Just because you tell your friend a secret doesn’t mean you’re happy when he tells others. Same with your employer, your bank or any company you do business with. But as the Facebook example illustrates, privacy is much more complex. It’s about who you choose to disclose information to, how, and for what purpose. And…
Knowing that the game would become an underground cult obsession, knowing that someone would eventually ferret out my identity, knowing that I would get death threats and receive requests for autographs, and knowing that one mentally disturbed man would cite my game as one he liked to play before randomly shooting at college students… there’s…
Documents to Go and VersaMail Woes (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I love my Tungsten T3 handheld computer. I also love Documents to Go, which is bundled software that lets me edit files (mostly word processor, but also spreadsheet and slide show) on my handheld, and then synch my changes with the version of the file on my…
I am the editor in chief of the Setonian. During production week, I live, breathe and worship all that is QuarkXpress, Adobe Photoshop, copyeditor’s marks and the Associated Press Style manual. People don’t really see me that much, that is, if you don’t count the back of my head, which is turned in the direction…
I watched a group of people popularly assumed to be rude, brash, loud and forward carefully negotiate the lack of washing machines, driers and laundry baskets, politely assisting when the time-lags were evident, ignoring the intrusions on personal space with almost Scandinavian stoicism, and happily folding their clothes side by side; Spanish, Irani and Irish.…
Firefox Upgrade 1.5.0.7 Resets Personal Settings (and keeps resetting them) (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) My preferred web browser is Firefox, but this morning when I logged in, Firefox had upgraded itself automatically, and it wiped all my bookmarks and personal settings. I was able to reload the bookmarks pretty easily, but the darn thing is resetting to…
Zombies, eh? They’re us, and we’re them. When the worst comes to the worst what we should really fear is ourselves, and each other. I think that’s what Jerry Springer was really trying say. All of which serves as a very lengthy introduction to my latest completed project. A knitted homage to Dawn of the…
The quotation that caused all the furor involves a 14th-century dialogue between a Byzantine emperor and an educated Persian on the subject of Christianity and Islam. The pope quotes the emperor, who says: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his…
Way Wrong — Time to Go to Bed (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) A new media researcher asked me to provide him with a few paragraphs on a subject I know well, for a proposal he’s planning to submit soon. I was going to dig out a couple of canned paragraphs this weekend, but one thing led to…
Last week, the Lonelygirl15 videos were indeed exposed as a hoax. The girl depicted was an aspiring actress named Jessica Rose. She subsequently discussed the videos on CNN, The Tonight Show and MTV — not bad exposure for a previous unknown. The creators of the video were revealed to be film professionals who describe their…
Is it such a bad thing for a student to feel comfortable enough with a teacher to share their personal problems? —Lori Rupert —When Seeking Comfort is Selfish (Continued) (Kaleidoscope ) This question sparked a good discussion on one of my students’ blogs. I’m not sure I’m striking the right tone in my comments over there.…
Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe. —F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Useit.com) Your goal as a web author is to put your best stuff in the hotspots. Obviously you can direct the user’s attention somewhat, using whitespace and graphics. But…
In Writing for the Internet, I had my students read some articles about e-mail and power relationships in the classroom. They are raising some very good questions in response. One asked me whether professors expect their students to send thank-you messages after every e-mail exchange. I just checked with two colleagues, and their reactions confirmed…
A man with a black trench coat whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain by police said on a blog in his name that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine shootings. —Montreal gunman liked ‘Columbine’ game (Yahoo! | AP) Of…
Why did Godin decide to create a book series based on third-party NES games, and why did he use the name F.X. Nine? His reasons were both sentimental and practical. Godin was talking to his 10-year-old nephew about his hobbies, and was surprised to discover that the boy had never read a book for fun.…
A full day of radio programming from WJSV (now WTOP), Washington, D.C., for September 21, 1939. This project presents a representative sample of the mix of network and local programming of a major metropolitan network affiliate of the period. It also suggests a good deal about the programming mix of such stations: early morning breakfast…
Children are being deprived of the right to grow up at their own pace by a combination of advertising, junk food, pressures at school and TV and video games, experts have warned. —Junk Food, TV and the Internet ‘are poisoning childhood’ (This Is London) While video games are mentioned last in the lead, what does the…
When four planes were hijacked on a sunny fall morning, easy-to-use blogging services were still few and far between. Yet many who witnessed the horror of the attacks firsthand took to the keyboard to talk with the world. Horrified Americans used e-mail, instant messages, any available communication tool. But weblogs meant large audiences, not just…
—live bloopers (YouTube)
CAA spokesman Michael Mand said he “could neither confirm nor deny” that the agency is representing whoever is behind the 27 video posts. (Other talent agencies and production companies contacted by The Times denied any connection.) As to horror film rumors, calls made to several studios found no such plans — but plenty of fascination…