Tag: technology

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Teenage girls are web’s content queens

Watch out for the teenagers… The New York Times says:

Research shows that among the youngest Internet users, the primary creators of Web content (blogs, graphics, photographs, Web sites) are not misfits resembling the Lone Gunmen of “The X Files.” On the contrary, the cyberpioneers of the moment are digitally effusive teenage girls.

Not that there’s anything wrong with the Lone Gunman. Well… maybe a little. As long as you bathe, boys. Daily.

Sadly, the figures for adult women are not quite as good. At least, when only looking at computer science programs, which seems a bit narrow-minded. I for one have a ‘web job,’ went into school knowing what I wanted and my degree is in fine art. There are a lot of ways to come at technology: Do you really think all those girls making icons and blogging and podcasting are going to go major in computer science? If they want to continue their hobbies professionally they’ll go for something a lot more specialized.

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Another day, another digital device

Amazon’s Kindle? In one word: Meh. And from my oh-so-casual research, that seems to be the general feeling around the internets.

In more words, I gotta agree with Scalzi:

It looks like a nice toy. But I look at it this way: I can pay $400 for an e-book reader, and then pay $7.99 for an electronic copy of a book, or I can just pay $7.99 for the actual book, which requires no expensive intermediary equipment to enjoy, and use that extra $400 to buy 50 more books. Seems pretty straightforward to me.

Sorry, Newsweek, the iPod it isn’t. (Hey, does the iPhone have a PDF reader? Because that might be occasionally useful. Emphasis on occasionally.)

More linkage

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Dark Side Wins…Sort of.

If you’re Andy Woerner and his crazy rocketeer friends (translation: Geeks), and you have an idea, four Class M solid-fuel rocket engines, Baltic Birch wood, solid aluminum, CAD software, and friends at Polecat Aerospace (helped by RMS Laser and Aerotech Consumer Aerospace), what would you do?

Build a flyable X-wing fighter, of course.

The Flight of the X-Wing occurred on October 6.

There’s another, more extensive video here. There’s also a link at the bottom to the launch of a Y-Wing on the same day, with in-flight camera footage!