Jonathan Strickland has always loved technology. As a kid, Jonathan spent countless hours playing games like River Raid and Pitfall on his Atari 2600. He grew up during the early years of the personal computer era and cut his teeth on an Apple IIe and the Texas Instruments TI-99/4A computers. He earned his bachelor's degree in English Literature from the University of Georgia. He focused primarily on medieval and Renaissance literature and can still rattle off several Shakespearean monologues (and he'll do so unless you stop him).
Jonathan is a former staff writer and eventually senior writer for the HowStuffWorks electronics and computer channels. He currently hosts the podcast TechStuff. He lives in a funky part of Atlanta filled with poets, artists, actors and assorted crazy people — he fits right in. His hobbies include writing fiction, acting and learning to play the ukulele and mandolin.
Recent Contributions
Could your e-mail be used against you in a court of law? Maybe. Computer forensics searches, preserves and analyzes information on computer systems for potential evidence in a trial.
Instead of buying a supercomputer, what if you bought many regular computers? That's the idea behind distributed computing. But how does it work?
Although we love our mobile gadgetry, all those charging cords are annoying to keep up with and carry around. Does it ever make you wonder, how do wireless chargers work? Find out how wireless chargers ditch the cables and power up your gear!
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Wars and murders have much the same result -- by the end, someone will be dead. One is condoned, while the other is punished. Why is that? What makes the two so different from each another?
We've heard a lot about Web 2.0 and Web 3.0. But what about Web 1.0, the one that started it all? Read on to explore some lingering evidence of Web 1.0's existence!
Though the 1980s might remind you of the days of MTV and leg warmers, there was a lot going on in technology. In fact, quite a few of the technologies we rely on today were making their debut.
People are switching to parallel processing to share big computing jobs between several smaller, less-expensive chips. But how does parallel computing work?
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It seems like virtually everyone has a cell phone. In fact, you probably have one in your pocket right now. Many had the idea for the device, but only one could successfully introduce the gadget. Who was it?
There's no doubt that humans are a violent species. The real question is: Why? Are some people wired differently than others? Is it a matter of survival? Or are we just taking our frustrations out on others in violent ways?
Studies seem to indicate that men are more likely to harbor violent tendencies than women. What factors do researchers use to come to these conclusions, and most importantly, is it true that men are more violent?
Most scientists agree that human interference in the environment has something to do with the recent trend of rising temperatures on the Earth. If we got ourselves in this pickle, what can we do about it?
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Believe it or not, to get to space and back, NASA relies on a piece of technology that's been around for centuries. Just what is a gimbal, anyway?
People have been fighting with one another longer than humans have recorded their history. But what was the first war?
Wouldn't it be nice to grow crops that grew 50 percent more than current varieties? How about a strain of vegetables that were safe from insects without using pesticides? Agricultural biotechnology can do that.
At one time, sharing files between computers meant carrying a box of punch cards from one machine to another. The Internet changed all that, but who's responsible for creating this network of networks?
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Less than 100 miles from Las Vegas, is the most famous secret military installation on the planet: Area 51. For decades, the U.S. government refused to acknowledge it existed. But now, the secret is out.
To understand the universe better, scientists from all over the world are going to harness the power of an enormous machine -- the Large Hadron Collider.
Why are governments, private businesses, and academic institutions collaborating to research develop and produce fuel cells? Learn how fuel cells work and how efficient they really are.
By Karim Nice, Jonathan Strickland, Talon Homer & Yara Simón
Nanotechnology is one of the hot buzzwords of the 21st century. You know that it has to do with things that are very small, but just what are the implications of technology on the molecular scale, anyway?
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Winning wars sometimes requires innovative new tools, so it seems possible that new technologies are developed in the heat of battle. But is all technology born from conflict?
The occasional sunspot can interrupt communications here on Earth. But major solar flares have the potential to cause more havoc. Could a flare-up wipe out all our electronics?
Welcome to the wonderful and weird world of nanowires. Scientists can adapt this incredibly thin material for a number of uses, whether as a fiber-optic nanowire or to build increasingly smaller microprocessors. They're even used in medical implants.
Ever wonder why your computer works the way it does? We did, too. So we took one apart to see what all of it does. So what's inside a computer?
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Advances in technology have allowed microprocessor manufacturers to double the number of transistors on a CPU chip every two years. How long can they keep this up?
The days of the cell phone are numbered. Superior technology has already surpassed it and is now moving on to the next level. Which cutting-edge technologies are here to stay and which are flashes in a pan?