This is one of those cases where fostering the elite is a good thing. Nothing wrong with funding community colleges or making tuition at four-year institutions more reasonable, but we are systematically undermining our country both economically and culturally by undercutting our large research universities. All hail the MOOC, and for goodness sake, make higher education function more effectively, but don’t use it as an excuse to take the “research” out of research university…

Edit: Hmmm. Slideshare is being flaky on the audio… sorry.

It’s no secret: one of the reasons I wanted to have kids is for the toys. It’s so much more socially acceptable (and fun) to buy Legos and light sabers for your kids. But the irony is that kids don’t want toys, they want the real thing. Sure, they’ll settle for the cardboard box fashioned to be a car, but if you turn your back and they have access to your keys, watch out!

My son loves the idea and the practice of vacuuming. I’m not sure why–perhaps because it is such an unusual and rare thing to see in our house. He’s not alone in that. I spoke with a janitor at the American Natural History Museum who noted that kids come from around the world to the museum and the they universally are drawn to his broom and dustpan. They think it is far more awesome than some stuffed black bear or 6,000-year-old dinosaur bones. (I got that right, right? Carbon dating is just Satan’s Tivo?)

And there is a whole market of vacuums for kids that “really suck”! And when I say really suck, I mean that they have some sort of weak sauce sucking mechanism that makes it seem like they are some kind of vacuum.

So, faced with the possibility of spending well over $100 on a toy Dyson, we did what any sane person would do, and bought our two-year-old a cordless vaccuum. He vacuums, and actually manages to help clean up the house.

Is it dangerous? It’s not like we are giving him his own blender or microwave, but yes, I’m sure somewhere on the box it says something like “not appropriate for children under 4.”

And even though he loves his toy power screwdriver, he runs around the house saying “screw everythiiiiing!” and attempting to do just that. So, it may be a year or two until we turn over a real power screwdriver. But we will, and probably not before he is all that much older.

Because in a world full of toys, the best ones are also tools.

Maker Faire was anything but a let-down. I think it would be fair to say it felt like going to Disneyland for geeks. (Presuming, for the moment, that Disneyland isn’t Disneyland for geeks.)

I shot the short video above for one of my classes. Since I didn’t really do credits, here’s some linkage to some of the people and things you see in the video… (If you are missing, just let me know!)

• Maker Faire NYC
• All Exhibitors
• ShopBot
• “Test Drive” by Zapac (theme music)
• New York Hall of Science
• Brooklyn Aerodrome
• Madagascar Institute
• Thundersteeds
• Mousetrap
• Liquiduslux
• Soldering is Easy
• New Youth City
• The Open Organization Of Lockpickers
• Windowfarms
• Boswyck Farms
• Science Spin
• Fairytale Fashion
• Book Copier
• Zeugen
• Shapeways
• RepRap

(via Aaron)

(via rmazolan)

lost in a moment from dennis wheatley on Vimeo.