May 2002 Archive Page

"The typewriter is in the process of becoming a thing of the past, along with dial phones and vinyl records. 'Things of the past' are still present, of course -- it's their world that is absent..." Richard Polt  --Typology: A Phenomenology of Early TypewritersClassic Typewriter Page)

On a page that collected links to articles about online navigation, Allen Smith posted a short quote from Jakob Nielsen, and added links to pages that illustrated Nielsen's points.  What are the ethical implications of adding inline links to quoted text?  --Website Navigationwww.allensmith.net)

Duh! "Surgeons who stay out late drinking suffer a noticeable decline in surgical performance the next morning, new research shows."  According to Reuters, the researchers were "quite surprised."News from the Department of

"Who was Carolyn Keene, the pen name of the series author? It would take 50 years before fans found out that Keene was Mildred Wirt Benson, a gutsy, hard-working, fiercely independent journalist from Toledo, Ohio, with a penchant for adventure, both real and imagined." --Creator of Teen Sleuth Nancy Drew Dies at 96Philadelphia Inquirer)

Alex Golub notes that some weblogs are full of personal chatter, which reveals the personality of the 'blogger.  Other weblogs (like this one) are mostly links to outside sources. "Any choice between alternatives is by definition information. The more alternatives there are, the more information is signaled in the choice." --Filtering as PersonhoodGolublog)

Today is the day the medieval church celebrated the Feast of Corpus Christi ("Body of Christ"); the festivities in the town of York, England, included a massive theatrical performance, involving 300 speaking roles, which lasted from 4:30am until well after dark. --York Corpus Christi Play Simulator

"Americans buy the most sophisticated computers, the coolest digital cameras, the most advanced automobiles, the most versatile cell phones and handheld organizers, and then . . . and then we forget, or decline, or flat out refuse, to read the directions." Caroline E. Mayer --Why Won't We Read the Manual?WashPost)

"The spectre of eugenics, which reached its culmination in Nazi Germany, haunts both politicians and public. The fear that the ability to monitor and select for desirable characteristics will lead to the subjugation of the undesirable—or the merely unfashionable—is well-founded." --The Future of Mind ControlEconomist)

Further evidence of the collapse of civilization as we know it: 

• "The dream ... a hamburger motorcycle. That's right!! A Harley-Davidson trike fashioned to look like an exact replica of a hamburger."
• "We agreed to spend $500 on the car.... When the weather warms up a little bit we'll paint it and begin epoxying several hundred despensers to hull of this majestic old boat."
• Life imitates art. (Again! Again!) Whose battery-powered optical-fibre fabric wearable videoscreens are better? [Exhibit 1. Exhibit 2.]

"The average [U.K.] reader spends 17 minutes a day reading a newspaper, compared to 11 minutes on a novel. They spend a further seven minutes online, six minutes on non-fiction, five minutes with a magazine, and two minutes looking up things they did not understand in a reference book." --Novels Lose out to NewspapersGuardian)

"I photographed every door or drawer knob, handle, or latch I touched from the time I awoke on Thursday, June 3rd. until I went to bed on Friday, June 4th."  --Doors I Touched TodayFluxus)

"No wonder so much poetry boils down to whining over the inadequacy and immorality of the poet's little world. No wonder that poets, when they do move at all, head right for the handiest anodyne, whether it's cheap whisky or pop-Buddhism." Robert Bové --Do Poets Matter?The Texas Mercury)

"The Information Age was dealt a stunning blow Monday, when a factual error was discovered on the Internet. The error was found on TedsUltimateBradyBunch.com, a Brady Bunch fan site that incorrectly listed the show's debut year as 1968, not 1969." --Factual Error Found on InternetThe Onion)

More evidence of the collapse of civilization as we know it: a website offering instructions for making a pink-fur-trimmed "Hello Kitty" laptop.

"Last week's column about the death of my son Chase from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome set off something of a chain reaction across the Net... by the time I awoke on Thursday, words of support were already in from readers in Japan, Australia, India, and Kuwait." Robert X. Cringely --Is That a Supercomputer in Your Jammies?I, Cringely)

"Whereas poetry uses highly-charged combinations of words, equations are the most succinct descriptions of the aspect of reality they describe. Dirac's most famous poem enabled him successfully to predict the existence of antimatter..." Graham Farmelo  --Physics + Dirac = poetryGuardian)

Have you ever been watching a movie, with sumptuous re-creations of period costumes, hair, and furniture -- only to be annoyed by the anachronistic appearance of a modern typeface? No? Me neither, but Mark Simonson has. --Typecasting

"I can't change the laws of physics!" [44k wav] says a distraught Scotty in a classic Star Trek episode. But researchers have found evidence that suggests that the value of a fundamental "constant" has changed since the universe was young. --Laws of Physics "May Change"BBC)

(Guardian): Treating earache: 
2000BC: Here, eat this root. 
1000AD: That root is heathen. Here, say this prayer.
1850AD: Prayer is superstition. Here, drink this potion.
1940AD: That potion is snake oil. Here, swallow this pill.
1985AD: That pill is ineffective. Here, take this antibiotic.
2000AD: That antibiotic is artificial. Here, eat this root. --Alternative Medicine is Practically Mainstream

With a popcorn plot engineered to appeal to sci-fi fans, Portal is an "interactive novel" published in 1986, and now available online as freeware. Rob Swiggart --Portal: A Dataspace Retrieval

A confusing name for an amusing medieval personality test. What kind of vocation would have suited you back in ye olde days? --KingdomalityCareer Management International)

Why choose Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" as a subject for poetry?  Stewart Conn says "The painting chose me." --Luncheon of the Boating Party

"Some weblogs wither once the first flush of enthusiasm passes, while others go from strength to strength, attracting contributions and feedback from experts and interested Internet surfers." Laurel A. Clyde --Weblogs and Blogging (FreePint)

One of her examples looks very familiar...

Do you remember learning that black moths gained an evolutionary advantage in soot-covered woods? "Once it had been cited enough times, it became an irrefutable article of faith. Hooper's meticulous research provides a fascinating insight into the fallibility of scientists - after all, as she points out, they are only human." --Darwinism in a FlutterGuardian)

(NY Times): "At its best, the Internet can educate more people faster than any media tool we've ever had. At its worst, it can make people dumber faster than any media tool we've ever had." Thomas L. Friedman --Global Village Idiocy

"{I}nstead of a link... put a search box on your home page."strong>: (UseIT.com)

I e-mailed web guru Jakob Nielsen on 13 March 2000, telling him that 6 out of 6 college freshman couldn't find the "search" feature on his website. I wrote: "I think it might help if, instead of a link, you actually put a search box on your home page." See the change on Jakob's home page; Jakob reported that use of his search engine went up 91%.  That tip is now #5 on Jakob's list of 113 home page usability guidelines. 

(UseIT.com) : "A company's homepage is its face to the world and the starting point for most user visits. Improving your homepage multiplies the entire website's business value, so following key guidelines for homepage usability is well worth the investment." Jakob Nielsen --Home Page Usability Guidelines

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel Mother." -- Abraham Lincoln --Tribute to Mothers

 
"FACT: A 1987 survey found that Canadians have the worst handwriting in the whole world. They also frequently misspell the word 'sauce.'"  --The Truth about Canada

"What if a dispassionate computer had been making the decisions about [Andrea] Yates' care, rather than a human doctor sitting across a desk from her? Would a computer have left her on medication? Would her children still be alive?" Ivan Oransky --Robo-docsSalon)

Geek website Slashdot was reporting, as of about 20 minutes ago (6:20 EST), that the actor best known for his role as Chief Engineer Mongomery "Scotty" Scott from the original Star Trek series, was in a coma and not expected to recover.  In the time it took for me to post this message, Slashdot posted an update.  Read: the misleading news and the more accurate news.James Doohan comatose? Ill?

"I have too many books. I have begun to hate their mess and reprimand ("You haven't read me in a long time," or even, in the case of Silas Marner, "You have never read me"). Many of them are crap..... And yet..." Ian Jack --Throw Out All My Old Books? I Don't Have the SpineGuardian)

Humans appear to have a hard-wired internal resistance to persuasive arguments. "Scientists are uncovering ways of making messages more persuasive. Politicians and salesmen use such tricks already. Who can afford not to read on?" --Persuasion The Economist)

A National Science Foundation survey reveals that 60% of Americans believe in ESP, and 51% feel that science is a dangerous profession.  [The online presentation of the report is an excellent example of the effective use of blurbs.] --Science and Technology: Public Attitudes and Public Understanding

When writing Copenhagen, playwright Michael Frayn saw science only as a metaphor.  But the play fanned the flames of a smoldering debate among science historians about the events surrounding the invention of the atomic bomb. --Unraveling the Drama of ScienceWired)

"[H]is predictable language and trite sentiments lend the piece an incredible tedium. Formulaic phrases like 'the cause of' and 'is survived by' sound like they’re straight out of a Microsoft Word obituary template..."  Noam Weinstein [Thanks, Matt!] --Death Critiqued: An Obituary ReviewedModern Humorist)