Random Thoughts

Windows 8 will be the biggest thing in the world of Windows since Windows 95.   That is my prediction based on months of using it in virtualization and now natively on my convertible tablet PC.  In short it is a marked improvement over Windows 7.   The metro application framework, I predict, will lead to the old desktop paradigm being obsolete in the next  5 years.    (Other operating systems are moving towards this too.  Mandriva Linux and it's  ROSA desktop are a step in the same direction.)  I am probably biased in my assessment by having owned…

Part I listed often-overlooked things that when taken along make your trip comfortable, safe, and productive. Part II looks at tasks you’ll find helpful to do before leaving for the airport. As before, I do not get kickbacks from any products mentioned. Twelve to 24 hours before departing for places exotic: Upload your trip documents (plane, hotel) to TripIt.com. There is a security risk in letting LinkedIn colleagues know where you’re going (TripIt is tied to LinkedIn) – you never know who they’ll tell – but TripIt does automatically inform family and co-workers who need to know where you…

MIT physicist Cesar Hidalgo is experimenting with a new television program that gets scientists talking about their research and the wonders of discovery. He's not really like Jon Stewart, much more like TED, but his vision is to make the physical sciences accessible and exciting to the general public. Season two is on its way. The article featuring the show appeared in the New York Times 1/09/12. In October, with support from two Media Laboratory videographers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Paula Aguilera and Jonathan Williams, Dr. Hidalgo began posting online a series of…

Courses, speeches, and client meetings take me to faraway places, sometimes on short notice. Here are some hard-won tips about this kind of traveling. Google "packing lists" to find advice on how to fill your suitcase. I won't go there. Instead, this entry, Part I, lists only essential items you might not think of. Part II will focus on trip prep – tasks to do before leaving home. Preliminary note #1: Sometimes the destinations are places with high crime and/or extreme climate. Preliminary note #2: This list is just from the goodness of my heart (!). I don't know whether the vendors have…

Many in the autism community have already heard of the horrifying story of the young autistic boy being confined in a bag (the mother calls it a gym bag in this video). Lydia Brown, of Autistic Hoya, immediately acted, setting up a petition on Change.org that has nearly 150,000 signatures, a facebook page, and speaking to the media about this case. We send our children to school in the hopes that they will be well-cared for, respected, and not abused, but too many of our children are abused, are bullied, are mistreated. And  yet, in covering previous restraint issues like a Florida…

Some thoughts from G.K.Chesterton, with tomorrow in view: “But I say that whatever the day is that is to you festive or symbolic, it is essential that there should be a quite clear black line between it and the time going before. And all the old wholesome customs in connection with Christmas were to the effect that one should not touch or see or know or speak of something before the actual coming of Christmas Day. Thus, for instance, children were never given their presents until the actual coming of the appointed hour. The presents were kept tied up in brown-paper parcels, out of which an…

Christmas is one week away, and so here, for all Science 2.0 readers, is a picture of variegated Holly (Ilex aquifolium).  I took it on the 10th of December this year, just as the weather was turning cold. The full-size picture is 1632 x 1224, and if you want to download it and use it in your Christmas graphics, it’s yours to copy.

It's two weeks until Christmas and if you are a Science 2.0 reader, that means it is at least time to think about shopping for a Christmas gift.  Demographically, not a lot of you were lining up to gratefully overpay for Apple's latest offering or whatever else obedient Oprah viewers are expected to buy on Black Friday. Here are three nifty ideas that are science related for your consideration, in three age ranges.  If you just like gadgets you can check out the Top Gadgets of 2011 instead. For The Young  If you have a little experimentalist in the house, Time For Kids has the…

The pressure that's squeezed me for months has loosened. It had gotten progressively stronger, more forceful, wringing me exhausted even before the morning started. It's loosened, but it's not gone, and I know that it won't ever fully leave. I will get periodic reprieves, opportunities to rest, and I must make the most of those moments so that I am girded and ready when the pressure tightens again. I am not unique, not even extraordinary. I am a mother, a wife, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a teacher, a  friend, and so I am pressured. Each and every day, as I expand my heart…

You know you are culturally hip when magazines want to do their photo shoots with you in them - the poor Tea Party folks clearly have to get some representation in midtown Manhattan if they want to get haute couture coverage. Until then, Occupy Wall Street is the cool place to be solely for well-heeled fashionistas.  Kanye West looked silly showing up in a $300 shirt and gold chains to show he was not part of the 1%, even though his net worth is $400 million dollars.   His problem was he was too humble - if you want to go full on into progressive acceptance you have to shamelessly…