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Memoir of No One in Particular, Apropos of Nothing at All – Musing 1: Mixed Reality


This may, or may not, be the serialized start of something or other.

Don’t believe the feel-good hype, or in the vernacular of the 21st century, the meme of the snowflake: That ubiquitous myth of uniqueness that no two snowflakes are alike.

True, the outward appearances of snowflakes have a wide range of variance, as our own human appearances vary widely from one another. But with both snowflakes and humans, we vary only within the physical parameters within which we can be called a snowflake or a human. In the end, for all our differences, we’re just human, subject to what Shakespeare called “the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to”, until we shuffle off this mortal coil.

We are like snowflakes in that important way, of course: we’re temporary.

But we can still tell a good story.

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Uncategorized

Revisiting “Innovation”

The latest issue of Innovate Tampa Bay has hit the shelves and FCDI, the nonprofit for which I serve as Executive Director, is featured in the 3rd edition with an overview of AMRoC Fab Lab in Chapter 4, which looks at “Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Robotics”.

I also had the opportunity to share my own thoughts in the Chapter 1 Thought Leader section, with some personal thoughts on Innovation, which I’m re-sharing here.


I think the word “innovation” is overused. Not that I don’t appreciate or value interesting ideas, but I think many things touted as innovative today are simply refurbished old ideas, or mid—to-late 20th century concepts clothed in the early21st century parlance of so-called influencers.

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Culture, Humanity, Maker, Social Justice, Uncategorized

Back for the Future: Makerspaces that Matter

Resharing this post from Eureka Factory, for which I originally wrote it.


When we first embarked on the library makerspace journey a few years ago, the concept was still relatively new.  3-D printers were all the rage, Maker Faires were the new state fair,  and makerspaces in libraries were cutting edge.

Six years down the road,  3D printers are still cool, and prices have dropped. But beyond rapid prototyping and small business uses, hobby use hasn’t gotten much beyond key chains and the ubiquitous plastic octopus.  Attendance has waned at the name brand Maker Faires, although independent maker festivals like Gulf Coast Maker & Comic Con have sprung up worldwide.  And makerspaces in libraries – well, they’re pretty common these days but mileage has varied and they’ve proven a bit too cutting edge for some libraries, where they’ve been scaled back to arts and crafts programming, or high end computer labs.

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