Taming Technology


Book Description

It is often assumed that innovative technology is an essential resource for the establishment of an information infrastructure. This study on geoinformation infrastructures convincingly demonstrates that technology is an important and far more complex factor than much geoinformation practitioners want us to believe. Three Dutch cases were studied, of which two were intended to develop an infrastructure deliberately applying innovative technology. Due to a constant stream of innovations these cases failed to bring about a working infrastructure. The third case was aimed at establishing a system of large-scale basemaps. These maps acted as a 'narrative anchor', a non-tangible interface between innovating technology and the infrastructure to be developed. Through the narrative anchor, this infrastructure has already existed for over 35 years and is likely to continue.




The Professor's Guide to Taming Technology


Book Description

This book is provided as a guide, encouragement and handbook for faculty to introduce digital media in language you can understand and provide strategies and activities you can quickly assimilate into your teaching. We are excited that more people will be able to benefit from the powerful help and guidance contained in this book. We are even more exhilarated as we anticipate how each of you will discover applications and new directions we would never anticipate, and look forward. We look forward to your innovations as you use the material you discover here. This book responds to the needs of our changing world and students by revealing innovative technology applications and how faculty are and can use digital media in teaching in higher education because faculty make the quickest changes and learn how to do it best. It is a valuable resource for faculty from faculty, because it allows the sharing of successful teaching experiences with digital media with our worldwide colleagues so they may modify it, extend it, and improve it. Moreover, in our work with faculty across all disciplines, we also find that many struggle to think about teaching in ways in which they can incorporate technology meaningfully. While we might be experts in our discipline (chemistry, philosophy, music, etc) due to the curriculum of terminal degrees, we might not have strong preparation in instructional design. We have been fortunate to bring together faculty experts across different disciplines to specifically speak about how and why to use digital media in higher education settings. We realize we are asking you to think about your way of teaching with new ideas and strategies. Therefore, we try to illustrate them with clear examples. These different approaches include clear descriptions of what these activities look like, why to develop and implement them, and how to do so for your specific needs.




Taming Technology


Book Description




Taming the Tiger


Book Description

Examines how and why individuals--and entire nations--have throughout history resisted technological innovations.




Taming the Sun


Book Description

How solar could spark a clean-energy transition through transformative innovation—creative financing, revolutionary technologies, and flexible energy systems. Solar energy, once a niche application for a limited market, has become the cheapest and fastest-growing power source on earth. What's more, its potential is nearly limitless—every hour the sun beams down more energy than the world uses in a year. But in Taming the Sun, energy expert Varun Sivaram warns that the world is not yet equipped to harness erratic sunshine to meet most of its energy needs. And if solar's current surge peters out, prospects for replacing fossil fuels and averting catastrophic climate change will dim. Innovation can brighten those prospects, Sivaram explains, drawing on firsthand experience and original research spanning science, business, and government. Financial innovation is already enticing deep-pocketed investors to fund solar projects around the world, from the sunniest deserts to the poorest villages. Technological innovation could replace today's solar panels with coatings as cheap as paint and employ artificial photosynthesis to store intermittent sunshine as convenient fuels. And systemic innovation could add flexibility to the world's power grids and other energy systems so they can dependably channel the sun's unreliable energy. Unleashing all this innovation will require visionary public policy: funding researchers developing next-generation solar technologies, refashioning energy systems and economic markets, and putting together a diverse clean energy portfolio. Although solar can't power the planet by itself, it can be the centerpiece of a global clean energy revolution. A Council on Foreign Relations Book




Taming the Technology Monster


Book Description

Technology is by far one of the most fearful parts of parenting in today's culture. And it changes constantly. As a parent, how do you stay current? How do you teach your children to use technology responsibly? Taming the Technology Monster can help.This booklet contains 8 guiding principles to raising digital natives. It breaks each idea into understandable, practical concepts to help you protect your children against all that technology can bring not only into your home, but into their hearts. Regardless of your child's age, you will be equipped with ways to stay ahead of the trends facing your kids every day, as well as ways to connect in the midst of those trends. Taming the Technology Monster will help you discover ways you can turn technology into opportunities for good in the life of your child and family.




Taming the Beloved Beast


Book Description

Why health care reform must tackle the escalating cost of medical technology Technological innovation is deeply woven into the fabric of American culture, and is no less a basic feature of American health care. Medical technology saves lives and relieves suffering, and is enormously popular with the public, profitable for doctors, and a source of great wealth for industry. Yet its costs are rising at a dangerously unsustainable rate. The control of technology costs poses a terrible ethical and policy dilemma. How can we deny people what they may need to live and flourish? Yet is it not also harmful to let rising costs strangle our health care system, eventually harming everyone? In Taming the Beloved Beast, esteemed medical ethicist Daniel Callahan confronts this dilemma head-on. He argues that we can't escape it by organizational changes alone. Nothing less than a fundamental transformation of our thinking about health care is needed to achieve lasting and economically sustainable reform. The technology bubble, he contends, is beginning to burst. Callahan weighs the ethical arguments for and against limiting the use of medical technologies, and he argues that reining in health care costs requires us to change entrenched values about progress and technological innovation. Taming the Beloved Beast shows that the cost crisis is as great as that of the uninsured. Only a government-regulated universal health care system can offer the hope of managing technology and making it affordable for all.




Taming Information Technology


Book Description

Information technology is at the center of modern life. It supports most day-to-day activities: talking on the phone, getting money from an ATM, or working in the office. Whether for work, commerce, or fun, we interact with computers, networks, and databases -- all sorts of information technology. How does it work? Certainly, technological advances helped create this world. But what keeps it running? The answer is people. These people -- computer system administrators -- are the unsung heroes of the modern age. This book, ten years in the making, is the result. It tells the story of system administration through the narratives of real system administrators. It documents dynamic systems of people and machines, of specialists working together to tame hugely complex information technology infrastructures, developing and adapting their own tools and practices over time to create productive work environments. The authors hope Taming Information Technology will lead the way to a future in which the important work of these IT workers is better appreciated, better understood, and better supported.




Taming Information Technology


Book Description

Information technology is at the center of modern life. It supports most day-to-day activities: talking on the phone, getting money from an ATM, or working in the office. Whether for work, commerce, or fun, we interact with computers, networks, and databases — all sorts of information technology. How does it work? Certainly, technological advances helped create this world. But what keeps it running? The answer is people. These people — computer system administrators — are the unsung heroes of the modern age. This book, ten years in the making, is the result. It tells the story of system administration through the narratives of real system administrators. It documents dynamic systems of people and machines, of specialists working together to tame hugely complex information technology infrastructures, developing and adapting their own tools and practices over time to create productive work environments. The authors hope Taming Information Technology will lead the way to a future in which the important work of these IT workers is better appreciated, better understood, and better supported.




The Ethics of Invention: Technology and the Human Future


Book Description

We live in a world increasingly governed by technology—but to what end? Technology rules us as much as laws do. It shapes the legal, social, and ethical environments in which we act. Every time we cross a street, drive a car, or go to the doctor, we submit to the silent power of technology. Yet, much of the time, the influence of technology on our lives goes unchallenged by citizens and our elected representatives. In The Ethics of Invention, renowned scholar Sheila Jasanoff dissects the ways in which we delegate power to technological systems and asks how we might regain control. Our embrace of novel technological pathways, Jasanoff shows, leads to a complex interplay among technology, ethics, and human rights. Inventions like pesticides or GMOs can reduce hunger but can also cause unexpected harm to people and the environment. Often, as in the case of CFCs creating a hole in the ozone layer, it takes decades before we even realize that any damage has been done. Advances in biotechnology, from GMOs to gene editing, have given us tools to tinker with life itself, leading some to worry that human dignity and even human nature are under threat. But despite many reasons for caution, we continue to march heedlessly into ethically troubled waters. As Jasanoff ranges across these and other themes, she challenges the common assumption that technology is an apolitical and amoral force. Technology, she masterfully demonstrates, can warp the meaning of democracy and citizenship unless we carefully consider how to direct its power rather than let ourselves be shaped by it. The Ethics of Invention makes a bold argument for a future in which societies work together—in open, democratic dialogue—to debate not only the perils but even more the promises of technology.