Technology and the trash can

There's a reason your iPod doesn't last a dozen years. It's not just the workmanship...

Electronics are being discarded almost as fast as they’re being made. And the innovators are largely to blame for that. While the effective lifespan of a new computer should be, in a sane world, a decade or more, realistically you’ve got a dinosaur if it’s been sitting on your desk longer than a couple of years. And our tax laws encourage this.

Why?

Because the innovators know that they need you coming back every few years to keep those coffers overflowing. If you’re visiting the Apple Store only once in a decade, then there might not be an Apple Store at all.

Read more on the role of technology and "planned obsolescence" in economic growth.

Big surprise in education policy: laptops don't make people smart?

After many schools across the country rushed to bring the Digital Age to every child, many are abandoning their laptop programs. But weren't computers supposed to bring the miracles of technology and efficiency to brighten the prospects of students?

The students at Liverpool High have used their school-issued laptops to exchange answers on tests, download pornography and hack into local businesses. When the school tightened its network security, a 10th grader not only found a way around it but also posted step-by-step instructions on the Web for others to follow (which they did)...

...school officials here and in several other places said laptops had been abused by students, did not fit into lesson plans, and showed little, if any, measurable effect on grades and test scores at a time of increased pressure to meet state standards. (emphasis mine)

There's been plenty of research on what kinds of investments in schools actually work. This study and this study show that teacher credentials and knowledge are some of the best predictors of higher classroom performance by their students. In other words, instead of buying laptops for kids, we could be paying for school for teachers and be seeing results.

Other programs are also showing evidence of success by investing in better methods of teaching, such as this "SMART classroom" in suburban Minneapolis.

Hula hoops hang in one corner of the room. A climbing gym stands in the middle. Bouncing balls, gym mats, trampolines and vibrant colors fill the rest of the room. SMART stands for "Stimulating Maturity through Accelerated Readiness Training." It's a program made up of physical activities that stimulate brain growth in children...

...During the first year, DeCorsey said, teachers could already see a difference. Only 52 percent of third-graders were reading at grade level at the beginning of the year. After four months of the program, that jumped to 90 percent.

But what about cost?

Farnham estimated the district had to spend about $1,000 for all the supplies involved, and training each teacher cost more than $400.

So how about it? You could pick up 4 inexpensive - and completely useless - laptops for education users through Dell for $3,400 or you could buy supplies for two, effective SMART classrooms and train 3 teachers. Oh, and did I mention that teachers don't go obsolete in 3-4 years?

Oil companies: Can they (and should they) go green?

With many fossil fuel corporations touting their green side, it's noteworthy that Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company has little to say on alternative energy. In fact, they are better known for funding global warming deniers than warming up to biofuels or wind turbines.

A CNN Money article notes that this may make a lot of financial sense, especially for a company known for outstripping all its competitors on return on the dollar. Exxon specializes in oil and they're the best in the game.

It may be good from another perspective, as well. I just borrowed Who Killed The Electric Car from my dad and he mentioned that some of the most promising battery technologies developed 20 years ago were bought up by oil companies and essentially buried (I haven't watched the film yet).

Are we better off when fossil fuel companies change their paradigm to invest in alternative energy, or is it wiser to keep their carbon mitts off of any promising technological fixes for a society addicted to oil?

Maple Syrup: the new plastic?

From the nifty biotech desk: when is a surplus of maple syrup a boon to the plastics industry? When scientists discover that a special bacteria can turn maple syrup sugars into biodegradable polymers.

[National Research Council Canada] researchers found that the bacteria not only thrive when added to maple syrup, but also transform the sugars in the sap into a family of natural polymers that can be used to make plastic-like materials that are biodegradable – everything from "green" food packaging to drug-delivery films that dissolve harmlessly in the body.

In addition to taking advantage of declining demand for maple syrup, the development of plastic polymers from syrup and sap could be significantly less expensive (and environmentally intensive) than making polymers from other biomass or petroleum products.

In a research paper to be published later this year in the peer-reviewed journal Biotechnology and Bioengineering, they argue that producing biopolymers from maple sap and syrup is potentially much cheaper than existing methods that rely on U.S. corn, Brazilian sugarcane and European sugar beets.

The one potential hangup is that global warming could significantly alter the maple syrup industry, potentially reducing production in the New England area of the United States and pushing it further into Canada.

I'll do my bit, accepting the artificial syrup for my waffles. For the sake of science...

(Tip to Tyler's Clean Break blog for the original source)

The Luddite on the surplus of information

Wired Blogs has a great column by Tony Long called the Luddite, an old guy's look at modern technology. He has a nice piece this week on that ability of modern technology (like RSS feeds) to enhance the American tendency to tune out information we don't care to hear.

Update (a few minutes later): In a nice coincidence, another of Wired's bloggers is also discussing the vagaries of technology, but this time from the perspective that technology erases too many hurdles for people. An excerpt:

Did you know that it's possible to calculate a cosine even if you think "cosine" is a brand of nasal decongestant?

THIS is why we have modern technology. Part 3

Courtesy of Digg.com

This is why we have modern technology? Part 2

You may recall the USB "drive" I blogged about 4 months ago. Well, someone decided that it was annoying to just have the little guy "working away" on the computer without any real purpose, so he added flash memory capacity and a feature to limit the, er..., actions to disk access.

Now that's what I call an "activity monitor"!

Helpdesk, circa 1200 AD

The Ivory Tower rises above technology

Having recently assisted my mother switch to Gmail and my father-in-law with a notebook wireless card, I've been thinking a lot about the technology divide between generations. However, that rumination grew into a full-fledged mental guffaw at this exchange with a PhD professor I previously worked with (age 50 or so).

As background, I produced some reference "finding aids" on a library project for him, which I then packaged in a CDR with a handy web interface (that automatically loads on CD insert). This hasn't prevented requests for the information I already gave him or this stunning misunderstanding of file extensions.

LJ: Could you email me a file with all the finding aides in them?

[It's really petty, but since he has a PhD, I really want to point out that an 'aid' is "a device that assists" whereas an 'aide' is an assistant - a person. I cannot email him an 'aide' unless Ted Stevens is right and the internet is really a series of tubes]

JFF: I've attached a zip file with all 25 finding aids [in pdf format]. If for some reason it doesn't come through, let me know. MB [LJ's student worker] also has the CD with all of the materials on it.

LJ: Could you please send the Finding Aids as a Word File?

[Okay, so he wants to actually be able to edit the files - no problem]

JFF: Attached. [zip file with .doc files included]

LJ: I don't use zip drives. Could you transfer the file to Word instead? Thanks.

Nature - a commercial break

When I went camping as a kid, it was always "car camping." (I didn't even realize that was a real phrase until last year, when I went backpacking in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area for the first time). Anyway, on these childhood trips we brought along the station wagon, a Coleman stove, and a variety of games and books. We did at least leave behind things like TV, refrigerators, phones, etc. Particularly once we arrived at the various national parks and natural areas, we left everything technological behind except the camera and then went out to enjoy nature.

So why is it that today's campers can't seem to let technology go? Visitors to national parks come in RVs, unable to leave the toilet and TV behind. And now telecom companies are pressing for access to build mobile phone towers throughout Yellowstone National Park.

I certainly understand the benefits to safety - being in touch means being able to call for help. But it also means allowing people to talk to the office, to people at home, and anywhere else instead of appreciating the natural place they came to. Maybe I'm just old-fashioned and most Americans just want to do a little nature tourism, driving through Yellowstone, snapping a few photos (on camera phones, of course) and then getting to the next McDonald's.

But it seems to me that some natural areas should be experienced and not just viewed through a car window or as a brief commercial break. And to make sure there are still some of those areas, we can't put up cell phone towers or permit motorized vehicles to get everywhere. Because all it takes is one chatterbox on a cell phone to ruin the natural experience for anyone in earshot.