Technology and society

Hackers, Makers, and Local Shops

Submitted by lishevita on Thu, 04/26/2012 - 00:57

I just got back home from a nice walk in downtown Berkeley. While I was out, I popped into a little shop called A Priori on Vine street between Shattuck and Walnut. While I was in there, I had a really nice chat with Amy, the manager. The conversation left me both a little bit sad and a lot a bit excited, though.

category: 
Marketing
Technology and society
Tags: 
hackers and makers
buy local
act local

BrainMeats! Episode 3: Brains on Distribution

Submitted by lishevita on Mon, 03/19/2012 - 11:49

Download the episode in ogg format or mp3 format.

At last! Episode 3 of the BrainMeats! Podcast is here!! I apologize for the delay, but I intend to make it up to you by bringing you two episodes in the month of April. In fact, we have a recording session set for this morning, about 7 1/2 hours from now, for a future episode.

Tags: 
podcast
brainmeats
hacker spaces
maker spaces
making
community
music
movies
manufacturing

Why mobile reference apps shouldn't be cloud-based

Submitted by lishevita on Sat, 06/11/2011 - 09:19

There are a great many applications coming out these days that are a type of reference book replacement and are designed so that you have to be connected to the Internet in order to use them. If you want access to information, you had better be connected to the magical cloud. I have a big problem with that, and no one I've worked with in recent years seems to understand why. Apparently, the digital elite think that everyone has constant access to the Internet, and therefore, there is no need to produce applications that have everything needed packaged in local storage.

category: 
Technology and society
Tags: 
iOS
android
mobile
application development

Android in the dark

Submitted by lishevita on Wed, 11/25/2009 - 04:37

I was supposed to call someone yesterday, but I didn't get around to it. I figured I'd get to it this morning, but I didn't manage that, either. At last I had a few moments to breathe as I sat down on the train to Tel Aviv. I looked at my phone and realized that I was almost out of battery. Deciding that it wasn't a good idea to use the last of the battery on a phone call that might not last long enough to say anything important, I thought I should send an sms instead. Short, quick, and interruptionless.

But then I stopped myself.

category: 
Technology and society
Tags: 
accessibility
for the blind
android
touch screens
mobile phones

Fantastic Online Fiction

Submitted by lishevita on Mon, 11/09/2009 - 14:15

Once upon a time, if you wanted to read a book or a short story by one of your favorite authors, you either had to borrow the book from a library or a friend or else you had to go buy it in a store. The key in any of those options is that you had to be physically in the same place as the book. If you lived in a country where that book hadn't yet been published, you may never get to see it. If the book had gone out of print, it might be very difficult to find a copy of the book. These days, you can read out of print books as well as numerous new works by great authors online.

category: 
Technology and society
Random things
Tags: 
publishing
book review

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