A colleague reminded me of Wordle. I truly find it beautiful. Both in the elegance that the Java app works (cannot say that about all java apps!) and in the actual creation of the tool. So, without further ado, here is my Wordle based on current tags in my delicious account!
Driving home yesterday, I heard a story on NPR about the last mission to the Hubble Space Telescope. This mission is the last repair mission (and the first one in seven year, it seems) and the story told a bit about the repairs and how it will help the mighty instrument be even more “mightier”.
But what struck me the most was the part of the story about the astronauts also taking the feelings of the engineers and scientists with them on this last visit. The science team with Hubble have been working on it for decades. This last mission has to be a hard one to take – even though it was once cancelled completely.
The part of the story that stayed with me:
He notes that every astronaut who goes to Hubble leaves a mark on the observatory. “Even just putting your hand on the telescope affects the surface coating juts a little bit,” he says, “and so you can see handprints and things like that, and so it’s clear that people have been working on this telescope.”
Another astronaut who will do spacewalks and repair work on this mission, Mike Massimino, says he recently saw a good friend who has worked on the Hubble project for a long time. “He said, ‘Make sure, your last time on that telescope, you give it a pat for me,’ ” Massimino says.
So, he will give Hubble a special goodbye pat on behalf of all the people who have worked with it. “I hope that that’s going to be in my mind as I’m letting go of the telescope for the last time, my one last handshake with it,” Massimino says.
I do like having a connection with the techonlogy I use. The admins snickered at me but when I was finally allowed into the server room at school so I could see the electronic “box” where all of my online courses lived, it felt good to see it physically. Made it more real, I guess.
I recalled how I feel when I get or let go of a piece of technology. Especially something that I have used and loved for a long time (harder to do now, it seems, with the disposable nature of much of our tech)… Don’t have it yet with cell phones but I certainly loved my Mac SE (and my PowerMac 6100 and my PowerComputing clone and..well, you get the idea – don’t even get me started on my iMac!). I love my record player and my records. I have been digitizing cassettes for a year now and it is still so hard to put those cassettes into the trash or recycling bin..even though I have the music from them safely esconsced in electrons on two hard drives. Americans LOVE their cars..that qualifies. Chefs love their knives. I’m sure the list goes on.
What tech makes you feel?
Image: ‘I Love Tech Tshirt‘
www.flickr.com/photos/25528051@N06/3361211971
This is just darn cool technology and a great message to boot.
As I continue to look over the impressive technology and social media used for Earth Hour 2009, I found this part of the site. Print out a little graphic, point it to your webcam and BAM – you have the world in your hand.
I am intrigued to know how it works but also rather happy with just going with the whole “it’s magic” thing!
So, Facebook made some changes to their Terms of Service (TOS) and it caused a major uproar in the blogosphere, on the Twitterosphere (is that a word? Twitterspace? Twitterverse – I think that is what I have seen before.
Anyhoo – at first, I was like, all, Wha? They can just use my stuff? But, then I realized that I just put up exactly that….stuff. Silly photos, comments, and the occasional link or trivia game. Nothing that would awful to lose.
But, I will caution folks who use Facebook for marketing (and I have a talk on that this week to a PR group – time to edit my remarks!). And, I will think twice about what I am putting up there – as we all should.
I thought the comment from Adam Ostrow on Mashable was spot on – it probably won’t change the way we do stuff. But, we do need to remember that nothing on the internet is ever “totally gone”…nothing.
So, if you plan to run for President. Be careful and use an alias on Facebook!
Facebook Responds to Concerns Over Terms of Service
Chances are Facebook won’t abuse the privileges they are granted under their TOS. The backlash over doing something insane like using member photos without permission would be enormous and Facebook is smart enough not to do it. But as a user, it’s another reminder that what you do on the Internet is probably permanent, and much of it, probably outside your control.
Leave it to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to come up with another cool way to engage us in their research. I have always enjoyed their backyard bird studies that allow folks from all over the world to gather data from their own world and share it with the scientists at Cornell.
Now, they have CamClickr (missing a vowel, of course,so it must be cool!) which is done entirely online. This is a game-like environment that helps analyze their catalog of nest cameras. From the site:
Now we are enhancing this learning experience by introducing, CamClickr, a year-round citizen science project carried out completely online that allows cam viewers to “tag” and classify breeding behaviors from our archived images. CamClickr will help us answer questions that can only be answered using the cams while providing scientists with a tool to search and sort images once they are tagged. It’s fun, easy, and promises to change the way you think about breeding behavior! Try it for yourself and see if you can become the top CamClickr!
This is clearly engaging, really science and just kinda fun. The sorta thing I wish I had done when I worked in the informal science field.
Image: ‘The Navigator‘
www.flickr.com/photos/53991500@N00/53742127
I have totally been wowed by NASA’s use of social media to explain, explore, enthuse and otherwise entertain us with their mission to Mars via the Phoenix robot lander.
I followed the little guy in Twitter (over 38K followers!) which was great fun as we got information about the mission and what was being discovered.
He also was a guest blogger on Gizmodo, which some folks might have dismissed as a Wall-E kinda thing but I thought it was very clever and probably did a lot for science education. I mean, why not use the communication tools of today to share information and fascination with everybody in the way that they want to get it.
Really, really good stuff.
But, today was the Phoenix’ last blog entry and a farewell on Twitter made it pretty obvious:
As the robot shuts down and ends its work in the Mars winter. I will miss those little updates but I will also really consider how NASA made such good use of the technology available to spread their information wealth.
Phoenix Mars Lander: This is My Farewell Transmission From Mars
This TED talk is truly a techy-feely sensation.
This is pretty exciting stuff. MTV has finally gotten back to videos. Okay..not on broadcast but via the web. Oh boy, Oh boy…the videos that I used to stay up all night to watch (my brother and I had to find out if MTV was truly on 24 hours a day as they claimed. They were!)
Searching very quickly, I see the site will be a big time suck and I am looking forward to that. But, the video I remember the most is the one below. We used to recreate it all the time – I liked the graduation gown and cap part of the costume. And, I am currently reading Sting’s autobiography so it also seemed appropriate.
Today is Blog Action Day. Last year’s topic (Environment) seemed easier for me to find blogging ideas. This year, the topic is Poverty and it has been harder for me. But, then I remembered Nicholas Negroponte’s “Big Idea” from 2005 and thought I would remind my three readers about the One Laptop Per Child project.
The initial thought was to create a laptop for less than $100 that could be used around the world to put technology and access to information in the hands of children everywhere. This kind of access to information, education and communication certainly seems like a way to help developing countries’ populations learn and grow.
While the initial price of $100 was not met and Negroponte left the project, it did finally come into production. Last year and again this year (starting in November) you can also participate in the Buy One, Get One campaign. For about $400, you get one of the OLPC laptops and they will also send one to another country for a child to use. The laptops (now called the XO laptops) are pretty cool. Sturdy and colorful, easy graphic interface, internet capable.
David Pogue, of the New York Times, did a nice video review of them last year if you are interested in learning more about the technology of the device and he does a much better job than I ever could explaining what it can do (and he actually has one to show!):
Ready to Take Action?
If you are interested in participating in the OLPC this year, Amazon is doing the “sending”.
One Laptop per Child Foundation @ Amazon.com
And, if you are interested in working for change in driving out poverty locally, please consider donating to Community Shares, which is a federated fund for a variety of social justice, environmental, arts and other organizations working for a better world.
Or, if you want to have a more direct impact, you cannot beat Donors Choose (Teachers Ask, Donors Choose, Students Learn). There are several projects based in my state in high poverty schools.
