June 6th, 2009 by Kevin A. Barnes
I received an email this evening from an old work colleague telling me she had posted photos for me on a social networking site called Tagged. The email struck me as just a touch strange, but couldn’t place my finger on why and decided to click through and check it out.
The registration page on Tagged made me feel even more strange, asking for information I would normally not share, including my email account password. That request passed my comfort threshold and I quit the Tagged website. I also sent a quick email to the friend who sent me the original Tagged invitation asking her if it was legitimate. Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Business, Technology, Web | Tags: cautionary tale, phishing, social networking, spam, Tagged
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February 21st, 2009 by Kevin A. Barnes
Earlier this week I learned from the NASA website that Konrad Dannenberg died on Monday at the age of 96. Dannenberg was a key member of Wernher von Braun’s original engineering team that developed the hardware and processes which enabled humans to reach the moon.
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Kevin meets rocket pioneer
Konrad Dannenberg on December 31, 2002. |
While attending the adult version of Space Camp in Huntsville in late 2002 and early 2003, I had the pleasure of meeting Dannenberg and talking with him about his experiences. We spoke at length about his work on various launch systems for NASA, including the Redstone — which lifted the first American astronauts into space — and the Saturn V which carried the first humans to the moon. Dannenberg told me how, at the request of Wernher von Braun, he started and managed the development of the Saturn V (which still holds the title of “largest rocket ever built”). Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Science, Space Exploration, Technology, The Future | Tags: aviation history, Foo Fighters, Konrad Dannenberg, NASA, Operation Paperclip, Redstone, Saturn V, UFOs
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January 24th, 2009 by Kevin A. Barnes
It was 25 years ago today (January 24, 1984) that Apple unveiled the first Macintosh personal computer.
On that day a quarter century ago, Steve Jobs stood in front of a crowd of early Apple faithful and literally let the Mac out of the bag. Macintosh Model M0001 may look nostalgic by today’s standards, but in 1984 it was the most polished, most powerful, most user-friendly, best looking and among the lightest computers on the planet. (Hmmm. Sounds like the 2009 Macs ...)
As my friends and family know, I’ve been a strong Apple supporter since even before the Mac was introduced, so Mac’s 25th is an ideal excuse to wax poetic about my many Apple memories. Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Business, Innovation/Creativity, Technology | Tags: apple, mac, newton, steve jobs
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March 20th, 2008 by Kevin A. Barnes
Early on Wednesday morning (March 19, 2008), I was writing an article tentatively entitled “What is a Futurist?” when I heard on the radio of the death of Arthur C. Clarke. My first thought after hearing the news was that the world had lost one of the great modern futurists.
Clarke is perhaps best known for 2001: A Space Odyssey, as well as the 1948 short story “The Sentinel” upon which the novel and film of 2001 were based. But Clarke also was known as a “prophet of the space age” because of how accurately many of his essays and science fiction short stories anticipated humankind’s first steps into outer space. Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Science, Science Fiction, Space Exploration, Technology, The Future |
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October 12th, 2007 by Kevin A. Barnes
You’ve probably heard the medical reports about people damaging their hearing because of listening to iPods with the volume cranked to 11. But is that the worst health risk associated with iPods? The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) began reporting in the July 12, 2007 issue about cases of iPod wearers being struck by lightening. (See the original NEJM article: “Thunderstorms and iPods — Not a good iDea”.)
The article described the injuries sustained by an iPod-wearing jogger who was struck by lightening during a thunderstorm. Those injuries included ruptured eardrum membranes and burns leading from the ears down the chest and matching where the man’s earbud wires had been. The article hypothesized that even if wearing an iPod didn’t increase the risk of being struck by lightening, the iPod still potentially directed the lightening to the person’s ears and head. Read the rest of this entry »
Categories: Technology |
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