Archive for September, 2009
The Science of Rogue Waves
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009It is a terrifying specter to any ship captain at sea – a massive, roiling wall of water, unreasonably tall and impossible to maneuver. The rogue wave is the personification of the deadly, unpredictable strength of Mother Nature. For centuries, the existence of this type of wave (also referred to as freak, monster, killer, or [...]
Hank Rust
Saturday, September 19th, 2009Once a year I used to fly up to Alaska to do some serious salmon fishing with my friend Bob, my workmate Pete, and Pete’s wife Linda. Upon arriving in Anchorage we would hop over to Lake Hood, just a short distance from the airport, purchase several cases of beer, and board a single-engine float [...]
ADHD Awareness Week – The Power Understanding Brings
Thursday, September 17th, 2009‘Knowledge is Power.’ This quote by Sir Francis Bacon was the premise of a speech presented on behalf of New Zealand’s Minister for Disability Issues by Hon. Tariana Turia, at the kick-off seminar for their observance of ADD/ADHD Awareness Week. And although this quote can be used in a myriad of contexts, on this particular [...]
Pecha Kucha and the Virtue of Brevity
Tuesday, September 15th, 2009Big concept. Short format. That is the – admittedly, very basic – idea behind an event that aims to put the ‘point’ back into ‘PowerPoint.’ The MS Office standard has been the conference room bane of many an office worker’s existence – often with text heavy slides and appallingly bland imagery – and paired with [...]
How the Charleston Changed America
Sunday, September 13th, 2009The seeds of sweeping social change can be sown in the most unexpected of places. For women and African-Americans in post-World War I America, those planting grounds were the crowded, lively (and in some cases, desegregated) dance floors across the country. It may seem naive to attribute such vast changes to the cultural landscape to [...]
Sports and ADHD
Friday, September 11th, 2009The Water Cube was filled to capacity, with thousands of fans waiting in anticipation to see one of the greatest Olympians of all time take the starting block. At the 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps was under intense pressure, but you wouldn’t have known it. Amid his anxious competitors, Phelps [...]
School Politics
Tuesday, September 8th, 2009Pete was everything an eighth-grade guy wanted to be. As a star on the football team and president of Saxe Junior High, he was loved by girls, praised by parents-and envied by boys. And during the second semester of eighth-grade, I decided to run against him for the coveted junior high presidency. I wasn’t naive. [...]
Neuroscience Explores the Wisdom of Aging
Saturday, September 5th, 2009Wisdom has fallen out of fashion. This is not meant as an inflammatory statement, but rather an observation of the times in which we live. Case in point: during John McCain’s 2008 Presidential campaign, much was made of the fact that at age 73, if he had won the race, he would have been the [...]
China’s Blazing Fast Bullet Train
Wednesday, September 2nd, 2009If the Opening Ceremonies for the summer 2008 Olympic Games were any indication, the People’s Republic of China is intent on changing their global image. Under the rule of one of the last Communist governments, China has been under intense scrutiny for a myriad of social concerns – including their use of sweatshop labor, extreme [...]