Daily Thoughts 10/21/2013

Daniel Schultz The Younger, Johannes Avelius, Astronomer, Before 1683

Daily Thoughts 10/21/2013

This morning, I spent some time looking at Facebook and Twitter. I also spent a little bit of time looking at information on Makerspaces what I found surprised me. A lot of it was about teen and children's crafts and activities focused on science and engineering. It is not just about 3D printers. I remember when I was a kid, there was a place in San Francisco called the Exploratorium which was about exploring science. They have a rather interesting list of science experiments that seem almost crafty. http://www.exploratorium.edu/afterschool/activities/index.php?activity=172&firstDisplayedItem=1 There is also Hands Occupied which has a lot of science oriented crafts http://www.pinterest.com/iartlibraries/hands-occupied/ It feels a little bit like Lego or other kids toys.

It is not all big computer things like Makerbots which cost large amounts of money. I am noticing that many libraries are going after smaller projects like Arduino or Raspberry Pi where people do homebrew computer activities. It is interesting to look at. http://acrl.ala.org/techconnect/?p=2962 Adventures With Raspberry Pi: A Librarian's Introduction.

I finished reading The Outer Limits of Reason What Science, Mathematics, and Logic Can Teach Us by Noson S. Yanofsky. Noson S. Yanofsky focuses on reason as a way to seek out facts and avoid falsehoods. I found some more of the ideas stimulating. It would be easy to take each chapter in this book and turn it into a full length nonfiction book. The content is very dense with ideas. There are diagrams, but not long complex diagrams with lots of math. The book is also indexed and has notes on each chapter. Right now, I am thinking about the idea that observing things changes what is being observed. I am also thinking about how science is limited to what we can observe. I don't think we will run out of new things to observe any time soon. There is still plenty of outer space which has not been explored and parts of the deep ocean where people have not been. I enjoyed reading this book, it stretched both my imagination and intellect. People asked about it while I was on the train to work. They wanted to know if it was about physics. For me this covered philosophy, math, language, physics, quantum physics, computer science, and history of science.

Web Bits

A Brief History of Publishing

http://finvy.com/a-brief-history-of-publishing/

43% of Americans Own an Ereader or Tablet.

http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2013/Tablets-and-ereaders/Findings.aspx