Tech Talk with Toni

"Some reports suggest an average smartphone user might have between 10,000 and 50,000 files, including photos, videos, music, documents, and applications." - Gemini One popular definition of music is "humanly organized sound." Without that organization of notes, it simply becomes one big cacophony. The same principle applies to a stack of paper. While it may contain useful content, it becomes entirely useless if you don't know where to find what you're looking for. In the workplace, individuals often create, download, and delete files without giving much thought to naming conventions and hierarchy. Under normal circumstances, this might not pose a problem. However, what if you need to locate a specific document, like... now ? You would find yourself frantically clicking through dozens of folders in search of VeryImportantFile.pdf while sharing your screen to your coworkers on Teams.  I am speaking from my personal experience, so I have decided to do a bit o...

  Women make up only 27% of the STEM workforce. Introduction Being a female in Technology, I can also identify as being a "Woman in STEM" and I can say being part of this group is much different from our male counterparts. When you think of an engineer, the immediate image that comes to mind is often that of a man earning a six-figure salary. Before directing any resentment towards men, it is crucial to pose this question:  "What caused this gender gap in the first place?"  Common Challenges Two terms frequently used to answer this question are stereotypes and gender roles. The stereotypical woman is caring, nurturing, and supportive. She is also expected to stay at home, to cook, clean, and raise children. However, in 2024, being a stay at home mom is rare, with more women actively participating in the workforce, some even serving as the primary breadwinners of their households. But, they are still expected to take on the responsibilities of a stay at home mom, whi...

  A prism, a cube and a cylinder Today's post is inspired by the 3D printed morel mushroom that I received from a friend this week.  The ability to simply print on paper from the comfort of our homes is something that we take for granted.  Instead of hitting that "Print" button, folks indulged in the ancient art of handwriting ,  The concept of 3D printing can be traced back to the 1960s when the first attempts were made to develop a process called "stereolithography" or  solid printing  in Greek.  In 1984, Charles W. Hull invented and patented the first 3D printing technology, stereolithography apparatus, which used a UV laser to solidify thin layers of photopolymer resin to create 3D objects layer by layer. In the 2010s, 3D printing became mainstream across industries. Affordability increased, and materials expanded beyond plastics to include metals, ceramics, and even food. With that being said, here are ways in which 3D printing is used:  Pro...

On May 22, 1960, in Valdivia, Chile, the largest recorded earthquake with a magnitude of 9.5 occurred. This week, I decided to refresh my understanding of the math behind the Poisson Distribution (pronounced as "pwah-son"). I first came across it during Lecture 3 of Industrial Statistics, where we were exploring Probability Distributions amidst the pandemic. Now, you might wonder, "What is a probability distribution?" In simple terms, it's a way to represent how likely an event is to happen. So, what makes the Poisson Distribution special?  It's named after the French mathematician Siméon Denis Poisson, who was fascinated by mortality rates and birth statistics.  He developed this probability distribution to model events that are both rare and random but occur at a constant average rate —think of earthquakes. Example Earthquakes occur on average 3 times per month in Little Garden Island. What is the probability that on a given month there will be no earthqu...