This is an engaging guest post by the lovely Dan Fonseca, creator of the blog Synapses. In this intriguing post Dan talks about the speed at which we retrieve information online, and how this affects the Knowledge Gap theory.
When I think about my favorite characteristic about the Internet, I immediately think of its incredible ability to flatten the information/knowledge gap. Not to get critical and ideological too soon, but before the Internet was easily available, knowledge was often controlled one way or another. This by no means implies that there was no knowledge accessibility before the Internet, that would simply be silly. What I am trying to communicate is that one had to jump through a few more hoops to get it, and it required a little more effort on our part. Knowledge is power and it should not be a surprise that those with power often go out of their way to hold on to it and keep it exclusive. Those with knowledge use its power to mold society and often take advantage of those who simply do not know any better or have the means to combat the hegemony. This has always been the case until some force came around to challenge it, thus shifting power.
Throughout history we have seen technology disrupt power dynamics. Technological Determinism has always helped democratized information and with it power. Just think back to the Gutenberg press and its effects on the Catholic Church. The printing press helped to publish information quickly, helping diffuse new ideas across modern Europe. The rest is history you can find in textbooks or, actually better yet, Google.
What I am trying to communicate is that the advent of the Internet has done exactly what the printing press did back then, but to an enormous extent that we are still trying to comprehend. Think about it for a quick second. What is stopping you right now from searching whatever you wanted? From learning anything that interested you? Not much, maybe a poor Internet connection or questionable battery life, but apart from that absolutely nothing! That’s a pretty wild and empowering situation to be in, huh?
Though we have come a long way in our history, society is still one comprised of the “haves and the have-nots.” Dependent on socioeconomic factors, one’s life can play out very differently. Factors like: What neighborhood did you grow up in? What school did you go to? Are you attending college? These variables can have a huge impact on a life’s outcome, there is no questioning that. Sure, there is the “American Dream” but many say that is a myth. We are often given the cards and have to deal with them the best way we can. Though this remains true to some extent today, the Internet is challenging that situation.
With the Internet, anything is possible. Knowledge is everywhere, oozing from every crevice of the web. You can’t go to a single website without coming across incredible showcases of the meta-data that’s put to work. There are countless communities online looking to share and grow together and they only become stronger in numbers. Between YouTube and Wikipedia, one has the information to learn just about anything! We are now unbound by the previous constrains of other institutions on our intellectual betterment; we are rather held by our curiosity.
We live in a time that favors experience and ideas over backgrounds and test scores. It is time we all capitalize on that. That’s not to say we are all in an equal playing field (far from it), but the game has become more reasonable and fair.
The Internet, with all its beauty, has done something incredible to our age. We have the ability to share, connect, and learn without any ceiling built in. We are the only ones holding us back and if we take advantage of this, we -collectively, as a society- can become better, more equal, and ultimately happier. Long live the Internet!
“I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious” – Albert Einstein
*Dan Fonseca is currently a Communications student at Northeastern University in Boston and writes his very own blog Synapses. He enjoys thinking about the bigger picture and looks to bring people together in anyway he can. Dan loves his brie and sushi too. Oh yeah, he’s also proud to be from New Jersey so watch what you say 🙂
Tasting Table – I am usually weary of sites that work on an email newsletter-only basis rather than offering open, surfable pages. Tasting Table is an exception to this rule of thumb of mine. This food savvy hot spot offers a daily serve of “one delicious idea about dining, wine, cocktails, cooking or restaurant personalities. We feed you only first-hand recommendations that we have tested thoroughly ourselves—one bite at a time.”
Tasting Table is a refreshing take on gastronomic and recipes recommendations online, and it currently covers the culinary arenas of NYC, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington DC and San Francisco. Hopefully with time Tasting Table will offer the same superb food & wine content for other cities as well. Either way, I am subscribed. Here’s an example of one of the daily emails I received from Tasting Table (my apologies for the incomplete image, the full recipe is below):
Turnip and Rutabaga Gratin
Recipe adapted from Steven Satterfield, Miller Union, Atlanta
Yield: 6 side-dish servings
INGREDIENTS:
1 medium rutabaga (about ¾ pound), peeled and thinly sliced
1 teaspoon thyme leaves
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus more for buttering the baking dish
1 medium purple turnip (about ¾ pound), peeled and thinly sliced
2 cups bread crumbs, preferably homemade
1 cup chicken stock, preferably homemade
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 450˚ and lightly butter an 8-by-8-by-2-inch baking dish.
2. Arrange a thin, even layer of the rutabaga slices across the bottom of the dish. Sprinkle with a pinch of thyme, salt and pepper, then dot with tiny pats of the butter. Arrange a thin, even layer of turnip slices over the rutabaga. Sprinkle with thyme, salt and pepper and dot with more butter. Continue the layering process, alternating between the rutabaga and turnip, until the dish is approximately two-thirds full and all the vegetables have been included.
3. Season the bread crumbs with salt and black pepper and spread over the vegetables. Pour the chicken stock and cream over the bread crumbs; press down on the bread crumbs gently to absorb the liquids. Drizzle with the olive oil.
4. Bake until the gratin is golden brown and the vegetables in the center of the dish are tender when poked with a paring knife, about 35 minutes. Remove the gratin from the oven and let rest for 20 minutes, then serve.
Long Bets – On a mission to “improve long–term thinking,” The Long Now Foundations‘ Long Bets is “a public arena for enjoyably competitive predictions, of interest to society, with philanthropic money at stake.” Long Bets is all about taking responsibility and standing behind your own truth.
How does it work? First you must distinguish between ‘predictions’ and ‘bets.’ Making a prediction means stating a situation that would take place at least two years from now, followed by a supporting argument. You must include your name right next to it. This will be set in stone, meaning once you’ve stated your prediction or bet, you won’t be able to edit it at a later time. See a few examples below.
Betting (or the Long Bet) is counter-arguing an existing Prediction. Specifically, when a member challenges a predictor to a wager over their Prediction. It’s kind of like presenting a scientific theory to the academic community, and opposing individuals then attempt to refute it – only Long Bets concerns social and scientific predictions and bets.
Long Bets’ mind competition is thought-provoking, creative and stirs a much needed conversation between participants online. Any one can join in, but you will have to register first to do so. A big thumbs up for this intelligent website.
Advanced Riskology – Tyler Tervooren is an ambitious and creative young man who writes about taking smart risks in the pursuit for a better, more fulfilled life and mind. As Tyler claims, “Life’s most important lessons are learned from the risks we take, but we only learn when we actually take them.” Tyler might seem too ambitious to some (see his quest for being included in the top 1% of the world club). Either way, this blog is his canvas for sharing his own risks and decision making, and his tips on ‘smart risk taking’ (yes, there is such a thing).
As Tyler suggests, start with this post, which is a nice introduction to what this blog is about, and who Tyler is. My personal favorite is The Do-It-Yourself Guide to Inception.
DECOmyplace – By showcasing real living places tastefully designed by ‘regular people,’ DECOmyplace is an interior design hub dedicated to presenting and sharing design ideas.
While this exquisite site is very popular in Taiwan, the interior design ideas you will find here are universally appreciated. Browse by room type (kitchen, bedroom, office and more), by furnishing (lighting, painting, plants, tableware, etc.) or styles (before/after, retro, vintage and so on). In short, DECOmyplace is a wonderful celebration of interior design, and everyone’s invited to contribute. Want to share your living space? Sign in and upload. Here are a couple of my favorites.
Red Bull Street Art View – Another fantastic manipulation of Google Street View, the Red Bull Street Art View takes you to the otherwise hidden gems of street art and graffiti all over the world. Start with the ‘world map’ view (see below) and click on any red circle to zoom in to an area with a variety of street artworks.
Here’s an amazing Street View picture of a wall graffiti in Mexico City, Mexico:
Don’t see your city here int his art project? Add a street art work of your town!
Loviu – This innovative T-Shirts store offers users – designers and simple T-shirt wearers alike- the chance to actively influence what people are wearing: “now you have a chance to decide what people will wear tomorrow and make some nice cash along the way.”
Aside from voting for tee designs you love (highest scoring designs result in some serious Euro cash for winning designers!) and submitting your own design, you can earn sweet cash by allowing Loviu to advertise the daily tee on your Facebook profile page.
Here are a couple of designs I immediately craved for myself, but sadly shopping is no longer possible; you can only vote for these:
Design Milk – This cool design website is one of our favorites, and is part of our Design MiniFaves page for ages now. Last week it was included in our Weekly Blogs lineup and it scored lots of user attention, therefore it made it to this week’s Weekly Faves.
Design Milk is a comprehensive resource of design in practically every possible industry: Architecture, art, furniture, interior design, style & fashion, even technology. In addition, Design Milk is committed to present the latest news on design which, combined with its beautiful look and feel, constitutes a top choice design website filled with ideas and inspirations. Here are a couple of posts I enjoyed reading -click the images to read them.
If you’re still craving for more, check out the world of design in the canine kingdom – Dog Milk.
Hitlantis – Seems like music discovery sites are popping everywhere on the Web, and for a good reason. On the one hand, the Web is supposed to be a bottomless well of information that is just a click away, but on the other hand, it’s almost impossible to reach those new upcoming artists taking a shot at stardom. Hitlantis belongs to the same overall niche, only it showcases artists in a totally different way.
You start off with the home screen above. No, this isn’t the color pallet at Home Depot, it’s Hitlantis’ amazing approach to showing you what music discoveries are out there. Zoom in using the magnifying glass icon on the left and search for the colors (using the legend) representing your preferred music styles (mine are turquoise and yellow – Electro and Blues, respectively).
To give a more specific example, see the screen shot below showing the artist KSU, a blues band. As you can see, the interface is beautifully designed to allow easy listening to your chosen songs, and you can vote for your favorite tracks as well. Each bubble represents a different artist and displays that artist’s ‘hotness’ rank with a numerical value.
Hitlantis is amazing in every possible way; the music variety is huge, the unique interface is super cool and the sound quality is top notch. I’m adding this one to my personal favorites!
Vivid Ways – A Winning Weekly Blog for a reason, Vivid Ways is all about positive inspiration posts to help you achieve healthy and enriched well-being, be it in your relationships, work environment, psychology and more.
Vivid Ways is the virtual space of Scott McIntyre who uses this blog to share his “experiences of colorful living and to connect with others who want to get more out of life.” Some of the insightful posts I found here include Stop Trying to be Perfect Because Your Best is Good Enough and Are You Ready to Take a Risk? This is a purely positive RSS to add to your daily reads online.
99 Rooms – This amazing interactive art project is brought to us by Kim Köster, Richard Schumann, Stephan Schulz and Johannes Bünemann. Combining wall painting, photography, animation and sound to create a unique comprehensive experience, 99 Rooms is inspired by the works of Berlin artist Kim Köster “within the countless vacated premises of East Berlin‘s industrial sector.” Although the project first came out in 2004, it continues to surprise and inspire millions of viewers worldwide.
Enter the site and embark on an artistic voyage unlike anything else you have encountered. I have included below two screen shots, two out of the 99 rooms you will enter while exploring this fine project.
Street Peeper – A winning Weekly Blog, Street Peeper is a fine Sartorialist counterpart, offering high definition photos of well-dressed men and and women (young and beautiful of course) in various global cities.
To explore the cool looks on StreetPeeper, simply click an image on the homepage – these are recent entries. Another option is viewing lookbooks by cities, or by typing a label name or style (i.e. Marc Jacobs) in StreetPeeper’s search box. Another option for checking out street fashion is through the news section. The person behind StreetPeeper and the camera is Phil, a style-savvy guy who started this project following what he calls a “variety of odd-jobs.” Here are a couple of looks I loved.
