Ascribing a name to something makes people feel that the object, so-named, is a real thing – and importantly thing-y in some way. I suppose I had noticed this phenomenon before, but something crystallized while I was sitting in a research presentation of an early career scholar a few years ago. I think she was …
I took my first chemistry course as a junior in high school (Grade 11). I think that was pretty common in the U.S. for most people in my generation. I guess chemistry was still an elective in most high schools in the early-90s. But it was an entrance requirement at most colleges by then – …
The title of this post is a phrase I have heard both brothers Green (Hank and John – or, as John probably prefers, John and Hank) say more than once. And it is true. Collectively, as a species, human beings don’t know most things. What is more, individually, we each only hold a fragment of …
In today’s installment of Adam Savage’s One Day Builds, Adam re-created the first thing he ever engineered with a releasing mechanism: a ping pong ball launcher. He first made one as a 16-year-old high school student. It involved 3 rubber bands, a spoon, a length of coat-hanger wire, a hinge, some twine threaded around a …
Read more “On Reunions with Lost Selves – or – Whimsy v. Vogons”
I woke up yesterday thinking about what I wanted to write. And today, same. Yesterday I stayed in bed for a while, enjoying being able to puzzle through ideas under the warm sheets, knowing it was -15F outside. Today, I didn’t lounge – even though it was even colder outside. I got out of …
It happened last night. The Mutiny. And it made me happy. There is a point in each semester that I give a task to students in a class I am teaching and they ignore it and do something else. If the students already know me, it happens early on. But if they come to …
I am not entirely sure when hacking became a good thing. Hacking computer software or systems used to be considered a nefarious endeavor. For the most part, it still seems to be – though there are a handful of people who seek to use this superpower for good. Comedians refer to people who recycle tired …
Eddie Van Halen died a couple of weeks ago. What follows is, I suppose, something of a tribute to him – though that is not why I wrote it. I had actually written this more than a year ago and it has been waiting for me to make space to do something with it. It …