Blog 19 - February 17, 2014

Howdy.


Moving on to medical technology.


Go here. Watch this. No words from me until Wednesday.


WARNING: There is footage of actual operations in this video. Look away if you squeamish during those parts.


http://www.ted.com/talks/catherine_mohr_surgery_s_past_present_and_robotic_future.html


Wednesday edit
My words for the week: READ THEM ALL.


I thought I would get a little personal this week. Pretty recently the Lanham household was visited by the big C word. Cancer. Scary just to look at isn't it? Kinda makes my skin crawl just seeing it sitting there.



Anyway, Mr. L (who I lovingly refer to as Better Half) was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he had a radical robotic prostatectomy. That's right, ROBOTIC. Oh the technology implications . . . His surgeon actually sat ACROSS THE ROOM as he operated on Mr. L! Just like a video game. He has these goggles he looks into and he moves his thumbs and across the room the robotic arms that were INSIDE MY HUSBAND proceeded to do all the things that surgeons used to do the old way. Except when he was done, Mr. L only had 5 small incisions instead of one great big huge one. MUCH faster recovery time.


What Catherine Mohr DIDN'T tell you in that video is that she's one of the inventors of the DaVinci system (girl power!).


She also didn't mention that there are about 2600 DaVinci robots in use in this country at the cost of about $2 million apiece, plus about $300,000 per year for maintenance. The math is staggering.



So go take a look at the pictures of the robot. Also, take a look at the article about Catherine Mohr (girl power!), who is one of the designers of the Da Vinci system.



For credit this week you may 1) give an opinion about the use of the robot. You may 2) reference another article about the robot (please leave me a link). You may 3) give me an opinion about Catherine Mohr. You may also 4) reply to someone else's post.



Please remember: you must advance the discussion in some manner to get credit. "That's cool" or "I like that" is not advancing the discussion. Not now, not in May at the end of the year. You must TELL ME WHY!


http://tinyurl.com/2mhxoh


http://singularityhub.com/2009/07/27/catherine-mohr-promises-more-robotic-surgery/

Blog 18 - February 9, 2014

Hi!

So it's time for a topic switch. Know what that means? That's right . . . THINK GEEK WEEK!!!!!!!!!!!

http://www.thinkgeek.com/

So for credit this week, pick a product and GIVE US THE LINK and then tell us why you love it or think it's abundantly stupid. You MUST PROVIDE THE LINK so that the rest of us can go and look at it.

Your blog should look a little something like this:

http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/c427/

So this is a hateful little noisemaker that you hide to drive people nuts. NOT that *I* would ever do something like that. Wouldn't it be great to watch somebody run around the house / office trying to find the source of the sound?!?
Lanham, 1st period

You must give us the link.You must give an opinion.You must sign and put your class period.

This is one of the RARE times when you can go ahead and blog on Tuesday. Be sure to check back on Thursday during blog time if you do that so you can see what everybody else is shopping for.

Talk to me . . .

Blog 17 - February 3, 2014

Hola homies!

Let's talk about CES again. Not surprisingly, most of you said you would like to attend this event in the future. Me too. But midweek when there aren't one gogillion people there.

So lets look at the numbers from this year's attendance. Please follow these links:



http://www.ce.org/Blog/Articles/2014/January/2014CES/CES2014-by-the-Numbers



http://www.cepro.com/article/ces_2014_attendance_tops_150000/



Read Tuesday. Blog Thursday. Wednesday Edit: Pick a number in one of the two above articles and tell us which one and why it surprised you.


Example: I'm choosing the exhibitor number from the second article. It surprised me because I don't even know where you could physically put 3200 vendors!


Talk to me . . .

Blog 16 - January 28, 2014

Hola Peeps! Read. My. Words.

Today I want to tell you a little secret . . .

There's this THING that happens every year in January in Las Vegas. It's huge. It's called CES = Consumer Electronics Show. Every piece of electronics technology that we use has debuted at this show in the past. Think about that for a second. That iPhone in your pocket? Yep. Apple showed it off there. That flat-panel TV in your living room at home. Yep, that too. It's a HUGE deal in the electronics world and a gogillion (well maybe that's an overestimate) people converge on Las Vegas every year to take a look at the newest electronic innovations. 

So go take a look and see what CES is about. For credit this week tell me if you'd want to go (or not) and why. That's TWO things: Would you go? Why or why not? Read today, blog Thursday.  CLEARLY if you want to go to CES the reason is to see emerging technology. PLEASE BE MORE SPECIFIC!!!! Which technology are you most interested in?

Talk to me . . .

http://www.cesweb.org/

http://ces.cnet.com/

http://www.pcmag.com/CES/

http://www.ibtimes.com/ces-2014-review-rundown-showcased-products-trade-show-1540304
(Click on the links inside the story to see pics of those particular products)

Blog 15 - January 21, 2014

Read. My. Words.

Let's get deep this week. 

I want to talk about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his thoughts on technology.

In 1964 Dr. King delivered a lecture the day after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in which he told his audience at the University of Oslo that "material advancement was meaningless without an accompanying moral structure." In other words, the growing abundance of technology is undermining the human spirit. My favorite quote from the article is: "The richer we have become materially, the poorer we become morally and spiritually," he said. "We have learned to fly in the air like birds and swim in the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers."

Here's the link to his speech:
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/12/dayintech_1211

This week I'm asking you to think, REALLY THINK about Dr. King's words. I want his words to work on you a little bit.

He is telling us that technology advancement needs to go hand in hand with spiritual advancement, or it's all for nothing. THINK. Do you agree or disagree with Dr. King? WHY? You will answer both of those questions to receive credit this week.

Do NOT post until Thursday. Doing so will earn you a zero.

Meet me back here on Tuesday, January 21.

This blog in on hiatus until Midterms / my trip is over.

Blog 14 - December 16, 2013

Hola Peeps! Thanks for logging in!

  Just in case you've been living under a rock, it's almost Christmas time. In fact, here's the exact time left until Christmas:

Customize Countdown Timer

For this weeks blog, pretend I'm giving you $300 with which to buy TECHNOLOGY gifts. They can be for you or for someone else.

Here are the rules:

1. It must be TECHNOLOGY. This would mean it has a power source of some sort. Ugg boots, while terrible cute, are not technology.

2. You must spend all $300, or as close to it as possible.

3. You must post links to your stuff (with prices) so we can all go look.


And don't bother to worry about shipping costs.

You may blog on Tuesday like we do for Think Geek. Please try not to suck the fun out of this for me.

Have a wonderful, RELAXING holiday season! See yall rested and ready to go in January.

 
Talk to me . . .