Design for democracy

Cyborgs are us!

Sep 11, 2008

Are we becoming cyborgs? William Saletan has a recent article in Slate titled Full Metal Socket about this issue. As he says: Cyborgs aren't studs from the future. They're old folks. As we age, our parts wear out. That used to mean immobility or death. Today, we can...

Symmetry: new ambigram

May 31, 2013

I love the idea of self-reference, words or sentences that refer to themselves in some manner or another. For instance consider the sentence, This is a sentence. This is an example of a relatively benign self-referential sentence. Other examples may not be less...

World’s cheapest car (ever)

Jan 10, 2008

Story in Reason Online about the Tata Nano, the cheapest car the world, or actually as the article seeks to prove, the cheapest car of all time (once you adjust for inflation). The Nano, produced by Indian company Tata, "is about 10 feet long, 5 feet wide. The...

Shreya’s blog, new Sci-Po’s

Oct 10, 2009

Shreya, my daughter has a blog, Uniquely Mine. An RSS feed from her blog can be found right here (just scroll down and see the right column). Anyway, over the past few weeks she has been doing something for extra credit for the science class. Her fifth-grade teacher...

Tech as tool, medium & network

Apr 2, 2009

I just discovered (through the serendipitous connectibility of Google Alerts) about Teaching Thursdays a blog from the University of North Dakota. It is a collaborative venture between Anne Kelsh (Office of Instructional Development) and Bill Caraher (Department of...

Happy Birthday

Sep 2, 2009

Happy Birthday, Internet 40 years old today! It all started 40 years ago today, when a couple of computers were connected by a long gray cable ... Read more (and watch a video) at National Geographic

Quoted in the State News

Mar 22, 2013

A couple of weeks ago I was interviewed by Simon Shuster, journalist at the State News. A couple of quotes made it into the article. Here, for the record, is the link: Wired up, ready to go. Interestingly enough, this was the second story that Simon has written about...

Why Theory: Or the TPACK story

Dec 7, 2016

Note: There are two key updates / correction to this post The first has to do with a couple of things that I either got wrong, or rushed over. More about that at Update on "The TPACK story" or "Oops!"The second has to do with an update to the diagram itself that came...

Goodbye 2021, Hello 2022

Dec 31, 2021

One afternoon, back in December 2008, we made a couple of new year's videos to welcome the new year. It was not planned in any way—it was just a way to spend the afternoon since it was too cold to go outside. Thus began a tradition that goes strong even today—13 years...