Edgar Wilson “Bill” Nye (1850-1896) was, in his time, a popular humorist, both as journalist and lecturer.  He’s not much read now, but I suggest that he’s still worth a look.  Here, for example, is a slice from an essay on the future.  Edison, by the way, was indeed working on a thought-recording machine. “In fact, Mr. […]

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The computer is a useful tool.  We all use it regularly.  The fact that I post here should make it clear to the impartial that I have no beef with these gizmos. But this is a puritanical culture; and many of our fellow citizens view the non-digital with the same dogmatic intolerance with which the Pilgrims […]

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Facts Can Be Fun! Interactive gadgets and gizmos to aid learning have been popular for decades, perhaps longer. Often used for the basics – ABCs, vocabulary, numbers, math, music, spelling, verb conjugation, and foreign languages, for example – they have been packaged as calculators and electronic devices, paper wheel charts, games, puzzles, wooden blocks, and […]

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What is ullage? It has several meanings: deficiency, lack, the air at the top of a bottle, the sediment after the bottle is emptied, the fumes in an engine. The Ullage Group takes it as an emblem of the other part: the contrarian, paradoxical, lost, unpopular, and forgotten. Our founders, Anthony Matt and Doug Skinner, have been […]

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