Layering It On ". . . 3-D printers are the best thing to come out of the labs in a long time because they allow for the manipulation of reality instead of virtual space. And although they sound downright magical, they work just as it seems they might. Someone designs an object — a cookie [...]
Light Brain Breaks Entertainment snacking is the practice of playing casual electronic games for limited periods of times during a day. “Why do smart people love seemingly mindless games? Angry Birds is one of the latest to join the pantheon of ‘casual games’ that have appealed to a mass audience with a blend of addictive [...]
Keep Out of My Data Walled garden -- website content that a company collects and maintains but is not accessible to search by other companies. “Another cause for concern [for Google] is that firms such as Facebook and Apple are hoarding customer data, thereby making them inaccessible to Google’s search engine. The rise of such ‘walled [...]
Focus on Resources “Rare minerals. Food and water. Arable soil. Air-cleansing forests. In the intellectual heart of the American military and policy-making world, these are emerging not just as environmental issues, but as the potential stuff of conflict in the 21st century. In some ways, the role of resources in shaping conflict is nothing new. [...]
Help with Your Food Garden “… James Lucal in Seattle … not only brings home the local produce, he got a local to grow it for him directly outside his home. And yet he spent almost nothing for this luxury, and lifted not so much as a trowel to make it happen. Welcome to ‘urban [...]
It's a Guy Thing “[G]uys who want to lug around their iPads are finding themselves quietly reaching for a so-called man purse, or murse. The iPad-shaped bags seem to be the gadgetphile’s equivalent of a woman’s clutch. Scott Stein, a senior associate editor at CNET who lives in New York City, has reviewed iPad bags [...]
Financing from Strangers “When recent college graduate Bronson Chang wanted to renovate his uncle’s candy shop in Honolulu, he decided to tap his social network for the funds via a ‘crowdfunding’ website, instead of seeking a loan at a bank. Crowdfunding sites—such as ProFounder.com, Peerbackers.com, Kickstarter.com and IndieGoGo.com—allow entrepreneurs to raise money collectively toward a [...]
African Wars Restrict U.S. Retailers “Top U.S. retailers including Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Target Corp. are battling to limit a new federal law that could force them to report whether their store-brand goods contain minerals from war-torn Central Africa. The requirement, part of the Dodd-Frank financial law passed in July, aims to pressure companies to [...]
Scary Web Bits “[There is] … a growing phenomenon making its way around message boards and e-mail chains called ‘creepypasta’ — bite-sized bits of scariness that have joined the unending list of things-to-do-when-you’re-bored-at-work. … . creepypasta vary widely. One … “The Russian Sleep Experiment,” is a short story about Russian prisoners who are forcibly deprived [...]
Ideas Worth Spreading “TED” is an acronym for “Technology, Entertainment, Design.” [From the TED website - http//www.ted.com/ ]: “TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with [...]