MITx launches — new model for post-secondary learning?

December 22, 2011

We get press releases in the e-mail:

MIT launches online learning initiative

MIT launches online learning initiative

‘MITx‘ will offer courses online and make online learning tools freely available.

December 19, 2011

Share

MIT today announced the launch of an online learning initiative internally called “MITx.” MITx will offer a portfolio of MIT courses through an online interactive learning platform that will:

  • organize and present course material to enable students to learn at their own pace
  • feature interactivity, online laboratories and student-to-student communication
  • allow for the individual assessment of any student’s work and allow students who demonstrate their mastery of subjects to earn a certificate of completion awarded by MITx
  • operate on an open-source, scalable software infrastructure in order to make it continuously improving and readily available to other educational institutions.

MIT expects that this learning platform will enhance the educational experience of its on-campus students, offering them online tools that supplement and enrich their classroom and laboratory experiences. MIT also expects that MITx will eventually host a virtual community of millions of learners around the world.

MIT will couple online learning with research on learning

MIT’s online learning initiative is led by MIT Provost L. Rafael Reif, and its development will be coupled with an MIT-wide research initiative on online teaching and learning under his leadership.

“Students worldwide are increasingly supplementing their classroom education with a variety of online tools,” Reif said. “Many members of the MIT faculty have been experimenting with integrating online tools into the campus education. We will facilitate those efforts, many of which will lead to novel learning technologies that offer the best possible online educational experience to non-residential learners. Both parts of this new initiative are extremely important to the future of high-quality, affordable, accessible education.”

Offering interactive MIT courses online to learners around the world builds upon MIT’s OpenCourseWare, a free online publication of nearly all of MIT’s undergraduate and graduate course materials. Now in its 10th year, OpenCourseWare includes nearly 2,100 MIT courses and has been used by more than 100 million people.

MIT President Susan Hockfield said, “MIT has long believed that anyone in the world with the motivation and ability to engage MIT coursework should have the opportunity to attain the best MIT-based educational experience that Internet technology enables. OpenCourseWare’s great success signals high demand for MIT’s course content and propels us to advance beyond making content available. MIT now aspires to develop new approaches to online teaching.”

OCW will continue to share course materials from across the MIT curriculum, free of charge.

MITx online learning tools to be freely available

MIT will make the MITx open learning software available free of cost, so that others — whether other universities or different educational institutions, such as K-12 school systems — can leverage the same software for their online education offerings.

“Creating an open learning infrastructure will enable other communities of developers to contribute to it, thereby making it self-sustaining,” said Anant Agarwal, an MIT professor of electrical engineering and computer science and director of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). “An open infrastructure will facilitate research on learning technologies and also enable learning content to be easily portable to other educational platforms that will develop. In this way the infrastructure will improve continuously as it is used and adapted.” Agarwal is leading the development of the open platform.

President Hockfield called this “a transformative initiative for MIT and for online learning worldwide. On our residential campus, the heart of MIT, students and faculty are already integrating on-campus and online learning, but the MITx initiative will greatly accelerate that effort. It will also bring new energy to our longstanding effort to educate millions of able learners across the United States and around the world. And in offering an open-source technological platform to other educational institutions everywhere, we hope that teachers and students the world over will together create learning opportunities that break barriers to education everywhere.”

Read frequently asked questions about MITx

Tip of the old scrub brush to James Darrell.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Higher education, On-line education, On-line learning, Technology, Technology in the classroom | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Economics videos to accompany your class

October 31, 2011

Mary McGlasson at Chandler-Gilbert Community College in Phoenix, Arizona, has created a series of more than 30 YouTube videos explaining basic economics.  Like this one:

Econ teachers, can you use these on your class websites?  What do you think?

1 Comment | Economics, Education, Technology, Technology in the classroom, Video and film | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A cure for the ills caused by air pollution: Vitamin D in milk

October 29, 2011

Air pollution texts often made the note, but I’ve not seen it talked about much recently:  Air pollution in the U.S. (and England) was so bad in the first years of the 20th century that it actually shut out the sun, and an epidemic of rickets followed.

FSA photo of child in Jefferson, Texas, with rickets - Library of Congress

Child with rickets, son of relief client near Jefferson, Texas. This child has never talked though he is two years old. He has never received any medical attention. Lee, Russell, 1903-1986, photographer. CREATED/PUBLISHED 1939 Mar. More information about the FSA/OWI Collection is available at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/pp.fsaowi; CALL NUMBER LC-USF34- 032719-D REPRODUCTION NUMBER LC-USF34-032719-D DLC (b&w film neg.)

Public health officials, clever devils, discovered a form of vitamin D that prevented rickets.  It turns out that humans manufacture vitamin D from cholesterol, using ultraviolet B from the sun.  So, when the sun was smokily eclipsed, rickets proliferated.

In an era when technical and legal tools were inadequate to clean up the air pollution, physicians, nutritionists and researchers struck on the idea of supplementing food with vitamin D — and that is how we come to have vitamin D-fortified milk today, and a lot less rickets.

I was happy to find a publication at the National Institutes of Health that relates this history, at least in part, “Solar Ultraviolet Radiation and Vitamin D:  A Historical Perspective,” by Kumaravel Rajakumar, MD, Susan L. Greenspan, MD, Stephen B. Thomas, PhD, and Michael F. Holick, MD, PhD, in American Journal of Public Health, October 2007, Vol 97, No. 10.

At the dawn of the 20th century, the expansive industrialization and urban migration in the major cities of western Europe and the northern United States set the stage for the high prevalence of rickets among infants residing in those polluted and “sunless” cities. Overcrowded living conditions in the big-city slums and tenements and the sunlight deprivation precipitated by atmospheric pollution from smoke and smog were responsible for a rickets epidemic.  Increased ozone concentration from industrial pollution and the haze and clouds from atmospheric pollution compromise vitamin D production by absorbing the UV-B photons essential for its synthesis.

*          *          *          *          *

Edwards Park states, “But for rickets vitamin D would not have been discovered. Its discovery was the secret to rickets; its use is essentially the therapy of that disease.” The discovery of vitamin D led to the eradication of the epidemic rickets of the early 20th century. Pioneering advances were made in the understanding of vitamin D and rickets from 1915 to 1935. The discovery of the synthesis of vitamin D by the irradiation of foods was the “jewel in the crown” of vitamin D discoveries. This discovery was a catalyst for the public health triumph against rickets. It became feasible to fortify and enrich milk and other foods with vitamin D to ensure that the general population was likely to consume sufficient vitamin D.

It’s a good article with detailed history of rickets, the search to find what turned out to be vitamin D, and the use of nutritional supplements to eradicate a nasty, crippling disease in children.  Happy to see it online.

Some of our greatest triumphs in science, technology and public health are too little known.  I am working on the history of technology and science, and particularly its wedding with social progressivism in the Progressive Age, part of a project I was fortunate to stumble into in the Dallas Independent School District funded by a Teaching American History Grant from the U.S. Department of Education.  Sadly, Republicans in Congress insisted on cutting those grants to improve teaching with greater emphasis on original sources and original documents.

More Americans, more American school kids, should know about the triumphs of public health and science.  Maybe highlighting some of those advances here can help another teacher somewhere else.

 

7 Comments | Disease, Gilded Age, Great Depression, Health care, History, History images, History of Science, Industrial Revolution, Science, Teaching American History Grant, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Bright idea day, October 21 – Edison’s demonstration of the light bulb

October 21, 2011

GE cartoon on Edison's light bulb, by Maki Naro

Cartoon by Maki Naro, for GE - Click for larger image

GE’s release said:

Perhaps there should be a bumper sticker: “If you love doing stuff at night without a kerosene lantern, thank Edison.” Okay, it doesn’t roll trippingly off the tongue. Still, today is the anniversary of Thomas Edison’s 13-and-a-half-hour test of the carbon filament lightbulb that made electric light a practical reality for the world. As we’ve discussed before, Edison was one of many inventors of the lightbulb, but his designs proved to be transformative for the technology. Maki Naro marked the occasion with a short comic (replete with Alexander Graham Bell, who’s hoppin’ mad).

Too commercial for classroom use?  Not with proper attribution, I think.

Meanwhile, earlier at the Bathtub:

5 Comments | History, Invention, Science, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Typewriter of the moment: Walter Cronkite

October 9, 2011

Walter Cronkite at his office typewriter:

Walter Cronkite at his typewriter, in his office

Walter Cronkite at his typewriter, in his office - from The Typewriter blog

Pipe rack to his left, on the shelf above; full set of the Encyclopedia Britannica to his right (probably a 1960s set); A lot of books, some dealing with space exploration, among his favorite topics; models of the X-15 and early versions of the Space Shuttle; award from the Boy Scouts to his right, where he can see it easily.

When was this photo taken?  1970s?  Earlier?  Maybe someone who follows Dixie Cups could date the cup to Cronkite’s left.

This is probably the same office, redecorated, and stripped down to move – and with a different typewriter (a Smith-Corona electric?):

Walter Cronkite in his office just before his final newscast, 1981; SF Chronicle "file photo"

Caption from the San Francisco Chronicle website: "In this March 6, 1981 file photo, Walter Cronkite talks on the phone at his office, prior to his final newscast as CBS anchorman in New York City. Behind him is a framed Mickey Mouse cartoon and his Emmy award. Famed CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite, known as the 'most trusted man in America' has died, Friday, July 17, 2009. He was 92."

Leave a Comment » | History, Journalism, News, Technology, Television, Typewriters | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Typewriter of the moment: William Saroyan (again)

September 28, 2011

On the 30th anniversary of the death of William Saroyan, we repeat an earlier post on his typewriter:

William Saroyan's typewriter, photo from the Bancroft Library, University of Caliornia - Berkeley

William Saroyan's typewriter, displayed at the Saroyan Museum at his home in San Francisco - photo from the Bancroft Library, University of California; Berkeley

William Saroyan’s niece, Jacqueline Kazarian, recently gifted the Bancroft Library with a significant part of the archives of Saroyan’s work. The press release on the gift included a photo of Saroyan’s Fox typewriter, which is displayed at the Saroyan museum in San Francisco.

Saroyan came from an Armenian American family, born in Fresno, California in 1908. His writings illuminated the experience of Californians and Armenian Americans, especially during the Great Depression.

In many ways Saroyan’s work symbolizes the uniqueness of the Armenian community in America, especially California. [You still out there, Ben Davidian?] Wikipedia strikes the right tone:

Saroyan’s stories celebrated optimism in the midst of the trials and tribulations of the Depression. Several of Saroyan’s works were drawn from his own experiences, although his approach to autobiographical fact contained a fair bit of poetic license.

His advice to a young writer was: “Try to learn to breathe deeply; really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell.” Saroyan endeavored to create a prose style full of zest for life and seemingly impressionistic, that came to be called “Saroyanesque”.

The complete May 19, 2010, press release from the University of California is below.

a sketch "from a Turkish admirer," a photo of the author in his youth, and a framed sketch of Saroyan

The Bancroft Library's new archival material on William Saroyan includes (left to right) a sketch "from a Turkish admirer," a photo of the author in his youth, and a framed drawing of Saroyan with a passage of his writing on Armenia. (Images courtesy of the Bancroft Library)

The Bancroft Library accepts gift of William Saroyan archives

By Kathleen Maclay, Media Relations | 19 May 2010

William Saroyan

William Saroyan (Photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library)

BERKELEY — The Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley, has received a spectacular gift of hundreds of books, drawings, correspondence and other personal communications to and from one of America’s best-known writers, the Armenian-American author and playwright William Saroyan.

The rich collection includes approximately 48 cartons with 1,200 books and other archival materials assembled by his niece, Jacqueline Kazarian, of San Francisco, who also is the founder of the William Saroyan Literary Foundation International. A celebration of the gift is set for noon on Friday (May 21) at The Faculty Club on campus.

“UC Berkeley is such an incredible place of learning and growing and intellectual exploration,” said Kazarian, who earned degrees in communication and decorative arts at UC Berkeley in the early 1950s. “I know that my uncle wanted his library, manuscripts and galleys to go to Berkeley. Students will be inspired by the collection.”

Apart from this gift, The Bancroft Library already retains significant holdings of Saroyan’s work that it collected over the course of his life and career, and it continues to add to that collection. Most of the latest materials come from Saroyan’s home on San Francisco’s 15th Avenue that is now a Saroyan museum directed by Kazarian. Those materials were supplemented by Kazarian’s extensive personal collection, as well as by items of Saroyan’s that she acquired through a prominent Boston archivist and via a Saroyan friend.

“Jacqueline Kazarian’s new gift is the largest and most substantial augmentation to the Saroyan collections at Bancroft that we have ever received,” said Peter Hanff, Bancroft’s deputy director.

The author’s classic manual typewriter, as displayed at his San Francisco home

The author’s classic Fox manual typewriter, as displayed at his San Francisco home. (Photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library)

Saroyan, born in Fresno, Calif., in 1908, drew extensively on his Armenian-American heritage and childhood experiences for his books, plays and short stories. Much of his writing was considered impressionistic and reflected a hearty optimism often hard to find during the gritty Great Depression. He died in 1981 at the age of 72, with his niece at his side.When Story magazine editors Martha Foley and Whit Burnett printed Saroyan’s “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” in 1934, it was an immediate success, triggering Saroyan’s fame and standing as one of his many literary achievements.

“Uncle Bill’s writing revolutionized the short story,” said Kazarian, adding that she has always found his work “almost spiritual and fable-like.”

His five-act play, “The Time of Your Life,” is the only American play to have won both the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize. Saroyan’s work as a screenwriter with Hollywood director Louis B. Mayer on the film “The Human Comedy” won an Academy Award in 1943, and Saroyan later wrote a widely acclaimed book with the same title.

Kazarian’s gift to The Bancroft Library includes multiple first editions of Saroyan’s works, such as “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze,” “My Name is Aram” (1940), “The Human Comedy” and “Obituaries” (1979), and many materials personally inscribed by the writer. Also among the new items according to Steven Black, the head of acquisitions for Bancroft, are letters, telegrams and notes written by Saroyan to relatives and others close to him, mostly during the 1930s and 1940s.

antiquarian book dealer Peter Howard of Berkeley, shown here poring through Saroyan materials

Antiquarian book dealer Peter Howard of Berkeley, poring through Saroyan materials. (Photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library)

“He personalized a lot of what passed through his hands,” Black said, noting that much of the material features marginalia reflecting Saroyan’s thoughts and interests.

There also is a copy of Henry Miller’s “Aller Retour New York,” an 80-page journal about a 1935 visit by Miller to New York City and his journey aboard a Dutch ship back to Europe. It is inscribed by Miller to Saroyan.

And a Saroyan scrapbook in the collection contains press announcements about the Pulitzer Prize for his book, “The Time of Your Life.” He scoffed at the award, contending that the arts should not be judged by commerce.

The new Bancroft collection also contains a pre-publication proof of “Burnt Norton,” the first poem of T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” which Black said the publisher may have given to Saroyan “when he crossed the pond” on a trip from his temporary home in France to England.

There also is a wide range of magazines, including issues of Horizon and the Partisan Review, a leading publication of the Anglo-American intelligentsia during the 1930s and ’40s, Black said.

The first major deposit at The Bancroft Library of Saroyan’s papers was recorded in October 1980, and the library agreed to organize the collection and give Saroyan a general description and an index. After Saroyan died in 1981, the Saroyan Foundation paid the library to continue assembling the papers for official archives, which the foundation ultimately decided to place at Stanford University. That happened in 1996.

William Saroyan's niece, Jacqueline Kazarian, surveys materials at his San Francisco home

William Saroyan's niece, Jacqueline Kazarian, surveys materials in his home. (Photo courtesy of The Bancroft Library)

Kazarian’s donation is in honor of Berkeley antiquarian book dealer Peter Howard, who has provided appraisal assistance to Bancroft on Saroyan materials and other collections for decades. While director of The Bancroft Library, the late James D. Hart also developed strong professional and personal ties to Saroyan over the years, according to Kazarian and Black.

“Now, the Saroyan family materials come to a place that Saroyan himself would have been happy to see accepting them,” Black said, noting that Bancroft is proud to have so much of Saroyan’s “intellectual remains” to be able to share with the public.

Scheduled to speak about the acquisition at Friday’s event are Jacqueline Kazarian; David Calonne, vice president of education for the Saroyan Literary Foundation International and a Saroyan scholar; San Francisco novelist Herbert Gold; theater director Val Hendrickson reading Saroyan’s short story, “Common Prayer,” and the credo to “The Time of Your Life”; and Charles Faulhaber, director of The Bancroft Library.

UC Berkeley already is home to an Armenian Studies Program, which is focused on contemporary Armenian history, politics, language and culture. And Bancroft, a rich, special collections library containing historical and literary documents and other materials relating to California, the West, Mexico and Latin America, is known for its strong collections on California writers, including Jack London, Robinson Jeffers, Bret Harte, Frank Norris and others.

More information about The Bancroft Library is online. Bancroft is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year.

More:

William Saroyan commemorative stamps from the U.S., and U.S.S.R.

On commemorative stamps issued in both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., Saroyan wears the Armenian-style moustache he wore through most of his later life. For a stamp to honor a man in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union was extremely rare -- maybe unique.

2 Comments | Books, Libraries, Literature, Technology, Typewriters, Writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Big cats and laser pointers?

September 20, 2011

Oh, yeah, we know what you teachers do with your fancy laser pointers in the off-hours.  When you’re not torturing your students with Death by PowerPoint, highlighting the vocabulary words, pointing out the routes on the maps, and generally making your students a little jealous of your tools, you take the lasers home to torture your kitties.

If you’re a teacher with a science bent, you might even do a little experimentation:  Do cats chase green lasers, too?  Blue ones?  What about those filters that make starbursts, do they drive cat’s wild?

Ah, but teachers with a science bent, and access to some really big cats . . .

From Big Cat Rescue:

Q: Do Tigers, Leopards & Lions chase laser pointers like domestic cats? Big Cat Rescue decided to find out! …

Do BIG CATS like catnip?? Check out the video! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tklx3j7kgJY

For more info about BIG CAT RESCUE visit: http://www.bigcatrescue.org
Find us on FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Big-Cat-Rescue-Tampa-FL/122174836956?ref=sgm
MYSPACE: http://www.myspace.com/1bigcatrescue
TWITTER: http://twitter.com/BigCatRescue
DONATE: http://bigcatrescue.com/donate/

THANK YOU!

If you text TIGER to 20222 *A one-time donation of $10 will be added to your mobile phone bill or deducted from your prepaid balance. Standard messaging/data rates may apply. All charges are billed by and payable to your mobile service provider. Service is available on most carriers. Donations are collected for the benefit of the Big Cat Rescue by the Mobile Giving Foundation and subject to the terms found at http://www.mobilecommons.com/t/. You can unsubscribe at any time by texting STOP to short code 20222; HELP to 20222 for help.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Ed Yong at Not Exactly Rocket Science.

Leave a Comment » | Cats, Classroom technology, Humor, Technology, Technology in the classroom, Wildlife | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Shakespeare: Still viral after all these years

September 19, 2011

A little sketch in her notebook, an off-the-top-of-her-head list of common phrases.  Common today, but originating with William Shakespeare.

Becky's tumblr image: Things we say that we owe to Shakepspeare

Becky's quick summary of some of the best-known phrases we use everyday, invented by Shakespeare. From Becky, age 20, in London.

Becky’s quick work caught a lot of eyes.  One of NPR’s blogs brought it to my attention.  English teachers, take notice (maybe someone at your school has a large format printer, and can make for you a poster . . .)

Someone could write a book explaining the original Shakespeare meaning of these phrases, the play, the context, and the value in the story. (Perhaps it’s already been done.)  It’s really quite stunning to consider how many phrases trace back to the Bard — surely he did not originate each and every one.  But Shakespeare’s works are rivaled perhaps only by scriptures in producing so many common phrases and aphorisms.

Is this graphic design of a sort that would meet with approval from Edward Tufte and his followers?

2 Comments | Books, History, Humor, Linguistics, Literature, Technology, Writing | Tagged: , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

True or false? Deception, with iPhones, to tell the truth

September 11, 2011

Magician Marco Tempest pushes the boundaries on use of iPhones in magic tricks — is it magic, pure electronics, or what we want to see?

Tell us in comments how you could use this shorter-than-usual TEDS video as a bell-ringer, teachers — or as an ice-breaker, meeting facilitators and corporate trainers:

Tip of the old scrub brush to Michelle Gardiner, who suffered my bass playing with quiet equanimity.

Leave a Comment » | Bell Ringers, Brain learning, Technology, Warm-up exercises | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Typewriter (film) of the moment: Nicholson and Lockett

September 2, 2011

Not a nostalgic look, Gary Nicholson and Christopher Lockett are making a documentary about typewriters, and people who use them in the 21st century.

Yeah, I’m interested.

Here’s their description of the project:

In May of 2010, Los Angeles-based filmmakers Christopher Lockett and Gary Nicholson read an article on Wired.com about “The Last Generation Of Typewriter Repairmen.” Casual conversation over coffee about the importance of the typewriter in world history eventually turned toward the inevitable conclusion that “this would make a good documentary.”

Lockett and Nicholson agreed that the passing of the typewriter, a portable printing press that moved the world’s communication technology from pen and ink to the QWERTY keyboards on today’s computers, along with the highly skilled technicians who service them, should be documented.

But as so often happens in documentaries, a funny thing happened on the way…  to paraphrase Mark Twain, news of the typewriter’s death is greatly exaggerated.  Three typewriter repairmen the filmmakers have interviewed all agree that their business is better than it has been in years.

Perhaps it is a reaction to the plugged in existence of today’s 24/7 communications world. Perhaps it is mere nostalgia and kitsch. Perhaps it is an admiration for the elegance of design and the value of time-tested workmanship. And for some, like typewriter collector Steve Soboroff, it is the appeal of owning machines on which American writers like Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, Ray Bradbury, John Updike and Jack London typed some of their finest work. (He also owns typewriters once owned by George Bernard Shaw and John Lennon)

But one thing is certain, from the Typosphere – an online community of bloggers who sometimes meet up for “Type-In” events, to vintage stores in fashionable neighborhoods in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, Portland and Philadelphia, to noted typewriter collector Tom Hanks, to teachers using typewriters to encourage young writers to focus their thoughts without benefit of a delete key – if the typewriter is on the way out, it’s going out with more appreciation that it’s seen in years.

So far, the filmmakers have documented two Type-in events, (Los Angeles and Phoenix, AZ) have interviewed three typewriter repairmen, one noted typewriter collector and already have arranged to interview at least one Hollywood screenwriter who still uses a typewriter. They have also interviewed journalists, authors, teachers, enthusiasts and people who use typewriters in their personal and professional life.

But there are other novelists, screenwriters and enthusiasts out there. And there are so many more typewriters they’d like to feature – typewriters that produced some of the finest works of 20th Century American literature.  They have also interviewed technicians with the L.A. County Sheriff’s Office who repair the typewriters the department still uses. They are handy for typing forms in triplicate and for such communications requiring a personal touch as letters of condolence.

Along with dozens of photographically gorgeous typewriters lovingly restored by repairmen Ruben Flores, Ermanno Manzorati and Bill Wahl, the filmmakers have interviewed Darryl Rehr, the author of the definitive book “Collecting Antique Typewriters” and an artist whose work features typewriters.

On the wish-list are an East Coast-based orchestra that uses typewriters in their music, the US Patent office holding Christopher Scholes original 1868 US Patent for the typewriter, a man in Philadelphia who has wired a manual typewriter to a computer screen via USB cable and a 15-year-old collector in West Virginia who has collected more than 200 machines and has written and published a book about collecting typewriters. A writer who got kicked out of the Writers Room in Grenwich Village for using his grandmother’s 1929 Royal typewriter and making too much noise. He was given an ultimatum: Use a laptop or get out. Also on that wish-list: an artist who creates her work by typing out portraits on the page, an “instant poet” who types spontaneous poetry on the street, and an author who has documented the feminist history of the typewriter’s early days – it was the first piece of office machinery that gave women the opportunity for employment outside the home.

All of which is currently beyond the filmmakers’ financial grasp. Travel isn’t cheap. In terms of technical skills and gear, the filmmakers are covered. Lockett holds an MFA in Cinematography from the American Film Institute and his credits include TV shows for every major TV network and most cable networks, indie features and PBS documentaries. Nicholson holds a BFA in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University  and his producing credits include indie features, Broadway, and music. The team is shooting on Canon 7D and 60D DLSRs and editing in 1920 x 1080 full HD on Final Cut Pro and recording sound digitally on a Zoom H4N.

The Typewriter (In The 21st Century) – if the typewriter didn’t exist, the filmmakers couldn’t have typed this. And you probably wouldn’t be reading it on a computer screen. It’s that important.

The film will feature people who demonstrate much greater fanatacism towards typewriters than I do.

My ears are tintinnabulating in anticipation.

 

2 Comments | History, Technology, Typewriters, Video and film | Tagged: , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

History and economics of energy use and conservation – a more accurate version

July 30, 2011

Our memorial to George Washington neared completion in the 1880s.  For an obelisk more than 550 feet tall to honor the Father of Our Country, planners decided to top it with a “capstone” made of the what was, then the most precious metal known on Earth.  The top is a pyramid, and the top of the pyramid is a one-pound block of this precious metal.

What was the most precious metal known to humans in 1880?  Gold?  Platinum?  Tungsten, perhaps, not yet chosen to be filaments in the yet-to-be-perfected Edison “A” lightbulb?

Washington’s Monument is topped with aluminum.

Yeah, aluminum.

“But,” you begin to sputter in protest, “aluminum is almost ubiquitous in soils, and it’s cheap — we use it in soda cans because it’s cheaper than steel or glass, for FSM’s sake!”

Today, yes.  In 1880, no.  Aluminum requires massive amounts of energy to refine the stuff from ore.  Aluminum is common in soils and rocks, but it couldn’t be refined out easily for use.

That problem’s solution was electricity, generated from coal or especially falling water.  For a while, our nation’s biggest aluminum refining plants resided in the state of Washington, not because they were close to aluminum ore deposits, but because there was a lot of cheap electricity available from the Grand Coulee and other dams on the mighty Columbia River.  It was cheaper to transport the ore long distances for refining than to transport the electricity.

This history reveals a lot about science, history, energy use, resource conservation and economics — areas in which most climate denialists appear to me to lack knowledge and productive experience.

Peter Sinclair more often explains why climate denialists get things wrong.  In this video, the first of what could be a significant series, Sinclair explains how we got to where we are today in energy use and conservation — or energy overuse and lack of conservation, if the Tea Party and Rand Paul get their way.  (Notice the ingots of aluminum shown in the historic film footage.)

This is history which has been largely covered up, partly because so much critical stuff happened in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, a time the internet doesn’t cover well.

5,842

Leave a Comment » | Climate change, climate_change, Conservation, Economics, Environment, Environmental protection, Global warming, Green Politics, History, Politics, Science, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Typewriter of the moment: July 23, 1829 William A. Burt’s typographer patented

July 23, 2011

William Austin Burt received a patent on a typographer on July 23, 1829 — signed personally by President Andrew Jackson.

First patent issued for a typewriter, July 23, 1829, to William Austin Burt -- signed by Andrew Jackson

Image of the first patent issued for a typewriter, July 23, 1829, to William Austin Burt, a Michigan surveyor and inventor. It was signed personally by President Andrew Jackson.

The typographer is considered the forerunner to the typewriter.

Burt’s chief reputation came from his work as a surveyor in Michigan.  He discovered the massive iron ore deposits for which Michigan became famous, the iron that fueled much of American industrialization in the 19th and 20th centuries.  He discovered one of the world’s largest deposits of copper, the Calumet and Hecla Mine.  He invented the solar compass, to survey areas where iron deposits made magnetic compasses inaccurate.

Drawing of W. A. Burt's typographer, the first patented typewriter - Wikimedia image

Patent drawing of W. A. Burt’s typographer, the first patented typewriter – Wikimedia image

Some of Burt’s biographies do not mention his invention of the typewriter.

Burt was born in an era of great technological development and invention.  People in all walks of life invented devices to aid their work, or just for the joy of invention.  Even future president Abraham Lincoln invented a device to float cargo boats in shallow water, hoping to increase river commerce to his home county, Sangamon County, Illinois.

Burt invented devices to aid his work in surveying, a very important service industry in frontier America.   Because surveyors often worked on the frontier, they were famous for discovering natural resources in the course of their work. So it was that Burt, working in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, found his magnetic compasses spinning wildly.  Suspecting a natural phenomenon, Burt ordered his crew to look for ferrous rocks, and they quickly determined they were in an area rife with iron deposits.

It was to further surverying in such areas that Burt invented the solar compass.

Even uninteresting frontiersmen could lead lives that fascinate us today.  Was it Burt’s inventiveness that led him to such a life as a surveyor, or was it his work that pushed him to invent?

First typewritten letter, 1829 - Wikimedia Image

First letter ever written on a typewriter, in 1829 — to Martin Van Buren, then Vice President Secretary of State of the U.S., and future Vice President and President. Notice the letter was written nearly two months prior to the patent being issued on the device upon which it was written. Wikimedia image

6 Comments | History, Invention, Technology, Typewriters | Tagged: , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Why is the Texas Chainsaw Massacre so popular?

June 29, 2011

And, why do people so very, very much, want that story to be true and not fictional?

Here’s the list of stories from this blog that were most popular over the past seven days; the top two stories hold about those ranks week in and week out:

Top Posts (the past week)

Based on a true story — except, not Texas. Not a chainsaw. Not a massacre. 530 views

28 poems on living life to the fullest, today 425 views

True story: Yellow Rose of Texas, and the Battle of San Jacinto 167 views

News flash: Texas has a second natural lake! 136 views

Nuclear power plant incident in Nebraska?

“When we’re telling whoppers about Obama and government, please don’t pester us with the facts” Department

Hoaxed Nebraska nuclear plant crisis update

Quote of the moment: John F. Kennedy, “We choose to go to the Moon”

Someone somewhere is discussing whether the story behind the Texas Chainsaw Massacre movies is real or fictional.  I can’t find that discussion, alas.

Either that, or we have a lot of prurient interests out there.

Interesting mix of story viewings, otherwise.

2 Comments | Administrivia, Education, History, Humor, Internet, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

Solar power at your house? “How to do it” graphic

June 28, 2011

While a few (crabs?) argue that solar power will never make a significant contribution to our daily energy budgets in the U.S., others quietly slip the bonds of the grid and go solar.  If solar works, it will work one house at a time.

If you wish to go solar, where do you start?  The Orange County (California) Register provided a great graphic to illustrate some of the considerations a homeowner needs to make, and how much it might cost.

OC Register graphic, how to do solar panels

From the Orange County Register, accessed June 2011 - click for larger image

Orange County, California, is the hotbed of conservative politics, and warming denialism such as it exists in California.  In Orange County, solar power is a question of practicality, and one’s desire to save money on electricity.  It’s in the Home and Garden section of the newspaper, not politics, not business.

Another gift from mainstream media that bloggers don’t equal, yet.

Is a Smart-Meter required for solar, today?

1 Comment | Electricity, Energy, Environmental protection, Newspapers, Science, Technology | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

A century of IBM

June 23, 2011

IBM turned 100 years old last week, on June 16.

IBM logo, 100th anniversary plus the Selectric typewriter

An "element" from an IBM Selectric typewriter, incorporated into a logo celebrating IBM's 100th year

In our studies of the effects of technology in the 20th century, do we give enough information and deference about IBM?  The company surely is not familiar to high school students — seniors for the class of 2012 having been born circa 1994, long after the heyday of the IBM System 360, the once-ubiquitous data punch cards, and the astonishingly advanced Selectric typewriters.  IBM retired the Selectric in 1986, a year before our older son was born, nearly a decade before today’s high school seniors bounced into the world.  The IBM punch cards, introduced in 1928, became difficult to find by the time I was coaching debate at the University of Arizona (we used the cards for debate evidence because they were larger and lighter than index cards, as did many other people in other walks of life).  Computing power of the S/360 paled in comparison to minicomputers available by 1985, and especially in comparison to the desktop microcomputers that dominate our working world today.

I wonder what today’s high school students really understand of the computer revolution?  Do they understand the fundamental roles IBM played in inventing the 21st century?

IBM System 360 at NASA, circa 1969

Caption from IBM: "IBM System/360 at NASA The System/360 Model 75 processed data for the first lunar landing 240,000 miles away from the moon, at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. It was one of five System/360 machines used by NASA for the Apollo 11 mission and the same computer that later calculated liftoff data needed by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin for the flight back to Earth."

IBM occupies a particular fond spot in my heart.  Through the National Merit Scholarship program, I had my college paid for in great measure by a four-year grant from IBM, a Thomas J. Watson, Jr., Scholarship.  As I recall it was for about $5,000, much more than adequate for tuition and fees at the University of Utah at under $400/quarter.  Coupled with a more modest scholarship from Utah and my 40 hours/week job in a laboratory, my undergraduate years were financially easy compared to our sons’ studies today.

As a sort of thank-you, I was expected to make an annual trek to the IBM offices in Salt Lake City to report on my progress.  IBMers at the time were still very much on the white-shirt/blue-shirt plan, and the contrast between campus and the IBM office could scarcely have been more stark.  Despite their sponsoring my education, I could not convince IBM to give me a price break on my first IBM Correcting Selectric II; it was a major scrape to come up with the $740, full list price of the beast.

But what a great investment!  My apartment became term-paper central.  At the end of the quarter, I could go without  paying for a meal for two or three weeks.  I did have one apartment manager complain about women spending the night in my apartment, and I don’t think he believed me when I said they were working on term papers.  I had not expected the academic benefits of the machine:  My grades in broadcast classes rose with scripts submitted in easy-to-read Orator typeface; I’m convinced the lack of pencil-corrected errors added a full half-grade to other papers, too.

That typewriter finally succumbed to my unwillingness to pay for the annual servicing from IBM.  I think Kathryn donated it to the Salvation Army sometime after we got to Texas, after two decades of service.  I found another at a garage sale in about 2000, for $10, with six elements and a slew of ribbons and correctapes.  It also succumbed to a lack of service, though, and joined its predecessor at the Salvation Army five years ago.  I’d love to have a good working version today, still, though I can do almost everything it could do with a wordprocessor and a laser printer.

IBM System 360 coming to Japan - IBM image

Caption from IBM: "The System/360 Model 75 processed data for the first lunar landing 240,000 miles away from the moon, at NASA’s Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. It was one of five System/360 machines used by NASA for the Apollo 11 mission and the same computer that later calculated liftoff data needed by astronauts Neil Armstrong and Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin for the flight back to Earth. Two men standing on truck w/System/360 logo magnifying-glass IBM System/360 in Japan At Tokai Bank in Japan, all operations were performed manually, forcing employees to run calculations on abacuses into the late hours of the night. The arrival of the System/360 enabled the company to do away with abacuses and, in doing so, send employees home to spend more time with their families, drastically improving morale. Meanwhile, more work was completed in a shorter time frame, and customer satisfaction soared."

IBM’s leadership as a company runs much deeper than simply as an innovator in technology.  IBM for years had the best corporate training available — at American Airlines we benchmarked our training against IBM, when benchmarking was a tool of corporate improvement.  IBM’s people had the good sense to sit us down and explain they had benchmarked their own training against American’s pilot training, which they explained was the model for outstanding training:  Hire people who already know how to do the job, have a lot of experience, and love the work; train them intensively in the company ways and systems, and especially the machines they will use; use simulators to offer much more practice than can safely be had on the job; provide a mentor to monitor closely that the student (pilot) is doing the job right; require extensive refresher courses at least once a year.

At one point IBM had 20% growth in revenues for 20 consecutive years. IBM even figures in one of the great urban legends of the 20th century.  For the film of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, 2001:  A Space Odyssey, director Stanley Kubrick used a  computer as a central character.  The computer becomes the bad guy in the movie, however; the urban legend is that the company refused to let Kubrick use their logo.  So, the legend claims, Kubrick simply backed up one letter in the alphabet for each letter, and the nefarious HAL computer was born. Both Kubrick and Clarke denied that was the case, noting that HAL was a form of acronym for “Heuristic Algorithmic.”  They also note that IBM computers are pictured in the movie.  The story merely adds to the understanding that IBM was everywhere that technology or good management was found on the planet.

Despite having been eclipsed by its two partners in micro computers, Microsoft and Intel, IBM today offers yet another reinvention of itself, larger than it was when its fortunes were said to have collapsed, a few years before our high school students were born.

CBS Sunday Morning offered a short version of the company’s history on June 12 — fortunately, one of the items CBS posted on YouTube (they don’t put enough of the Sunday Morning stuff there, if you ask me).

More: 

Leave a Comment » | Business, Computers, History, Technology, Turning Points, Typewriters | Tagged: , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell

« Previous Entries
Next Entries »