Wired Science has a post about a newly found Earth-sized planet around our closest star system neighbor: The Alpha Centauri system — composed of three stars orbiting one another — is only 4.4 light-years away, a cosmic stone’s throw from us. Though the newly discovered planet has about the same mass as our own, its…
According to Trends in Global Higher Education (PDF), we should pay attention to globalization, massification, Globalization is an interesting trend. As a college student, I enjoyed hanging out with international students and as an employer of student workers, half were international students. Exposure to different cultures, meaning values and perspectives and rituals and (the best) food was…
Last week I finished the Power Searching With Google MOOC. A month ago a coworker pointed out Google now offers the software used by this MOOC. As a Desire2Learn database and application administrator, I was curious. So I signed up. And actually finished! On my emotional high, I signed up for Current/Future State of Education shortly before…
This talk reminds me of The Cluetrain Manifesto. Attempting to control the message, aka the brand, backfires. Employees doing good things builds the brand. It is especially the small things that count. Therefore, empowering employees to do good, altruistic things is really good for the brand. And those things may not even have to be…
Study broadly and without fear. Learn a language if you can, because that will make your life more interesting. Read a little bit each day. But most importantly, try to surround yourself with people you like and make cool stuff with them. In the end, what you do isn’t going to be nearly as interesting…
Michael Feldstein posted on Twitter: Seeing signs that Google Analytics significantly undercounts. Any recommendation for easy, reliable db-based WordPress analytics? I knew Google Analytics relies on JavaScript to measure what users are doing. Bots typically do not execute JS, so go undercounted. That is OK, probably even great depending on how much they annoy me.…
Today is the 274th day or third-quarter of the year, so where am I with those goals? Reading goals should be at 75%: Complete unfinished novel series. 21.6 of 28 done or 77%. So slightly ahead. American History and Decision Making. 7.5 of 10 done or 75%. Should be 7.5. Science. 10 of 13 done or 76%. So slightly ahead.…
“The brain abhors a vacuum. Under the best of observation conditions, we only detect encode and store in our brains bits and pieces of an experience.” The brain fills in the rest. We are worse at guessing the details than we usually think. And jurors trust eyewitness testimony more than most other facts. If the video…