“Settings are for geeks”
As far back as I can remember, I’ve fiddled with the settings. Computers, lab instruments, routers, phones – a chief selling point was how much acce...
Category: The Narrative
Will Clinton push for university accountability for student loans?
This presidential election cycle will likely continue the growing discussion around higher-ed, loans, and student debt. I’ve been trying to parse out what...
Is OpenTrons the Makerbot of biotech? In some ways.
When I was a molecular biologist, folks used to ask me what I did. I used to say, “Squirt things into tubes and wait.” OpenTrons takes that drudgery...
I think it’s dead, Jim: When large companies kill small ones
I can think of many reasons a large company might buy a smaller one, only to kill them. For example: Perhaps it was a smaller competitor causing the larger comp...
Spam robot cut-up fiction
In one of my meanders through the web this weekend, I was reading about Jack Kerouac, which led to William S Burroughs, which led to Burroughs’ cut-up tec...
Ebola exposes chinks in our techno-optimistic armor
If you’re a bio-nerd like me, you’ve known about Ebola for a very long time. You knew it was trouble from the get-go and wondered how it would unfol...
Cow, goat, sheep, alpaca, camel, or buffalo? Which milk do you like?
I thoroughly enjoy making yogurt. But, of course, most yogurt is made of cow’s milk. I was able to find some goat and sheep milk yogurts in my local store...
Changes in Aetna’s online offerings: what the impact?
I find Aetna to be a leader in using online tools to increase member engagement in their health (with the interest to lower costs, of course). One interesting o...
Posting mobile photos like it’s 2005
I haven’t looked at my Lifeblog archive in a long time. Without the software, it’s just a deep tree of folders holding all sorts of media over many ...
What to do with so many layers of technological sediment?
Much to my wife’s frustration, I have a habit of holding on to old tech. So what’s in my basement? Computers A 1987 Mac II (16-bit 68020 chip!) with...