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Why You Should Care How I Learn: Eric Smalls at TEDxStanford

Eric Smalls is a sophomore at Stanford studying computer science. In 2012, President Barack Obama featured Smalls in a campaign video about the importance of...

Fermi

I’ve been meaning to post these links together for a while now, fascinating stuff!  

Where are all the aliens via Quartz

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” II: Questioning the Hart-Tipler Conjecture via Universe Today (Paul Patton)

Beyond “Fermi’s Paradox” I: A Lunchtime Conversation- Enrico Fermi and Extraterrestrial Intelligence via Universe Today (Paul Patton)

11 of the Weirdest Solutions to the Fermi Paradox via io9 (George Dvorsky) The 7 Least Plausible Solutions To The Fermi Paradox via io9 (George Dvorsky)

This Animated Explanation Of The Fermi Paradox Is Fantastic via io9 (George Dvorsky)

Where Are All The Aliens? This Short Video Offers Some Solutions via io9 (George Dvorsky) this is part two to the previous link

Side note...  George’s posts on io9 are awesome, if you like science, I definitely recommend you check them out!

update: The Surprisingly Obvious Way We Could Hunt for Alien Life

another update:

The Fermi Paradox

Bernie endorses Hillary:  Does this really matter?

The Democratic Party has moved left after Bernie Sanders’s run. The platform is proof.

Commentators downplaying the platform’s significance note that it has no actual enforcement mechanism, and that there’s no guarantee a President Hillary Clinton wouldn’t jettison most — or all — of its main provisions.

#InternationalWomensDay

There have been, and are, so many women that inspire me but this year on International Women’s Day I have to recognize my 4-H Leader, Mrs. Kay Peischel.   

When I was in 4th grade, I joined a 4-H club.  My chapter of “The Rosendale Happenings” started as a group of 4 and we met at least once a week for over 10 years.   We focused on sewing, cooking, public speaking, and volunteering. We learned so many valuable skills and had tons of fun.    

I loved my experiences in 4-H.   But these are not the only reasons why I chose Mrs. P. as the person I wanted to recognize on International Women’s Day...   Why? Because without Mrs. P.,  I would never have achieved my dream of becoming a teacher. 

Thanks Mrs. P., and Happy International Women’s Day!

Visit 4-H.org for more information about 4H and find out how to join or start a club.

This is why not everything we call awesome is actually awesome

How many times did you use the word awesome today? Five, ten, fifteen times? We use the word awesome so often and, most of the time, so incorrectly that the term has lost its original sense— maybe forever. Comedian Jill Shargaa explains why in this AWESOME TED talk.

Isaac Asimov on the Thrill of Lifelong Learning, Science vs. Religion, and the Role of Science Fiction in Advancing Society

Asimov then considers how computers would usher in this profound change in learning and paints the outline of a concept that Clay Shirky would detail and term “cognitive surplus” two decades later:

Future vision

“Negropodamus” disses Internet of Things, predicts knowledge pills,

just to give you a little background...  this guy...  founded the MIT MediaLab...  he also gave a talk at the very first TED conference with 5 predictions....  after you read the article, watch the video and be prepared to have your mind blown (keep in mind, he made these predictions in 1984!!!)....  Nigroponte is one of those tech visionaries..  like Kurzweil.... ('the singularity guy'...  actually, there's a lot more to the singularity than good old Ray)

some sites futurists check out...

physorg.com singularity hub kurzweilAI

Carl Sagan, Stephen Hawking and Arthur C. Clarke - God, The Universe and Everything Else (1988) [52:10]

Bummed I missed the first episode of the new Cosmos, but I'll catch it on Sunday!

A couple of clips from this excellent video, an hour well spent...   Big questions and Curiosity Science, Politics, and Skepticism Creativity

The Graphing Calculator Story

When His Project Was Canceled, an Unemployed Programmer Kept Sneaking Into Apple to Finish the Job   via Mental Floss

The Graphing Calculator Story by Ron Avitzur

Why did Greg and I do something so ludicrous as sneaking into an eight-billion-dollar corporation to do volunteer work? Apple was having financial troubles then, so we joked that we were volunteering for a nonprofit organization. In reality, our motivation was complex. Partly, the PowerPC was an awesome machine, and we wanted to show off what could be done with it; in the Spinal Tap idiom, we said, "OK, this one goes to eleven." Partly, we were thinking of the storytelling value. Partly, it was a macho computer guy thing - we had never shipped a million copies of software before. Mostly, Greg and I felt that creating quality educational software was a public service. We were doing it to help kids learn math. Public schools are too poor to buy software, so the most effective way to deliver it is to install it at the factory.

FTS wikis