Digital Literacy
I think it’s pretty clear that the future of books is digital. I’m sure we’ll always have deckle-edge hardcovers and mass market paperbacks, but I imagine the physical version of books will soon assume a cultural place analogous to that of FM radio. Although the radio is always there (and isn’t that nice?), I really only use it when I’m stuck in a rental car and forgot my auxilliary input cord. The rest of the time I’m relying on shuffle and podcasts. I love books deeply.
The Future Of Reading | Wired Science
Why You Should Write When Life Sucks
When Ali Hale sends me a post, I know it’s going to be good. And this one – on what to do about writing when life sucks – hits the target. Feel free to let us know in the comment section what you’ve done with those “life sucks” moments and how you can use them to create emotional content that packs a punch. This isn’t news to you: sometimes life sucks. Maybe a bunch of things have gone wrong.
Stephen Colbert testified in Congress on Friday about an immigration bill that he said — in all truthiness — he had not read, “like most members of Congress.” And when the comedian was challenged by one disgruntled lawmaker about his expertise, which was based on a single day spent hamming it up in a bean field for his show on Comedy Central, Mr. Colbert, keeping completely in character, said that was enough time to make him an expert on anything. Mr.
Stephen Colbert: The Whole Truthiness and Nothing But
June 30, 2010 — Motivation doesn't have to be conscious; your brain can decide how much it wants something without input from your conscious mind. Now a new study shows that both halves of your brain don't even have to agree. Motivation can happen in one side of the brain at a time. Psychologists used to think that motivation was a conscious process. You know you want something, so you try to get it.
Is your left hand more motivated than your right hand?
“Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould,” the fascinating new documentary by the Canadian filmmakers Peter Raymont and Michèle Hozer, has won praise for providing insights into Gould’s eccentric character. It shows the sad progression of a brilliant, garrulous musician with a fiercely original artistic vision as he becomes increasingly obsessive and isolated. Yet it also provides valuable insights into the inner workings of Gould’s distinctive technique and unorthodox interpretive approach. <p style="text-align:right;color:#A8A8A8"></p>
‘Genius Within’ and Glenn Gould’s Technique
Very useful HTML5 App with a size of less than 10 Kilobytes
Couple of weeks back Aneventapart.com launch a challenge to web developers to develop an inspiring web applications with a size of less than 10 kilobytes. In this post I will handpick an application from that event that is very useful from day to day use for web developers and designers. Below is the list of incredibly useful applications with a very lightweight in size.
Work at gdgt
gdgt is hiring! We are a new breed of product-driven social platforms changing the way consumers share and acquire information about their products. gdgt leverages a robust structured product database connecting to people with products (and, in turn, one another). We work in small, effective teams, iterating rapidly and maximizing impact on the millions of people using our product.
Program or Be Programmed by Douglas Rushkoff, an exclusive Boing Boing preview
Program or be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age is the new book by Douglas Rushkoff, an author, documentarian, media theorist, and great friend of all of us at Boing Boing. This week, we are pleased to have Douglas as a guest blogger. To kick things off, here's a full chapter from his book. And for the remainder of the week, Boing Boing readers will get 20% off the price of the book or ebook in addition to whatever discount may already exist (currently 15%, for a total of 35% off). Just type BOING in the discount box on the final ordering screen. -- Mark Chapter 3: CHOICE You May Always Choose "None of the Above"IDEO Reimagines the Future of Personal Banking | Design for Good
Design and innovation powerhouse IDEO is known for using design thinking and keen behavioral insight to reinvent object, products and systems that touch our daily lives. Most recently, they envisioned three scenarios for the future of the book , but one of their more interesting new projects looks at something far less exciting but arguably more central to our day-to-day operation: personal banking.
A catastrophic systems failure at cloud-based software provider, Navitaire , a business process outsourcing (BPO) unit of Accenture , disrupted travel for 50,000 customers of Virgin Blue airlines in Australia. The situation offers important lessons for buyers of cloud-based outsourcing services. Related: Virgin's cloud failure: Rebuttal and a deeper perspective Virgin Blue provided details in a press release : Navitaire is the supplier of Virgin Blue’s reservation and distribution software platform and also hosts that platform on its own server infrastructure at a data centre in Sydney.
Cloud-based IT failure halts Virgin flights
These are some notes on “ The Map that changed the World: The Tale of William Smith and The Birth of a Science ” by Simon Winchester. It is the story of the creation, by William Smith , of the first geological map of England and Wales, and the first such map on this scale in the world. A geological map shows the distribution of different rock types on the earth’s surface. Sedimentary rocks are laid down in horizontal layers, known as strata, subsequently these layers may be deformed and distorted.
Book review: The Map that Changed the World
We know they're big. But let's get technical: If we could freeze frame a hurricane in the sky just for an instant, how many pounds of water is it carrying up there? Here's an approximate answer: In our radio broadcast on Morning Edition , Andy Heymsfield of the National Center for Atmospheric Research used elephant–sized units of water to measure hurricanes, storm clouds and little white puffies. Years ago, in a story I did on ABC, another cloud measurer used elephant units, too. But for our new cartoon, Odd Todd and I switched to blue whales.
How Much Does A Hurricane Weigh? : Krulwich Wonders…
The Lumina Foundation for Education has announced nineteen grants totaling $14.8 million to help advance adult degree attainment through a series of interconnected projects that aim to engage, motivate, and help students to return to college to complete their degrees. According to the foundation, thirty-seven million adults between the ages of 25 and 64 (more than 20 percent of the working-age population) have not earned a degree or credential despite having attended a college. The grants, which range from $250,000 to almost $1.3 million, provide support for large-scale projects that aim to educate and retrain workers who need to improve their skills in order to compete for jobs that will be created over the next decade, most of which will require some form of postsecondary education degree or credential. Through the projects, the foundation expects to reach some 6.6 million adults who have prior college credits.
PND - News - Lumina Foundation Announces Grants to Advance Degree Completion
Sep. 30, 2010 — Typically, monkeys don't know what to make of a mirror. They may ignore it or interpret their reflection as another, invading monkey, but they don't recognize the reflection as their own image. Chimpanzees and people pass this "mark" test -- they obviously recognize their own reflection and make funny faces, look at a temporary mark that the scientists have placed on their face or wonder how they got so old and grey. For 40 years, scientists have concluded from this type of behavior that a few species are self-aware -- they recognize the boundaries between themselves and the physical world.
For the first time, monkeys recognize themselves in the mirror, indicating self-awareness
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