From the category archives:

Culture

Yesterday I Totally Microwaved a Lecture

January 29, 2010

The inventors of the microwave thought their device would be used for cooking whole meals from scratch. It never really was, but users found out that it reheated food pretty well, saving the appliance from the graveyard of failed inventions.
Yesterday, rendered immobile by back pain, I Skyped in to listen to a 3 hour lecture [...]

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Flashback to War Times

January 25, 2010

My mom found this newspaper recently. The date? September 8th, 1943. Italy had just quit WW2. But what is fascinating is the extent to which the war dominated the discourse. Through the newspaper there is virtually nothing that isn’t related to it somehow. Articles, war bonds, movies, comics, cigarettes, classifieds (remember those?): everything tied in [...]

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Phone Power

January 3, 2010

A powerful, reoccuring theme for me recently recently has been the growing importance of mobile technology. This is as profound a shift in many parts of the developing world as it is in the richer nations. Mobile adoption in Sub-Saharan Africa is ocurring at staggering rates. The International Telecommunications Union puts out a report each [...]

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Back to Blogotheque for Authentic Music

December 30, 2009

I was wondering when I’d get back into the groove on Cashewman. It’s the first break I’ve taken in almost a year. A break was needed. And a break was had. More on that later.
But what compelled me to post today? This Blogoteque edition of Phoenix’s Litzomania:

I’ve long loved Blogotheque. I wrote awhile ago about [...]

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Shot of the Day: The Rice Machine

December 11, 2009

Technology development and teting can be messy. But usually pretty fun stuff. Here we were trying to build a portable rice dehuller to process local rice in smaller villages, back in 2006 in Senegal. I was working with EnterpriseWorks, an organization that is particularly good at this type of thing. The idea was that entrepreneurs [...]

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‘We need to educate them on…’

December 1, 2009

I’ve heard this used more than a few times.
I’ve heard it in development: ‘We just need to educate them on the benefits of clean water, then they’ll buy our pumps.’ ‘If only they’d understand how immunizations can help them be healthier, they’ll come in and get them.’
I’ve heard it in marketing: ‘We have a killer [...]

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Big Picture: Eid al-Adha and the Hajj

November 28, 2009

It’s been a couple months since I’ve posted about the Big Picture from the Boston Globe. Now’s a good time.
They have a fantastic series on Eid al-Adha and the Hajj, the annual pilgrimmage of muslims to Mecca.
I’ve long been fascinated by the Hajj, even beyond its meaning to muslims. I think it’s the level of [...]

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Shot of the Day: Optometrist Parties

November 20, 2009

In Italy? Want to buy reading glasses at 12:30 am? No problem. You’re in Italy, after all.
I love that they take the trouble to close at 8 and reopen at 10 pm.
B
(Shot from Sardinia in July. More, and far better pictures from that in draft…)
Check out more: Travel - Culture - Shots of the Day
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Shot of the Day: Lost Purpose

November 19, 2009

B
(Shot: Cambridge, 2007)
       

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Lego Language

November 10, 2009

There are some posts that just make you write your own. Such is the case with Giles Turnbull’s recent piece on Lego terminology.
Every family, it seems, has its own set of words for describing particular Lego pieces. No one uses the official names. “Dad, please could you pass me that Brick 2×2?” No. In our [...]

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