Music can engage nursing home residents? From checked-out to animated

Watch this video to see the impact of re-engaging a 10-year resident of a nursing home.  He goes from barely able to answer yes/no questions to expressively describing music he enjoyed as a child and why music is so important to him.  Look at the joy in his eyes.

All from listening to his favorite music on an iPod.

Ah, the blessings of technology. As Glenn Reynolds say, faster please.

If you’ve ever spent time visiting a nursing home, this will make you weep with joy for what is possible.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NKDXuCE7LeQ#t=0s]

Hat tip:  CyberBrethren-A Lutheran Blog by Paul T. McCain

Oil boom on the horizon in Kansas? Also, a hint of the lucrative economics of fracking.

Walter Russell Mead points to an article here that says prospectors are spreading out across southern Kansas looking for oil. They are in the Mississippi Lime formation, roughly between Tulsa and Wichita and spreading to the west.

Two really cool comments in Mr. Mead’s post, What is the Matter with Kansas? If You Like Oil, Nothing.

First, here is a hint at the economics involved:

Continue reading “Oil boom on the horizon in Kansas? Also, a hint of the lucrative economics of fracking.”

Price of nails as indicator of improved quality of life – imagine spending as much on nails as we do home computers today.

Nails haven’t always been so cheap as to be priced as an inconsequential part of any project.

Post by Timothy Taylor at Conversable Economist discusses The Price of Nails.

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Three skills for living in a social media world

Mark Schaefer has a great post at {grow} listing three careers that will be in high demand at companies living in the social media space.  I think those ideas translates into skills we will all need to work on – Three careers that will dominate social media (and it’s not what you think)

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This is what progress look like – 1 electronic gadget in 2010 does the work of 14 electronic gadgets in 1980

(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Check out these two pictures showing 1980 and 2010 electronics tools:  Worth a thousand words.

One tool in 2010 does the work of 14 (by my count) in 1980.  Can you begin to guess the cost reduction, even without discounting for inflation?  How about the weight reduction or portability increase?

From Café Hayek, of course. This is the type of thing I talk about at my other blog, Outrun Change.

Graph of oil production in North Dakota compared to Alaska and California

I have a couple of graphs of production in North Dakota here. In today’s Wall Street Journal, there is a good month-by-month graph from 2007 through 2011. You have to scroll down some, but you can find it here:  Oil Boom Sparks River Fight.

Higher education in trouble

There is a tsunami wave out in the ocean that’s headed toward the higher ed shore.

Don’t know exactly how tall it is or how wide. Can’t quite make out the exact form but it is large and it is on the way.

The tsunami is online courses.

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Building a museum after the exhibit is in place as an illustration of adapting to change

How do you get a 252 foot long, 880 ton submarine into the basement of a museum?  Can’t quite put it on the elevator.

Bill Sheridan describes how the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry got the U-505 into the exhibit hall – No room for big ideas? Make room. (Yeah, yeah, I know he’s a better headline writer than me.)

The plan?  Dig a hole, lower the sub into the hole, enclose it, and built the rest of the exhibit around the sub.  Brilliant.

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Animated explanation of hydraulic fracturing

Curious how a fracking well is drilled?

I’ve been wondering about a few things.  Like how to drill horizontally, how to break open the dense rock, and how to prevent leakage.

Superb animated video from Voyager Oil & Gas answers a lot of my questions:

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More college student loan debt than loans on houses?

Yup.

That might be why there is a serious danger of a higher-education bubble.

Read this comment by Holly Finn in today’s Wall Street Journal article Watching the Ivory Tower Topple:

In this new educational model, the shy and the easily distracted get advantages. You can rewind a video and watch whenever and as many times as you like. Plus, teachers save time with computerized grading and students save money. (U.S. college debt, nearly $1 trillion, is bigger than housing or credit card debt.)

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Creative Visualization – mapping the growth of retail stores

(cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Check out these time-lapsed maps showing the growth of a retail chain from Flowing Data.  Great visualization of the speed and location of new stores.  Also shows the diffusion across the country.

Lets you see the data of Walmart from 1 store in 1962 to 4,393 in 2010.

Check out these visuals:

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