FLASHCARDS! Access Has Gates

FLASHCARDS! Access Has Gates

TRANSCRIPTS It’s Flash­cards Fri­day, and I’m your host, Gabrielle Bir­chak. Today’s flash­card is a sim­ple idea with sharp teeth: a resource can exist and still be unreach­able. So instead of only ask­ing, “Does help exist?”, I want to ask a bet­ter ques­tion: Can peo­ple reach help through the real-world gates of access? Here’s the mod­el. Six Gates of Access. If

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Flashcards! Science Needs Fiction

Flashcards! Science Needs Fiction

Sci­ence fic­tion is not valu­able because it pre­dicts the future. It is valu­able because it trains the mind. It gives us a way to prac­tice think­ing about sys­tems before we build them, and to prac­tice car­ing about con­se­quences before con­se­quences have real names.

Flashcards! The Archive that Survives

Flashcards! The Archive that Survives

If you have ever felt your stom­ach drop when you’ve lost a file on your com­put­er, then you already under­stand the first les­son of his­to­ry. His­to­ry is not only made by peo­ple. His­to­ry is also made by what survives. 

FLASHCARDS! Look in the Margins

FLASHCARDS! Look in the Margins

this episode is about read­ing with depth and deter­mi­na­tion to find the accu­rate sources behind the suc­cess sto­ries. The pat­tern is not only that black female inven­tors were over­looked; it is also the way in which the over­look­ing occurs.

FLASHCARDS! Self-Taught Is a Skill

FLASHCARDS! Self-Taught Is a Skill

It’s Flash­cards Fri­day! This pod­cast is a fol­low-up to Tuesday’s episode about Ben­jamin Ban­nek­er. This bril­liant indi­vid­ual was pre­dom­i­nant­ly self-taught. I found his sto­ry very inspir­ing because he was self-edu­­cat­ed. In oth­er words, he learned every­thing he knew about astron­o­my and sur­vey­ing with­out being in a class­room. And today, when peo­ple say they are self-taught, that means so more than

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FLASHCARDS! Level up your thinking game!

FLASHCARDS! Level up your thinking game!

It’s Flash­cards Fri­days. I’m Gabrielle Bir­chak, your host, and today I’m going to do a call­back to Tuesday’s episode, which was about cap­tur­ing thoughts. Last Tuesday’s episode was about pho­tograph­ing thoughts. Today I’m going to talk about those moments where you wish you could have just thought about the sub­ject bet­ter, espe­cial­ly when you’re try­ing to learn some­thing new. But

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Flashcards Friday! How to Talk to Someone Who Doesn’t Trust Science

Flashcards Friday! How to Talk to Someone Who Doesn’t Trust Science

It’s Flash­cards Fri­day, and today I want to talk about some­thing that mat­ters as much as any exper­i­ment: how we talk to peo­ple who do not trust sci­ence. Not how to win an argu­ment. Not how to humil­i­ate some­one with a fact. How to build a bridge. Because sci­ence does not spread by vol­ume. It spreads when peo­ple feel safe

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FLASHCARDS! The Physics of Shoveling Snow

FLASHCARDS! The Physics of Shoveling Snow

The hol­i­days have end­ed, the dec­o­ra­tions have come down, and many peo­ple have stepped out­side to find that the ground has been qui­et­ly trans­formed into a dense, slip­pery physics problem.