It’s not looking good in the Golden State right now: According to the U.S. Drought Monitor (shown below), the entire state is currently experiencing at least “moderate drought,” with 95% […]
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What every middle-to-high schooler should know. Image credit: Bayside STEM academy, via Stanford at https://ed.stanford.edu/news/new-design-thinking-curriculum-targets-middle-school-students. “Education is an admirable thing, but it is well to remember from time to time […]
Not only are supercomputers able to perform research at a quicker pace than scientists, their processes offer a unique approach to culling information. Because of this, supercomputers are capable of making discoveries that scientists can’t.
Beyond the simple advice of “start putting more away,” optimizing when you start collecting social security can help you save more in the long run.
From 1974 through 1981, Haruki Murakami ran a jazz club in Tokyo, Japan, and wondered what direction his life would run. After long soul searching, his life ran in the […]
Many companies ramp up their hiring after September. Network early and often to get on hiring managers’ radars before they get going.
Will Self argues that crowdfunding is doomed. He says eventually the crowd will wise up that people are really just begging for money. His argument is based on someone who […]
While ambiguity and shades of gray tend not fit the paradigm of technological solutions, they represent the arts’ most powerful capabilities: to express life with all its complexities.
There’s plenty of gas, dust, planets and rocky bodies out there. Could some combination of them explain dark matter? Image credit: Chris Blake and Sam Moorfield, via http://www.sdss3.org/surveys/boss.php. “When a […]
An early feminist, Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888) is best known as the author of the classic American children’s novel, Little Women. The above quote is from her 1870 novel An Old-Fashioned […]
The concept of an Internet “troll” is puzzling, if you think about it. No non-digital troll relishes anonymity or sneakily provokes or harrasses others with snarky comments. Trolls in literature […]
Sleazy, ugly, and gross are all words that come to mind when the word sales comes up. The question is, why do we shy away from a process that is […]
In what is now known in online circles as “Black Friday,” the U.S. Department of Justice imposed a heavy crackdown on major online gambling sites on April 11, 2011. Since then, American online gamblers have gotten creative in how they bypass regulations.
Social networks have allowed billions of individuals to communicate and collaborate in a variety of ways while online technologies have helped business create frictionless purchases at the consumer and business-to-business levels.
Maxims often beat maximization. Much in life isn’t quantifiable, much less numerically maximizable. It’s unwise to ignore that evolution fitted us for maxims, not math, to manage life’s complexities. 1. […]
In a new book, two technologists paint a rosy portrait of our future, describing how cutting edge technology could benefit large industry–as long as humans don’t muck it up in the mean time, that is.
As I’ve said before, technology reduces uncertainty. It does this primarily by speeding up processes, making what used to take days, weeks, or months take hours or minutes. With new […]
Although Bitcoin holds an advantage in being the first and most popular cryptocurrency, other digital denominations are attempting to cut into the market.
Recent studies have found that eating unhealthy foods, especially those high in sugar and fat, contribute directly to the biological and emotional states associated with depression.
Evernote has gone old-fashioned, creating a sister company called Evernote Market that sells physical goods like office supplies, new technology hardware, and technology accessories.
We humans like to think we’re pretty smart, that our intellect makes us special, that with enough careful thinking we can figure out just about anything. Cognitive science research has […]
3.4 million people die each year from water-related diseases 99% of which occur in the developing world. To put things in more perspective, lack of access to clean water and sanitation […]
Wences Casares is one of the most remarkable technology entrepreneurs of the past 20 years. The son of a Patagonian sheep farmer, Casares has founded and sold several major startups […]
“For over 200 years the world has been set on fire by a revolutionary message. The message is that every individual human being is divine. That all of us despite […]
While money can’t ultimately buy happiness, it does provide us with little bursts of good feeling, and the duration of that good feeling can vary depending on what kind of purchases we make.
Life is full of next steps. In the academic literature, these things would be called “second order effects”. But, in real life, they’re called consequences (or unintended consequences). Each of […]
A study completed at Cornell University found that adults who don’t eat breakfast tend not to overcompensate by eating larger or unhealthier meals during the day.
Probably the most recognisable map from the latter half of the 20th century – if you like tv westerns.
At the end of the day, the to-do list becomes a record of things you didn’t accomplish: not a great reward for a long day’s slog.