I sat down to write this week’s entry with more than 15 articles marked for sharing, forcing me to choose the most interesting 6 out of the bunch. It was a difficult choice, and further reinforced my intention to create a more usable layout for all of these articles. In the mean time though, you can get a more realtime preview of the best contenders for the week’s Aggregate here.
1
This great little video visualizes the sizes of the four main European colonial empires over time. Starting in 1800, the video brings to light the dramatic geopolitical fluctuations in the last 200 years. Although I would have liked to see a similar visualization for the entire world, this video does its part to bring history alive.
2
An organization is using music to improve the lives of stroke, dementia, and Alzheimer's patients, providing them with iPods filled with the music of their childhood. The organization is accepting used iPods as donations in order to further their work and help more of their patients lead fuller lives - I'm donating my old iPods, and an address is provided in the article if you are also interesting in helping.
3
Although my experience in the corporate world is limited to a handful of summer internships, the disconnect between the consumer and corporate technology was always fascinating, given the pace of technological development we are experiencing. No where is this disconnect more notable than in the draconian corporate requirements for internet browsers, which forces employees to use prehistoric version of Internet Explorer, increasing their overhead costs while decreasing their network security. The article does provide some hope though, as firms are slowly thawing from their stringent technological policies due to potential increases in productivity.
4
Proposed congressional legislation is aimed at creating a civil service program mirroring that of the armed services, encouraging and incentivizing public service. Despite the article's mistaken claim that the New Deal and the Great Society programs were highly beneficial (the prolonging of the Great Depression and the destruction of the African American family were the respective unintended consequences), the overall idea of civil service is a good one, providing opportunities for America's youth to gain beneficial experience while applying their knowledge to serve the public good. It should be noted that President Obama promised during his campaign to establish this exact type of program, so it will be interesting to see if any significant progress is made in this area.
5
It is always interesting to read about the various types of experiments that psychologists come up with to learn more about who we are - this article explains some of those experiments, specifically focused on people riding the subway. As a strange coincidence, I was riding BART as I read this article, and couldn't help looking around wondering what the outcomes of the same experiments would be if they were conducted here in the Bay Area.
6
I think I managed to catch the tail end of this phenomenon here at Cal, as more and more students focused on hands-on type projects in Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. As a person who benefits daily from the innovations of technological giants such as Apple and Google, I must admit that I am rooting for the little guy in his garage working on the next big thing, just as Steve and Sergey did not so long ago.
