≡ Category: Harvard | ≅ 1 Comment
Here’s J.K. Rowling speaking with eloquence at Harvard’s graduation. You’ll find a little wit (although far different than the kind on display when Sacha Baron Cohen — a.k.a. Ali G & Borat — spoke at Harvard graduation festivities several years ago). And then there’s the sage advice that she dispenses. Some good thoughts on why [...]
≡ Category: Harvard | ≅ Leave a Comment
The open access movement keeps rolling along. See here.
≡ Category: Harvard | ≅ Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Harvard University passed a motion (see proposal here) that will require its faculty members to publish their scholarly articles online. On the face of things, this marks a big victory for the open access movement, which is all about making information free and accessible to all. In reality, however, the real winner may eventually [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Harvard, Politics | ≅ 2 Comments
In case you missed it, The New York Times published a lengthy article — The Politics of God — last weekend which essentially traces how the thought of Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and other major political philosophers gave us secular politics, and particularly the separation of Church and State. They’re innovations with many upsides, but [...]
≡ Category: Harvard, Science, Video - Science | ≅ Leave a Comment
In 2003, the Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson wrote a widely read essay that called for an “Encyclopedia of Life.” Summed up simply, Wilson had in mind “an online reference source and database” that catalogued “every one of the 1.8 million species that are named and known on this planet,” not to mention the many organisms [...]
≡ Category: Harvard, MIT | ≅ 2 Comments
When universities first started developing their podcast collections, a good number took their audio archives — the many lectures and talks they had recorded over the years — and uploaded them onto iTunes. Now, months later, some institutions are turning to their video archives. Most notably, MIT has given users access to video podcasts taken [...]
≡ Category: Current Affairs, Harvard | ≅ 1 Comment
America’s 42nd president spoke this weekend at Harvard’s Class Day, a traditional event held for graduating seniors. While Class Day often features pop icons and comedians — take this speech by Ali G from a few yeas ago — Clinton’s speech was a bit more serious and idealistic, and it reminds us that there may [...]
≡ Category: Harvard | ≅ 2 Comments
It was only a question of when, not if. Harvard has finally carved out a space, albeit a rather small one,
on iTunes. (See yesterday’s press release.) Established by the Harvard Extension School, the iTunes site currently features one free, full-fledged course called Understanding Computers and the Internet, which had previously been issued in other [...]
≡ Category: Harvard | ≅ Leave a Comment
Here’s another freebie for the intellectual tech junkie. Harvard Law School is offering this semester an innovative course, CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion. What it covers is how arguments/debates get played out in the media space created by the Internet and other new technologies. And, beyond that, it specifically focuses on how [...]
≡ Category: Harvard | ≅ Leave a Comment
What do sleeping and computing have in common? Not a whole lot (nor really should they), except for this. We sleep and use computers a good chunk of our lives, and yet we generally have no idea how either works. Sleep is the 33% of our lives that we hardly give a thought to. And [...]
