer was introduced at that conference. So was Sony’s new method for storing and distributing audio: the compact disc. Benoit Mandebrot explained how he uses fractal geometry to map coastlines. Six years later, the TED conference became a regular event. The … Continue reading Spend Some Time with TED

Nothing to see here. Move along…. Daddy Loves Ohio Continue reading Playing with Audio

Your hard drive just crashed. This is the last text you’re going to see on your computer. Right now. Are you okay with that? I know. This is a bad time. You have a lot going on today, and you have to have your computer. That project you’ve been working on for the last few weeks is just about finished. All you need to do … Continue reading Do You Have a Backup?

Alvin Trusty recently pointed out the inefficiencies of synchronous chat rooms in online courses. The social protocol of the chat room does not always lend itself well to serious discussions. In a chat, people are constantly entering and leaving. Some people try to monopolize the conversation by responding to every comment made. Others take the discussion off-topic by following tangents. The result can be a … Continue reading Inefficient Technology

Last year, I started listening to The Word Nerds podcast. This show examines a particular aspect of our language and culture in each episode. If you know the difference between a mondegreen and a portmanteau, this is the kind of thing you would like. I found it interesting for a while, but after a few months, my interest waned. Recently, the show has shown signs … Continue reading Grammar Girl

Over at TechnoSpud, Jennifer Wagner has been coordinating collaborative projects for nearly a decade. She started by collecting data for a science project, and reasoned that she could use the Internet to collect data from students all over the world. Eight years later, she’s coordinating five projects a year, involving hundreds of classrooms and thousands of students. Registration is now available for the St. Patrick’s … Continue reading Collaborative Projects

I love optical illusions. It’s a lot of fun to see how we can play tricks on our minds by exploiting our understanding of how our brains interpret what we see. Most of the time, I can see right through the illusions. We’ve seen the impossible trident, the Rubin vase, the Penrose Triangle, and the work of M.C. Escher enough to know when we’re being … Continue reading Optical Illusions

Maybe not. It was just the Sound and Video Catalog at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Macaulay Library. Despite the fact that there aren’t any cheetahs, the catalog does have an impressive collection of animal recordings, some of which date back half a century or more. Many also have video. As you’d expect from a lab of ornithology, there are lots of birds. But I … Continue reading Thought I Heard a Red-Winged Blackbird

The problem with storing information is that the media is always changing. Almost seven years ago, I bought a new computer. This was my first computer without a 5.25″ floppy drive. I reasoned at the time that I could always connect a drive to it if I ever needed the data on those disks. I never did. I have a box full of disks which … Continue reading Print is Dead

A couple years ago, our high school principal purchased some laptops to use in the media center. Our media center is small, and frequently crowded, and there wasn’t room for more tables full of computers. Still, he wanted to accommodate as many students as possible. With the freedom of wireless technology, it seemed like a natural fit. We knew from the outset that we were … Continue reading Working on the Wireless

This week, one of our physics teachers requested that a physics simulation site be unblocked by our web filter. The site is Paul Falstad’s Math and Physics Applets, and it’s classified as a “personal page” and therefore blocked by the filter. Our teachers can request that sites be unblocked. Those requests go to a panel of seven people who evaluate the site based on our … Continue reading Physics is Phun