Category Archives: computing

How I Crashed Two School Networks in Two Days: A Cautionary Tale

Back in September, I was sitting in a collaborative planning session with my principal and my department chair when an assistant principal stuck her head in the room and asked to speak to me outside. With her stood our technology … Continue reading

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“Little Brother” is Magic

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow My rating: 5 of 5 stars From time to time growing up, my dad has said something that’s been on my mind a lot recently: “Technology that is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic.” This … Continue reading

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Start Me Up: Dispatch from Startup Weekend Washington DC EDU

Over the weekend, I had the privilege to attend a portion of the second Startup Weekend event focused on education. Startup Weekend is itself a startup organization that organizes gatherings of developers, designers, business and marketing experts, and investors to … Continue reading

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Andreessen, Slavin, and Stephenson on How Software Eats, Re-writes, and Reshapes the World

Algorithms are natural forces. Software is an evolutionary powerhouse. Code, in its genetic form, has long shaped the planet, and now, on a vast scale, code, in its binary form, is also shaping the planet. Marc Andreessen’s Saturday column in … Continue reading

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Industrial Archeology, Hacker Tourism, and How Building the Internet Worked Circa 1996

Let’s say you’re reading this in Egypt, or Hong Kong, or London. How exactly do bits and bytes get from this web server (somewhere in California) to your far-flung screen? It’s not satellites or magic, but it is crazy. There’s … Continue reading

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A History, A Theory, A Flood: Review of James’s Gleick’s The Information

This is Day of Creativity 22. Review also cross-posted on goodreads.com. A bench scientist or an engineer will tell you the same thing: the distinction between “science” and “technology” is important. Science is more about the undirected search for answers … Continue reading

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Disc Logic (30 Days of Creativity: Day 14)

So I keep a small cache of donated laptops in my room for students to type projects on. Most of my kids are pretty computer literate, though I do throw curve balls at them with my locked-down Mac OS settings … Continue reading

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