Four short links: 18 May 2012
Overlapping S-Curves of Various Products (PNG) -- product adoption speed over time. (via Beta Knowledge) High School Makerspaces Q&A with Dale Dougherty (Radioshack) -- Experimentation is one of the things we’re trying to promote. If you do experiments, a number of them fail and you learn from that failure and say, “Gee, I could have...
Four short links: 17 May 2012
The Mythology of Big Data (PDF) -- slides from a Strata keynote by Mark R. Madsen. A lovely explanation of the social impediments to the rational use of data. (via Hamish MacEwan) Scamworld -- amazing deconstruction of the online "get rich quick" scam business. (via Andy Baio) Ceres: Solving Complex Problems with Computing Muscle --...
Four short links: 16 May 2012
Many Old Periodicals -- I'm working my way through the back issues of "Thrilling Love". Sample story, Moonmist for Mary by Dorothy Daniels, from Feb 1950. Filing clerk Mary wins the heart of her secret coworker romance AND closes the sale AND is promised stock. It's torn from the pages of real life, I tell...
Four short links: 14 May 2012
Shiri = Japanese Robotic Ass (YouTube) -- I couldn't watch after 2m30s or so when he starts slapping the robot ass. I never imagined a butt as UI. I eagerly await the hobbyist version, the Arduino Ass Shield. (via Ed Yong) Facebook Tests 'Pay to Promote' Tool (BBC) -- pay to raise prominence of your...
Four short links: 11 May 2012
Stanford Med School Contemplates Flipped Classroom -- the real challenge isn't sending kids home with videos to watch, it's using tools like OceanBrowser to keep on top of what they're doing. Few profs at universities have cared whether students learned or not. Inclusive Tech Companies Win The Talent War (Gina Trapani) -- she speaks the...
Four short links: 10 May 2012
Gravity in the Margins (Got Medieval) -- illuminating illuminated manuscripts with Mario. (via BoingBoing) Hours Days, Who's Counting? (Jon Udell) -- What prompted me to check? My friend Mike Caulfield, who’s been teaching and writing about quantitative literacy, says it’s because in this case I did have some touchstone facts parked in my head, including...
Four short links: 9 May 2012
We Need Version Control for Real Stuff (Chris Anderson) -- This is pointing us toward the next step, a GitHub for stuff. If open source hardware is going to take off like open source software, we need this. (via Evil Mad Scientist) Graduates and Post-Graduates on Food Stamps (Chronicle of Higher Education) -- two points...
Four short links: 8 May 2012
Gmail Vault -- app to backup and restore the contents of your gmail account. (via Hacker News) Leaving Apps for HTML5 (Technology Review) -- We sold 353 subscriptions through the iPad. We never discovered how to avoid the necessity of designing both landscape and portrait versions of the magazine for the app. We wasted $124,000...
Four short links: 4 May 2012
Common Statistical Fallacies (Flowing Data) -- once you know to look for them, you see them everywhere. Or is that confirmation bias? Project Hijack -- Hijacking power and bandwidth from the mobile phone's audio interface. Creating a cubic-inch peripheral sensor ecosystem for the mobile phone. Peak Plastic -- Deb Chachra points out that if we’re...
Four short links: 3 May 2012
The History of Key Design (Slate) -- fascinating and educational. I loved the detector lock, which shows you how many times it has been used. Would be lovely to see on my Google account. (via Dave Pell) Why Telcos Don't Grok Open Standards (Simon Phipps) -- Their history is of participants in a market where...
