joel's thoughts

Here’s a post I’d half-written back in May. Thought I’d at least get it off my figurative desk… In one of my first posts, I pointed out an article by Todd Oppenheimer in the San Francisco Chronicle about the drive to put computers in classrooms, and the possible negative effects of that drive. And while […]

MSNBC had an article up today called “What’s to blame for the rise in ADHD?” It talks about a recent study that draws a possible link between the increase in ADHD and the changes in children’s TV programming over the past decade or two. Naturally, it waits to give the opposing viewpoints until later in […]

Back in the 30’s, Bugatti made some of the finest, super-high-class performance touring and race cars. Ettore Bugatti died in ’47, and for some strange reason in postwar France, the company didn’t find the economy conducive to building high-end sports cars and was forced to shut down. A little more recently, back in ’98, Volkswagen […]

There’ve been a few things lately that I’ve thought I should get around to posting, and I still may, but right now I wanted to let you know that Andi’s just posted something you really should read. Yes, I mean now. Go.

Back in October the Washingon Post had an article about some researchers at Duke University working with monkeys and a robot arm. Essentally they implanted wires in the monkeys’ heads that let a computer record some brain signals. Then they let the monkeys play with a joystick that controls a robot arm in a full […]

So here’s the thing that made me finally get off my duff and start posting something. Found this opinion piece in the San Francisco Chronicle (via this post on Slashdot) questioning the wisdom of schools nationwide spending boatloads of cash on putting computers in classrooms while simultaneously laying off teachers and closing school libraries. Ever […]