Verbatim

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.
Sir Isaac Newton
If I have not seen as far as others, it is because there were giants standing on my shoulders.
Hal Abelson, although according to Wikipedia, he attributes it to his Princeton roommate, Jeff Goll

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Tomorrow is election day in Canada. If the last Federal election a scant 18 months ago is any indication, some 40 percent of us will not exercise our fundamental right and civic responsibility to vote. It’s a perfect time to reflect on the nature of citizenship and the possible role that learning designers play in [...]

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Any taxonomic scheme has problems. We tend to label and dismiss anything once we assign it a category. Our classifications blind us to the wildness of natrual organization by supplying coneptual boxes to fit our preconceived ideas. They should reflect our study of nature. The two-tiered five-kingdom system will always need revision. Whatever its difficulties, [...]

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These antiquated terms - “blue-green algae,” “protozoa,” “higher animals,” “lower plants,” and many others - remain in use despite their penchant to propagate biological malaise and ignorance. The use of these insults to the living benefits those people whose budgets, class notes, and social organization depend on their continuity. I suggest that one reason Wallin’s [...]

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The art form of comics is many centuries old, but it’s perceived as a recent invention and suffers the curse of all new media. The curse of being judged by the standards of the old. Ever since the invention of the written word, new media have been misunderstood.
Careful, Jacob! If you keep doing this [writing [...]

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I realize that most authors would talk about how to make the idea before they teach you how to sell it. That’s backward. Knowing how to sell your idea - make it happen - is the step you must take before you bother inventing it. If you can’t figure out how to implment your idea, [...]

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Each age interprets its universe in terms of what is currently important to it. Ancient animistic people wanting to make sense of the starry sky saw it as a zoo of people and animals—the Hunter, the Swan, the Lion, the Dog. The mechanical age of the eighteenth century bred a mechanistic philosophy; in the [...]

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