How things work Archive

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Artisanal … everything

Posted August 30, 2012 By Digital Sextant

On the always-awesome Judge John Hodgman podcast, his Honor often uses the adjective artisanal to send up the hipster DIY crafty local home-made home-brewed grow local trend that results in all sorts of strange representations of craft as quality. When Alan Turing proposed the test to determine if a machine is intelligent, he suggested that [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, New Media

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Posted July 17, 2012 By Digital Sextant

by Bill Bryson; narrated by Richard Matthews Once again, Bryson turns his hand to something new (he’s written travel books, history, language, memoir, and now science!).  Of course, he does it with aplomb and skill, not to mention a heavy dose of humor.  A Short History of Nearly Everything functions like a quick primer of the [… Read More]

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Filed in Books I Read, How things work, Science

Highlights and Lowlights from Student Evaluations

Posted July 5, 2012 By Digital Sextant

One of the more difficult things about teaching is knowing whether you’ve done a good job or not.  When you teach a college course, you have students in your orbit for 15 or 16 weeks.  You can tell, on a given day, whether things went well or not.  You can tell, when they turn in [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, Teaching

Wasn’t it always a tax?

Posted July 2, 2012 By Digital Sextant

One of the Planet Money podcasters mentioned, a while back, that the American people are really dumb about how we understand taxes and spending (my words, not his).  Some of us complain when the government spends money by collecting it and then disbursing it, but few of us complain when the government spends money by [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, Politics, Rants

Not really the extra mile, but they got there nonetheless OR, The Saga of the 43 minute Christmas Song

Posted June 28, 2012 By Digital Sextant

In December, I mentioned how I’d selected, among my music for the month, Non-stop Christmas Party Anthems which included a 47 minute track.  When I went to download it by clicking on “download full album”, however, it failed to download.  This had happened before, and I usually found that I could download the tracks individually, [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, Music

On Changing Demographics Brackets

Posted June 23, 2012 By Digital Sextant

A few quick thoughts on now being 35, and thus leaving the market-swaying 18-34 demographic You know that I’ve been a Columbo fan for a long time, but between birthday money and gifts from Jenny, I’m now a superfan, an owner of the whole series and all the television movies.  “Just one more thing” indeed. [… Read More]

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  • Ryan posted on June 24, 2012
    I think that because the natural "adaptiveness" my generation (those born between 1985 and 1995) have towards culture, media, and ...
Filed in How things work, New Media, Thinking

On artists and the new connectivity

Posted June 21, 2012 By Digital Sextant

It used to be that if you saw something cool in a shop, you could buy it, and that would be it.  My favorite thing about the new connectivity is the way we can become acquainted directly with artists through the web, as though we’d met them at a gallery show, even if we live [… Read More]

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Filed in Favorite Things, How things work, Nerdistry

How to ruin pretty much any romantic comedy

Posted June 19, 2012 By Digital Sextant

Emily January, of The Bookshelf of Emily J, writes about the minefield friends create when they enthusiastically loan you a book that you don’t want to read: In one particular instance, I took the highly recommended book home. I kept that book for a few weeks, allowing it to stab guilt and anxiety into my [… Read More]

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Filed in Ethics, How things work, Philosophy

Packing for Mars

Posted June 18, 2012 By Digital Sextant

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach, narrated by Sandra Burr In Packing for Mars, you will learn how much volume of flatus a burrito causes the average human to expel, you will learn that Russian scientists regularly smuggle alcohol aboard to bribe cosmonauts to conduct their experiments [… Read More]

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Filed in Audio, Books I Read, How things work, Humor, Science

Three Laws of Internet motion

Posted June 15, 2012 By Digital Sextant

Three “laws” I enjoy from the Memespace: Godwin’s Law As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.  The term Godwin’s law can also refer to the tradition that whoever makes such a comparison is said to “lose” the debate. (Wikipedia) I like Godwin’s Law because it [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, Memes, New Media, Philosophy

Hey! Do you have enough sharp and/or pointy things?

Posted June 14, 2012 By Digital Sextant

After quitting facebook last week, Chicago writer Mason Johnson explains: My friends list is nearly unrecognizable. Which also makes me paranoid. For tumblr, I specifically want to follow people I don’t really know that well so I can read and see things that might be unfamiliar. For facebook, I want to post stupid comments on [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, New Media

When Metrics go bad

Posted May 29, 2012 By Digital Sextant

The recent “Facebook: Now What?” episode of NPR’s excellent economics podcast, Planet Money, explored how Facebook ads work and how they make money.  One of the things they discovered is that some old media uses Facebook “likes” as part of their pricing structure — they advocate or charge more for ads on programs or publications [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, New Media, News

Stephen Fry’s English Delight

Posted May 28, 2012 By Digital Sextant

Series 1, 2, 3, and 4. Fry’s English Delight is a radio show produced and broadcast by BBC4 about the nature of the English language.  It’s fun and educational, perfect for word nerds like you and me.  I might be cheating to put it in my “Books I Read” category, but I think of it [… Read More]

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Filed in Audio, Books I Read, How things work, In the Stereo

Shorter and simpler?

Posted May 24, 2012 By Digital Sextant

From Lowering the Bar: Writing (or speaking) at a higher grade level is not a good thing, or at least not necessarily. What these particular numbers really measure (at least the Flesch-Kincaid test) is the complexity and length of sentences. It says nothing about how accurate or intelligent the sentences are, and all else being equal, the [… Read More]

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Filed in How things work, Politics, Writing Pedantry

Following 29k

Posted May 16, 2012 By Digital Sextant

I recently got a note from Twitter that I was now being followed by NateRiggs (hello, Nate!).  I join the rarefied field of28,963 people whom Mister Riggs follows.  Perhaps with his jedi powers, he’s actually able to monitor the feed that springs from 29,000 users, but I kinda doubt it.  Instead, this seems to me [… Read More]

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Filed in blogistry, How things work
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