Every New Year brings something fun: a fresh start, a few ambitious resolutions, and—my personal favorite—an entire new batch of creative works entering the public domain. On January 1, 2026, a wave of books, films, songs, and characters became fair game for sharing, adapting, remixing, and reinventing (at least in the United States). That means …
Scofflaw. Boondoggle. Snafu. What do these words have in common? They are all slang terms that came into existence in the last century. The origin of these—and many other—words are examined in the article 45 Terrific Slang Terms From the Last Century. Several of these words are familiar to me. Infact, I’ve used those at …
I’ve always been drawn to clean design—the kind that doesn’t shout for attention, but quietly says, “this just works.” That’s why reading about how Steve Jobs once spent only ten minutes dragging sliders around to design the original Mac calculator feels like a revelation. According to the article from Ars Technica, a young Apple engineer …
There’s this meme floating around online that draws a line from ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics—our ancestors’ earliest attempt at picturing ideas and emotions—to today’s colorful emojis blinking across our phones. And it got me thinking about an intermediate chapter in that journey: the humble emoticon. Back in 1982, at Carnegie Mellon University, computer scientists were trading …
The year was 1725. Johann Sebastian Bach was releasing new music that he composed. Russian emperor Peter the Great died. And in Madrid, Spain, the doors to Botín opened in Madrid. Earlier this year, the restaurant celebrated its 300th birthday, according to the Guinness Book of Records, which makes Botín the oldest restaurant in existence. That …
America Online—later rebranded to the simpler AOL—was ahead of its time. Once upon a time, the company connected millions of homes to the internet, wooing customers through their prolific free CDs available at retailers and sent to homes directly through the postal service. The rite of passage of making sure no one was on the …
Underneath the surface of the northeast part of Lake Michigan lies a long-hidden mystery. Researchers conducting a routine sonar scan of Grand Traverse Bay discovered a series of stone structures, in varying sizes, approximately 40 feet beneath the surface. A professor at Northwestern Michigan University, Dr. Mark Holley, is credited with the discovery. The structures …
“Nerds will save the world.”—Wil Wheaton I’ve never been one of the “cool kids.” In my youth, I had an interest in playing sports, but life’s circumstances didn’t let that materialize, either. I was a good student from an early age. Science fairs, spelling bees, and other academic competitions were things I could participate in, …
Every year, tech titans Google and Apple hold major events to launch new mobile phones. Apple, along with nearly all major software manufacturers, also has annual events to release new versions of software. A couple of weeks ago, one of the most well-known software packages—Windows 95—recognized the 30th anniversary of the software’s release. In the …
I am a fan of Apple Computer and its charismatic co-founder, Steve Jobs. Apple has historically placed a high value on the design aesthetic of its products and their functionality. Even the early all-in-one Macintosh computers had the polished edges in the software that came installed on those beige boxes with the molded carrying handles. …
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