In case you need a reminder about the glacial pace of innovation in #highered, here’s a news story that some professors are learning to use Wikipedia. Wait, what? This article should have appeared in 2006. Indeed, it is wonderful to read about enlightened faculty, such as Duke’s Susan Alberts, a biology professor who told Washington Post reporter […]
Nah, i’m not going to return the Apple watch. Here’s why.
June 28, 2015 by
I bought it with the dream of walking on the beach and listening to audiobooks. Well, it can’t do that. So I really thought about returning my now two-week-old Apple watch. But on balance, I have decided that its other tricks are sufficiently entertaining. And besides, it’s summer, and I enjoy having a lightweight replacement […]
The truth about Apple and audiobooks
June 23, 2015 by
This story does not (yet) end happily. I knew I’d buy an Apple watch…but my rationalization was that it would consolidate my other wearables for audiobooks and fitness. For books, I’d buy the watch so I could finally give up my ancient and beloved Apple Nano, which I had already replaced several times on Ebay. […]
Turns out, I’m addicted to Chrome. #needintervention
February 15, 2015 by
I did have a quick rebound relationship with Firefox. (Got to change this analogy, it’s kinda creepy, I agree.) But it turns out that my iPad is more important than I realized. If I made a piechart of my online usage, i’d now say that iPad/computer is about 50/50. And I”m hooked on integration with […]
But-but-but Firefox is helpless on iPads. What now?
February 14, 2015 by
Turns out that Eric Limer and I must have been having the same Chrome moment. (thanks, Carie, for pointing this out!). As he put it on Gizmodo just this week, F* it, I’m going back to Firefox. And that great graphic, see above! But he is entirely happy with his switch, while I’m still hung […]
Chrome cost me a week of productivity. Firefox, anyone?
February 13, 2015 by
Chrome kept crashing. It has been a few months since the “Snap” message made me smile with indulgent amusement. I was not amused. I deleted, re-installed: same thing. So when a message popped up that my flash settings were outmoded, or something, I figured, hey! maybe the crashes are due to that. As soon as […]
Dead malls would make great tech incubators.
January 8, 2015 by
There have been a spate of articles lately about dead shopping malls. Here’s one from Green Acres. I’m a little too old to have been a teenage mall rat. For me, the Nanuet Mall will always be the monster that ate the cute little town of Spring Valley, New York, where teenage me admired the […]
Top 10 things to listen while beach walking and you don’t have a great audiobook* This is the summer of Swell.
July 3, 2014 by
I usually listen to audiobooks while walking in solitary happiness on the beaches of Fire Island. Look — i took this picture this morning, isn’t it beautiful? So far this summer, I’ve finished Emma, Decode, and The Fault in Our Stars. (Go ahead, analyze me.) But I needed a break after that remarkable trio. […]
Five things I learned from Red Burns
November 3, 2013 by
1. Nobody Knows. As in, where is technology going? Since nobody knows, keep asking questions, keep experimenting, keep moving in the same step-by-step direction known to all good entrepreneurs. The solutions — rarely obvious — will emerge. 2. Technology doesn’t matter, people do. Technology is always in service of human needs, like services for the disabled. […]
Reconstituting the Ivy League in the 21st century? Nice shoutout to Fathom from Tamar Lewin @NYT. #highered
May 3, 2012 by
Today’s NYT coverage of the Harvard/MIT announcement. I am remembering a 2001 0r 2002 interview with a Yale student newspaper on whether Fathom was a success or failure. What year are you in? I asked the young woman. If you had left college as a first-year student, would we call you a failure, or would […]