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A People’s History of Tech

mobile.peoplestech.com

Join us in building a living artifact, sharing the human impact of technology, and harnessing our joint power for the future of tech citizenship.

Our journey begins with the mobile phone, a pocket-sized marvel that has transformed our relationship with time, space, and each other. How did we get here?

How NASA Learned to Love the Worm Logo

nytimes.com

“The worm is a great-looking word mark and looked fantastic on the spacecraft,” Mr. Bierut told The New York Times Magazine in 2009. “By any objective measure, the worm was and is absolutely appropriate, and the meatball was and is an amateurish mess.”

NFT collector Franklin loses 100 ETH (~$150,000) in a joke gone wrong

web3isgoinggreat.com

“I was celebrating my joke of a domain sale, sharing the spoils, but in a dream of greed, forgot to cancel my own bid of 100 ETH to buy it back. This will be the joke and bag fumble of the century. I deserve all of the jokes and criticism.” He also sent the 1.9 ETH back to the other person, with a message asking them to reverse the transaction. The other person replied, “No, thank you for the money though.”

At 93, Teaching Me About Possibility

nytimes.com

This is called “grayspeak” or “elderspeak,” a shift in the way we address elders that treats them less like sages and more like toddlers or pets. We say things like, “Today was rainy. Did you see the rain?” and “Was your dinner yummy?”

It’s a bogus, tedious and stupid way to interact, so I fought it. I started to show up for her more, in person, despite her living in Dover, England, and me in New York City.

A Texas teacher turned her classroom into a Southwest ‘flight’ to Mexico

washingtonpost.com

White’s make-believe flight experience was detailed and meticulous. She printed and laminated boarding passes; had her student take passport photos; and arranged the chairs in her classroom to face a screen playing a video of what it’s like to be in the air. Outside the classroom, White sat in a wooden desk and played the role of a Transportation Security Administration officer, reviewing each student’s boarding pass and passport before letting them inside.

Outdoor Sound Propagation in the U.S. Civil War

wesclark.com

Hooker, at Chancellorsville, was shielded from the sounds of battle by the dense forest known locally as “The Wilderness” and first became aware of the rout as panic-stricken Federal soldiers overran his position. There was undoubtedly a refractive effect at work on this day as well: Confederate Major General Cadmus Wilcox, 10 miles to the east near Fredericksburg, noted the sounds of battle clearly. This refraction may have been due to wind shear (high winds kept Union balloonists grounded).