High tech

[ffutures]

Just glanced into one of the labs to see one of the science teachers using an interactive whiteboard (cost £800), AV projector (about £1100), installation (£500-ish), sound system (£150-ish) and computer (£400-ish) to simulate... a blackboard. Black background, white scrawled text, etc.

OK, yes, I know you can use it for other things, but it seemed very silly somehow.

Comments

[armb.livejournal.com]

More at http://www.snopes.com/business/genius/spacepen.asp, which says they were developed for astronauts, industry paid, and both Americans and Russians changed from using pencils to using the pressurized pens (which, unlike pencils, can't cause electrical shorts when small pieces of broken graphite lead float around).

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I'm the one that stands corrected then.

I'd imagine that another benefit of using pens was that people stopped accidentally inhaling teeny bits of wood, which must have been very annoying.