At a time when political activists and campaigns can host Zoom conferences with over a thousand attendees, and when astronauts can make outer space Skype calls, it’s easy to feel numbed to the sense of wonder that may come from contemplating our remarkable advances in communications technology. But June 25th is approaching, and if you’re […]
Cyberpunk lit pioneer William Gibson once said “The future is already here — it’s just not very evenly distributed.” There’s no doubting the second part—new technology will replicate the inequality of old technology. But for the next few paragraphs, let’s think about the first part. The future is already here. For example, we’re just going […]
Space and time are not fixed–or more accurately, seemingly fixed or regular movement across spacetime is actually “warped.” That warping causes the trajectory of motion to manifest as dynamic rather than nondynamic. A straight line is never really a straight line, and a regular orbit is never really a regular orbit. Before Albert Einstein developed […]
This was already in the news last December, and not in the context of the global Covid-19 pandemic. A UC-Davis study had found that “the louder people talk, the more airborne particles they emit, making loudness a potential factor in spreading airborne diseases.” Particle emission during talking had other factors, but loudness was a consistent […]
“Life doesn’t always give us what we deserve, but rather, what we demand. And so you must continue to push harder than any other person in the room.” Those words from Wadi Ben-Hirki, a young feminist activist from Nigeria, are a good reminder that gender equity is still a problem in nearly all fields. The […]
From the EdSurge news page, we learn that colleges and universities are discovering the benefits of big data. It’s no secret that colleges and universities have to do a lot more with less these days—or face closure. Whether because of high administrative costs, a declining number of applicants (the result of widespread economic insecurity that […]
Even for the most austere person who doesn’t need lavish, exotic, or elaborate surroundings, there is something fascinating about treehouses. Not the kind that are every kid’s dream and every parent’s bad trip. If you were a kid who grew up in neighborhoods with lots of yard flora, including trees, you may have dreamed of […]
When we’re working in digital, one of the hairiest issues can be finding appropriate imagery and other resources to build on without stepping on a creator’s rights or paying through the nose. That’s why you see so many blogs and social media posts with boring stock imagery! There is no excuse now! Today, the Smithsonian […]
On voting, Americans tend to swing widely between the hyperbole of having an inviolable moral obligation to vote in every single election for every single position, to believing that if elections could really change anything, “they’d make them illegal.” United States voter turnout has generally increased from “zero” to a tiny percentage of the population […]
Space debris is a big problem. There’s a whole lot of it orbiting our planet, fragments and parts and stuff crashing into one another to produce even more, from dangerous large bits to even more dangerous small bits that are harder to detect. It complicates spaceflight and space maintenance work. Significantly, it presents a kind […]