“Bad names have played a tremendously powerful role in the history of the world and in our own individual development. They have ruined reputations, stirred men and women to outstanding accomplishments, sent others to prison cells, and made men mad enough to enter battle and slaughter their fellowmen.” — Institute for Propaganda Analysis (1938) —Propaganda…
See 1,247 vibrant engravings—many in color—from the classic 1918 publication, as well as a subject index with 13,000 entries ranging from the Antrum of Highmore to the Zonule of Zinn. —Gray’s b>Anatomy of the Human Body (Bartleby.com)
A follow-as-you-go tutorial, the Inform Beginner’s guide creates three small games of increasing depth. No previous experience of computer programming or interactive fiction design is assumed. This book (available for free as a PDF) concludes with helpful summaries and reference tables. Firth and Kesserich (edited by Jerz). —Learn the Text Adventure Programming Language Inform(IF Library)
—Blue Moon e-zine is looking for a literary blogger.
>open curtains As you part the curtains, you see that it’s a bright morning, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, the meadows are blooming, and a large yellow bulldozer is advancing on your home. —The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (DouglasAdams.com)
is — besides being further evidence that the Internet spells the end of society as we know it — a novelty service that allows customers to e-impregnate a person of their choice. The recipient will receive an e-impregnation notice and learn who e-impregnated them, as well as an update on their virtual pregnancy every two…
“Although Internet resources may be freely available, there is a lack of certainty that they will be available for students next month, next semester or next year.” Markwell and Brooks —Broken Links: Just How Rapidly Do Science Education Links Disappear?via Wired)
(autistics.org) This web page is a step-by-step set of instructions advising autistic boys how to manage an important social ritual. Janet Villar —Asking a Girl on a Date
Women’s magazines regularly fabricate stories about you-know-what: “Many writers, editors and fact-checkers involved with these sex articles (most of whom asked that their identities be protected with the top-secrecy accorded CIA sources) agreed that the editorial standards for them are abysmal.” —Faking It: Sex, Lies, and Women’s Magazines (Columbia Journalism Review) Update, 13 Oct 2005:…
: Is environmentalism a science or a political movement? “The world’s ecosystem is breaking down. We are fast approaching the absolute limit of viability, and the limits of growth are becoming apparent. We know the Litany and have heard it so often that yet another repetition is, well, almost reassuring. There is just one problem:…
Online waiver forms are not very useable. “Real users, not lawyers, need to write the forms. Then they need to redesign the sites so that the consent forms are visual, not legalese text blocks.” Interview with readability expert Mark Hochhauser. —Stop! Look Before You Click! (C|Net)
“We have recently become aware of the fact that our previous list management service erroneously failed to oversee certain remove requests. We deeply apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and would like to offer all of our valuable customers another chance to unsubscribe from our services.” A Second Helping of Spam That message…
“Poised between media, blogs can be as nuanced and well-sourced as traditional journalism, but they have the immediacy of talk radio. Amid it all, this much is clear: The phenomenon is real. Blogging is changing the media world…” Andrew Sullivan —Weblogs Are to Words What Napster Was to Music (Wired)
“A number of concerned British Harry Potter fans have spoken out against the Bible, claiming that the holy text of the Christian Church can cause serious damage to children…. The tales of Jesus turning water into wine are fairly harmless, but there is a serious risk of children drowning if they try to walk on…
The geekiest, most elite programming language, UNIX, seems to be associated with a love of words. “Working on the command line, hands poised over the keys uninterrupted by frequent reaches for the mouse, is a posture familiar to wordsmiths (especially the really old guys who once worked on teletypes or electric typewriters). It makes some…
“Everything. A few minutes after we began last time a shaft of light descended and an angel or other heavenly being appeared and revealed to us what each woman or man must do to attain divine wisdom in this life and the hereafter…” Tom Wayman —Did I Miss Anything? (Question frequently asked by students after…
“[A]t the University of Virginia today I regularly teach the introductory comparative literature survey, which begins with the Iliad and the Odyssey and runs through all the traditional great authors, such as Virgil, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe, Austen, and Dostoevsky… why am I now writing about Gilligan´s Island and Star Trek?” Paul Cantor —The Art in…
“Babies are leaning their native language before birth. This is made possible by the development of hearing as early as 16 weeks gestational age. A mother’s voice reaches the uterus with very little distortion as the sound waves pass directly through her body.” David Chamberlain —Life Before Birth (birthpsychology.com)
Review of a production of Hamlet told with no dialogue: "like a beautifully choreographed nightmare, it fuses movement, music and light into a haunting series of images that summon the very heartbeat of the story." —Sinetic’s Hamlet: The Rest Is Silence (WashPost)
"There are two kinds of science-fiction reader, who in their extreme forms constitute disjoint reading populations. A pure Population One reader wants scientific ideas and will be tolerant of other flaws provided those ideas are present. A pure Population Two reader will tolerate (or fail to notice) scientific errors but insist on literary virtues. You…