The weight of history
When does it make sense to change an obsolete and unwieldy system?
explanation
Consider the horse
A sudden obsolescence
The most momentous event of the twentieth century, as seen from the standpoint of human history, seems to have gone mostly unnoticed.
Remembrance of things past
When learning doesn’t fade away
Our tutoring consultant has an encouraging experience with his own memory.
A surfeit of features
No one uses them all
Digital cameras, like calculators, have an immense menu of features. It’s certainly rare, and possibly unknown, for anyone to use them all. Why have them, then?
Why a forecast discussion?
More than numbers
Weather forecasts are much more reliable than they used to be, mostly thanks to more powerful computers. Input from people is still important, though.
The lovers’ lodestone
A prehistory of wireless telegraphy
It was much more difficult to stay in touch 300 years ago. A literary magazine from that era has a suggestion for a surprisingly modern way to do it.
Reading the manuscript
Why handwriting?
Communication in writing nowadays is almost exclusively done in type. Why, then, should anyone care about being able to write legibly?
Science fiction and verb conjugations
Past, present and future are not enough
Science fiction writers imagine whole new universes and explore their possibilities, as we’ve mentioned before. Perhaps they need to think about the changes in language that go along with them.
The John Henry moment
Old technology triumphant
A mathematics teacher is not much like a nineteenth-century railroad worker–but there are parallels. Our consultant who tutors High School math and science continues to learn from it; sometimes, his students do also.
Smartphones by campfire light
An incongruity of technologies
One of our consultants has an interesting device for camping or possibly a disaster situation. On closer examination it appeared to us that it hadn’t been quite thought through. Then we examined it more closely still.