What’s the big deal with SOPA & PIPA, you ask?

Here’s the big deal.

Do something about it.

So what kind of camera do you have? How fast can it shoot? 1/4000th of a second? 1/8000th of a second? Pshaw. What do you think of a camera that can shoot 1/1,000,000,000,000th of a second? That’s so fast that it can capture light traveling in slow motion!

MIT researchers have created a new imaging system that can acquire visual data at a rate of one trillion exposures per second. That’s fast enough to produce a slow-motion video of a burst of light traveling the length of a one-liter bottle, bouncing off the cap and reflecting back to the bottle’s bottom.

via MITnews

(image from GETTY)

Thank you, Steve, for being a pioneer in marrying design and technology.

via CNN

Considering that Apple is a company that feeds off of the singular vision of its CEO, I’m very curious to see what the new CEO, Tim Cook, has in store.

Thanks for the head’s up, Tom!

Dirty Jobs creator/host Mike Rowe testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation recently on the widening skilled labor gap in the United States.

A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn’t a lack of funds. It wasn’t a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.

In general, we’re surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn’t be. We’ve pretty much guaranteed it.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn’t encourage people to pick up a shovel.

In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber — if you can find one — is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.

I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they’re in short supply because we don’t acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.

When Rowe spoke of his grandfather, I couldn’t help but think of my own dad and his preternatural ability to figure out all things mechanical. I do agree with Rowe’s point that we, as a society, have greatly undervalued skilled labor.

I can imagine that in a few generations, all we’ll have in the U.S. is middle management. It’ll be like a large rowboat with 10 guys w/bullhorns shouting at the 1 guy doing the actual rowing.

via Discovery Channel via BoingBoing

Vi Hart is my hero. This is how you make math fun to learn.

Her YouTube videos went viral and now she is being featured in the New York Times.

Bravo, Vi… Bravo.

via Vi Hart

Quest to Learn has the right idea, in my opinion. We’re inundated with technology everyday. Why not adapt that to create a fun learning environment for kids? Stepping back a bit, what really stands out to me is how this school uses practical application in its teaching methods. That reminds me of my time at Cal Poly SLO, where the motto is “Learn by doing.” All the lab-time is where the real learning is done.

I also love their “grading” system. Instead of getting the traditional letter grades of A through F, you “level-up” (“pre-novice,” “novice,” “apprentice,” “senior” and “master.”). Considering those titles are more applicable to real-life jobs and skills, I feel that this reinforces hard work and effort. Would you rather be presented with a letter grade at every milestone, or would you rather earn “experience points” that lead to the next level of mastership? Think of the difference in impact of being handed an “F” and being told to redo an assignment vs. earning a subset of points that eventually lead to the next level?

I really think this school is on to something and I hope to see more innovation like this.

via Quest to Learn via BoingBoing

This is an amazing collection of color photographs taken during the Great Depression prior to World War II.

From The Denver Post:

These images, by photographers of the Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information, are some of the only color photographs taken of the effects of the Depression on America’s rural and small town populations. The photographs are the property of the Library of Congress and were included in a 2006 exhibit Bound for Glory: America in Color.

Great find, James!

via The Denver Post

In Afghanistan from 2006 to 2008, there were 461 attacks on schools for girls, and in 2008, 15 girls were attacked with battery acid on their way to school.
~
Koba, 22, has been teaching for two years. She was the only teacher who allowed the photographer to take her picture. (Other teachers feared reprisal if their families found out they’d been photographed.)

via Cellar – Image of the Day via Newsweek

Facebook’s privacy settings are a confusing mess of bantha poodoo. Luckily, ReclaimPrivacy.org has a handy bookmarklet that rates your privacy levels on Facebook. Simply:

1. Go to their website
2. Drag the bookmarklet to your browser bookmarks bar
3. Log into Facebook
4. Click on that bookmarklet you just saved

You can see my results in the screenshot above (yay!).

via ReclaimPrivacy.org via Lifehacker