January 2003 Archive Page

"The Geezer loves film noir. These dark, taut, black and white films give the lie to the illusion that the forties and fifties were upbeat, positive decades. I like that." The Geezer --The Geezer Speaks WeblogGeezerSpeaks.com)

An amusing personal website... and by a Geezer, too.

Your name is Masakati, which means "White Queen" in the language of the Scorpion People. You were named this before you were hatched, when the serpent witches foretold to your mother Essekunit, the Tangeri Queen, that her child would be as great a ruler as had been not seen in this Age: that you would be Queen not only of the Tangeri but of all the Scorpion People, and take back the lands stolen by the Empire.

--The Wheel, Masakati Episode 1: The White QueenInterfable.net)

The beginning of a collaborative fantasy story. At the end of the chapter, readers vote on what happens next. Set in an interesting world that borrows mythology from the Zodicac. I rather enjoyed the multi-chapter story I read a few weeks ago... this is a new story.

"It has been confirmed that Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen, two of the richest teens in America, have decided to attend University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, WI beginning in the Fall of the 2003-2004 academic year." --Olsen Twins Set to Attend University of Wisconsin in Eau Claire, WICNN?)

Why the awkward passive that conceals who "confirmed" this claim? Why is this article in the "World" section of what appears to be the CNN website? Thanks, Sarah, for pointing it out!

Interesting discussion of grade inflation, party skewed by early comments that claimed that engineering and other technical majors are immune from the pressures that cause humanities professors to inflate student grades. Sparked by a Washington Post article that few people on Slashdot seem to have read (that's fine with me -- most are drawing on their own experience as students, graduates, or teachers). --Grade Inflation in Higher EducationSlashdot)

"The chocolate-making capabilities of Wonka's heavily fortified compound have long been a source of speculation. Wonka, defying international calls for full disclosure, has maintained his silence regarding his factory's suspected capacity to manufacture confections of mass deliciousness....'Without full inspections, there's no earthly way of knowing which direction Wonka's going. Not a speck of light is showing, so the danger must be growing. And he's certainly not showing any signs that he is slowing. Are the fires of Hell a-glowing? Is the grisly reaper mowing? Who can provide the world with the answer to these pressing questions?'

"'The candy man can,' Rumsfeld added grimly.'"

[An Oompaloompa writes: "Just wanted to let you know that the Wonka article in The Onion was a wonderful pick-me-up this morning. Since I work for the corporation that produces the Wonka brand, it probably tickled me even more than some others."] --UN Orders Wonka to Submit to Chocolate Factory InspectionsThe Onion)

"Leonardo figured things out by looking at them, thinking about them and taking them apart. That compulsion to tinker has led many modern hackers to claim Leonardo retroactively as one of their own." --Da Vinci: The Pith Behind the ManWired)

Nice backgrounder for the Da Vinci exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

"Since most blogging tools are both free and addictive, it's no surprise that the sales cycle has been eliminated. Better yet, point and click blog designs mean that there's minimal consulting - either customization or configuration - required to set up your blog. The result? Weblogs are spreading like wildfire - by some accounts, the market is growing as high as 25% a month." John Hiler's June, 2002 article was found via Kairosnews.

--Blogs as Disruptive Tech -- How weblogs are flying under the radar of the content management giantsWebcrimson)

A student in my Writing Electronic Text course had an epiphany a few weeks after she chose to write a weblog for her term project. Like most newbie web authors, she had fiddled endlessly with the design of her first website, but the weblog software handles all the design for her; when she suddenly realized that weblogging is about writing, not about web design, her weblog really took off.

"About one-fourth of university-based medical researchers receive funding from drug companies -- ties that sometimes distort study results, according to a review done by two researchers with industry connections of their own."

--Review finds Pervasive Medical Research-Industry TiesAssociated Press)

Ohmigosh ohmigosh oh...my...gosh! Scientific research isn't completely objective? Scientists aren't lofty supreme beings of pure intellect, untouched by such human vices as pride and clumsiness? And when did corporations start funding scientific research? This is an outrage! I'm glad I'm in the humanities, where fraud never happens.

"My mother used to say that a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing; the Internet demonstrates this point beautifully. Oh sure, these days everyone is concerned about the proliferation of porn, but the medical information on the Net is also widespread, disturbing and... -- for those prone to, shall we say, extreme concern for their health -- dangerous." Ceinwen Giles

--Internet HypochondriaGlobe and Mail)

A little learning is a dangerous thing
Drink deep, or taste not, of the Pierian spring.
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain;
And drinking largely sobers us again."
-- Alexander Pope, "An Essay on Criticism."

The "Pierian Spring" is the source of the water that allows the muses to bring inspiration to authors. I never really noticed how relevant that whole passage is to the Internet.

Wired has published an article about the open source encyclopedia Wikipedia reaching its 100,000th article. This item first started appearing in weblogs last week. Once it's made its way to Wired, it will be read by the editors of more mainstream publications, who may want to feature it in articles for the general public. (Blogdex lets you track blogger links to the wikipedia press release, to see who first thought it was newsworthy.) Any news editor who wants to serve young, technologically savvy readers had better be paying attention to weblogs. Tracking Wikipedia Press ReleaseLiteracy Weblog)

I've contributed to the Wikipedia articles on interactive fiction, usability, Elia Kazan, and maybe a half dozen others.

"It might seem like a stretch to compare scientists to, say, African Americans and Latinos, who have historically been targets of often viciously stereotypical portrayals in film and on TV. But Weber thinks the media has a blind spot when it comes to scientists." Jason Silverman --Film Scientists Not All Mad, BadWired)

"Only cranks, mystics, revolutionaries and wealthy dilettantes wrote without some form of pecuniary support, whether patronage, salary, direct sales, residuals, or the penny-a-word piecework compensation offered by pulp-magazine editors.... The Internet changed all that." --Independent Content Providerv-2 Organisation)

"Hear me now: Jim Henson was Kermit. Steve Whitmire is a Henson impersonator. Admittedly, a damn talented one -- his Ernie, in particular, nearly captures the affability and innocence of the original -- but the equal of Henson? Step back from the brink, Dennis." --I Appreciate The Muppets on a Much Deeper Level Than YouThe Onion)

"The fact is that the world is divided between users of the Macintosh computer and the users of MS-DOS-compatible computers. I am firmly of the opinion that the Macintosh is Catholic and that DOS is Protestant. Indeed, the Macintosh is counter-reformist and has been influenced by the "ratio studiorum" of the Jesuits. It is cheerful, friendly, conciliatory. It tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach -- if not the Kingdom of Heaven -- the moment in which their document is printed. It is catechistic: the essence of revelation is dealt with via simple formulae and sumptuous icons. Everyone has a right to salvation. DOS is Protestant, or even Calvinistic. It allows free interpretation of scripture, demands difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: a long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment." Umberto Eco's 1994 essay turned up on an index to Marshal McLuhan Studies.

--Mac vs. Dos (McLuhan Studies)

If you've ever gotten a "CONFIDENTIAL" e-mail from a Nigerian official whose shift key seems to be stuck, you'll appreciate this spoof. --Spoof of "Nigerian E-mail Scam"Palnatoke)

"The problem may be that they are simply bored with the conventional curriculum, says the study, titled Morphing Literacy: Boys Reshaping Their Literacy. The study found it is a myth that boys do not read. While they are less interested in fiction or traditional literature than girls are, they read more on the Internet and memorize vast amounts of detailed material from games or stories they read in the newspaper, the research showed." Julie Smyth summarizes an academic report, but doesn't say where it was published.

--Study says boys do read, they just don't read booksNational Post)

Another telling quote, which reminds me of Sugata Mitra's minimally invasive teaching philosophy: " The researchers found boys are becoming literate "in spite of school instruction," and may end up better prepared for a career because their skills are more useful than being able to write a narrative or analyze a work of fiction....They found boys spend large amounts of time on chat sites and Web sites to get tips on how to "cheat" or compete at video games, read books about animals, sports and fantasy, and will pick up magazines and newspapers to read hockey scores, entertainment stories or news about things relevant to their lives, such as the death of Napster.

"Nurses quickly learned how to hack the system to save time. For example, if a patient's bar code didn't scan correctly on the first try, nurses often entered the seven-digit bar code number manually rather than rescanning it.

"Nurses also felt that the computer system's demands forced them to focus on pill-pushing. If meds weren't given on time, nurses had to take time out to tell the system why. Many feared this could result in poor performance evaluations.

"'I found myself walking away from important conversations with patients and families in order to fulfill the computer's demands,' said a VA nurse who spoke on condition of anonymity. 'I feel like robo-nurse, and I don't like it.'" --Bar Code Tech Drives Nurses NutsWired)

Does manually entering a bar code number really count as "hacking"? I think a system is probably broken if you have to "hack" it to make it work. Maybe the nurses were "optimizing" the system instead.

Vocation
"I want to be a Bohemian, Rachel."
"A what?"
"A Bohemian, a hanger onner around the arts"
"I thought you already were - all that cafe society poetry stuff"
"Yes, but it's kinda hard on your own - do you want to be one too?"
"Erm, can't I be a bum instead?"
Elin Merriman

--Fifty Word FictionAlistair Fitchett)

Click the question mark to view a random story, click N to see the newest, or click S to submit your own.

"Three-dimensional tubes of living tissue have been printed using modified desktop printers filled with suspensions of cells instead of ink. The work is a first step towards printing complex tissues or even entire organs." Charles Choi --Ink-jet Printing Creates Tubes of Living Tissue New Scientist)

"[B]eing innovative flies in the face of what almost all parents want for their children, most CEOs want for their companies, and heads of states want for their countries. And innovative people are a pain in the ass.... [S]ome things?the nature of higher education among them?will have to change in order to ensure a perpetual source of new ideas. " Nicholas Negroponte --Creating a Culture of IdeasTechnology Review)

"Rightly or wrongly, record companies are detested by politicians (for corrupting youth), by webcasters (for demanding royalties), and by their customers (for inflating prices). Musicians and songwriters are famous for loathing the labels... Radio and MTV aren't in the industry's corner... And the electronics industry's attitude toward the labels is summed up by an Apple slogan: Rip. Mix. Burn. Which, a music executive once told me, translates into..." Charles C. Mann --The Year the Music DiedWired)

"Doctors had never seen such injuries. It almost didn't matter that he had a broken clavicle, pelvis, tailbone and ribs. They were stunned to learn of the injury to his neck that technically ripped off his head."

--Doctors Reattach Teen's Head after Car WreckABC News)

While this makes interesting reading, the article seems to be playing games with time. In order to make this story seem fresh, the second paragagraph begins with "Just a few months ago..." but the second-to-last paragraph presents the patient playing basketball after "a long and difficult recovery period."

"This is all part of the Big Flip in publishing generally, where the old notion of 'filter, then publish' is giving way to 'publish, then filter.' There is no need for Slashdot's or Kuro5hin's owners to sort the good posts from the bad in advance, no need for Blogdex or Daypop to pressure people not to post drivel, because lightweight filters applied after the fact work better at large scale than paying editors to enforce minimum quality in advance. A side-effect of the Big Flip is that the division between amateur and professional turns into a spectrum, giving us a world where unpaid writers are discussed side-by-side with New York Times columnists." Clay Shirky

--The Music Industry and the "Big Flip"Shirky.com)

Another quote from the same article: "The internet has lowered the threshold of publishing to the point where you no longer need help or permission to distribute your work. What has happened with writing may be possible with music. Like writers, most musicians who work for fame and fortune get neither, but unlike writers, the internet has not offered wide distribution to people making music for the love of the thing."

The web is still primarily a text medium. Regardless of what the future holds, people have already had longer to figure out how to use text online. Until the day when we can talk to our computers in natural language ("Computer -- tea. Earl Gray. Hot.") , any innovation is welcome -- such as an interface that lets you query a music database by humming a few bars of the song you want to find.

"Wikipedia ( http://www.wikipedia.org ), a community-built multilingual encyclopedia, is announcing that the English edition of the project has reached a milestone of 100,000 articles in development.... Wikipedia is a public WikiWikiWeb, a website where anyone can edit any article at any time. Users build upon each other's edits, and vandalized articles are quickly repaired by restoring an older version. In Wikipedia's second year, thousands of volunteer editors from around the world have added 80,000 entries to the English version and 33,000 more to the other language editions of Wikipedia. This surge in growth has made Wikipedia the world's largest and fastest growing open content encyclopedia and the largest WikiWikiWeb.'' --Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia, Reaches its 100,000th ArticleWikipedia.org)

Inspired by Wikipedia, in July of 2002, I launched a collaborative open-content Glossary of Interactive Fiction, which seems to have plateaued at about 180 or so terms. Anyone is free to suggest or revise an entry.

"I went on a mission of etymological research. In this article you'll learn how the term, born of canned ham, moved into BBSs and MUDS and then was applied to USENET postings and E-mail. I've put in a short history of the earliest big spams, including a special page about the first E-mail spam from 1978. (You'll be astounded to see which net celebrity defends the spam. But we were all younger then.)" Brad Templeton --Origin of the Term "Spam" to Mean Net AbuseTempletons.com)

"My first cartoon short, Steamboat Willie, was a direct parody of Keaton's movie Steamboat Bill, Jr. On the very first page of the script, it says, 'Orchestra starts playing opening verses of Steamboat Bill.' I remember what Eldred's lawyer Lawrence Lessig said when he read that: 'Try doing a cartoon take-off of one of Disney, Inc.'s latest films with an opening that copies the music.'" Jesse Walker --Mickey Mouse Clubbed: Disney's Cartoon Rodent Speaks out...Reason)

"To be the subject of a Hirschfeld drawing endowed one with a special cachet. To find the word 'Nina,' the name of his daughter, hidden several times in the lines of his caricatures, was a weekend pastime for millions of readers. Next to his signature he put the number of 'Ninas' in his drawings, creating a sort of pleasurable Sunday game for his admirers." --Al Hirshfeld, 99, Dies; He Drew Broadway (NYTimes)

"30 August 2001 was the 100th anniversary of Hubert Cecil Booth's patent of the first working vacuum cleaner. To celebrate, explore our Potted History of the Vacuum Cleaner, or find out more Fascinating Vacuum Facts, all illustrated with historic cleaners from the Science Museum's collections." --A Century of SuckingScience Museum [UK])

Interesting Photo Caption...Yahoo News)

Wow... that must have been some slideshow.

"I think it's possible to stop spam, and that content-based filters are the way to do it. The Achilles heel of the spammers is their message. They can circumvent any other barrier you set up. They have so far, at least. But they have to deliver their message, whatever it is. If we can write software that recognizes their messages, there is no way they can get around that." Paul Graham --A Plan for SpamPaulGraham.com)

"It happens to everyone - you accidentally cut someone off or do something bone-headed unintentionally... wouldn't it be nice to have a conciliatory tone to indicate that you're aware that you screwed up, and are willing to admit it?" jzb --One Tone Isn't EnoughDissociated Presszilla)

"Not so many decades ago, you couldn't buy or legitimately connect your own phone or other telecom equipment to the public telephone network in the United States.... Virtually everything related to telephone communications had to be leased from the local monopoly phone company, which also performed all installations and maintenance. Remarkably, it was even prohibited to attach shoulder rests or any other gadgets to phone handsets..." --DMCA: Ma Bell Would Be ProudWired)

Minimally Invasive Education: "This is a system of education where you assume that children know how to put two and two together on their own. So you stand aside and intervene only if you see them going in a direction that might lead into a blind alley." Sugata Mitra put a computer with a high-seed Internet access into the wall of a filthy slum. Almost instantly, slum children were using the computer to surf the Internet, paint pictures, and play music. "If computer literacy is defined as turning a computer on and off and doing the basic functions, then this method allows that kind of computer literacy to be achieved with no formal instruction. Therefore any formal instruction for that kind of education is a waste of time and money. You can use that time and money to have a teacher teach something else that children cannot learn on their own."

--India: Hole in the WallGreenstar)

The children didn't know what a "File" means, but they knew that if you clicked it, you could save and load your pictures. Some didn't even know what a "computer" is, but their creativity and curiousity more than made up for it. Another interesting quote from Mitra: "only reaction we got from adults was, 'What on earth is this for? Why is there no one here to teach us something? How are we ever going to use this?' I contend that by the time we are 16, we are taught to want teachers, taught that we cannot learn anything without teachers."

On 18th January 1903 Marconi sent a wireless transatlantic message from U.S. President Theordore Roosevelt to England's Edward VII: "In taking advantage of the wonderful triumph of scientific research and ingenuity which has been achieved in perfecting the system of wireless telegraphy, I extend on behalf of the American People most cordial greetings and good wishes to you and the people of the British Empire." Jordan Shutov --100 Years of Wireless CommunicationWWW)

"Walt Disney understood the value of the public domain, and used it precisely as other great artists had done. He updated an out-of-copyright character to create Mickey Mouse, for example, and launched an empire. The company he founded later used writer Victor Hugo's work, which was also no longer owned by anyone, to create a cartoon based on the Hunchback of Notre Dame saga. The Disney animators had every right to build new works on old ones -- and the public also got the benefit. Try the same thing with Mickey Mouse and you'll be hauled into court faster than you can say 'Goofy.' The court's 7-2 ruling betrayed some judicial discomfort, observing that Congress has the power to do 'arguably unwise'' things. Get ready for more unwise acts, in that case." Dan Gilmor --Copyright Ruling is a Ripoff of ConsumersSiliconValley.com)

"The public water system is somewhat unpleasant to think about. Basically, the stuff you flush down the toilet gets sent through a filtering system. That system 'treats' the sewage until what remains is sufficiently pure to send back to you as drinking water.

As content intermediaries, publishers perform an analogous function. Individual software writers, authors, and musicians produce something close to raw sewage. The computer programs, books, and music that people buy are closer to drinkable water." Arnold Kling

--Content is CrapTCS)

A rather icky image, but no Internet personality is known for subtlety. The title is a reference to Bill Gate's 1996 essay "Content is King."

Cranky avant-garde novelist Kurt Vonnegut on George W. Bush: "He's in the same business I'm in. He's telling stories. It turns out this is the simplest of all stories to tell. I mean, I want to hold attention when I write something. What he wants to be is interesting. And revenge is interesting. I've said there are two radical ideas that have been introduced into human thought. One of them is that energy and matter are pretty much the same sort of stuff. That's Einstein. The other is that revenge is a bad idea. It's an enormously popular idea but, of course, Jesus came along with the radical idea of forgiveness. That was radical. If you're insulted, you have to square accounts. So this invention by Jesus is as radical as Einstein's." --Vonnegut at 80Nuvo)

Thanks for the link, Jim. It is very hard to think of forgiveness when faced with images of North Korea's concentration camps.

"Almost all the varieties of banana grown today are cuttings - clones, in effect - of naturally mutant wild bananas discovered by early farmers as much as 10,000 years ago. The rare mutation caused wild bananas to grow sterile, without seeds. Those ancient farmers took cuttings of the mutants, then cuttings of the cuttings." James Meek explains why bananas may be dying out. --Yes - in 10 Years We May Have No Bananas Guardian)

Tomorrow will we see another story reporting that the "bananas dying out" story is no more credible than the "blondes dying out" story from a few months ago? This one seems more credible, because unlike the blondes story, this one actually features quotes from experts who agree with the news being reported.

"I have seen one of the finest instances of user interface design ever, and I saw it in the men's room at Schipol airport in Amsterdam. In each of the urinals, there is a little printed blue fly...If they had put big circular targets, and arrows with a little printed message "pee here!" (like it would probably be if anybody ever tried such a thing in America), it would backfire. A certain percentage of men would deliberately try to disobey this instruction. But this innocuous little fly just invites being peed upon..." Maddog

--Fly UIMaddog)

We at the Literacy Weblog are not too highbrow to snicker at a user interface article featuring an innovation designed to improve the cleanliness of public bathrooms by subtly influencing men to improve their aim. We are also not above making cheap jokes, like how Microsoft ought to start making these things since there are already so many bugs in everything else they make.

On Jan 17, 1998, maverick webmaster Matt Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story on his weblog. (Actually, Jorn Barger coined the term "weblog" only a few weeks earlier, so I doubt anybody used that term for Drudge's website back then.) Drudge has posted an understandbly self-congratulatory piece about his website. To refresh your memory, here's part of what he wrote:

"At the last minute, at 6 p.m. on Saturday evening, NEWSWEEK magazine killed a story that was destined to shake official Washington to its foundation: A White House intern carried on a sexual affair with the President of the United States!

The DRUDGE REPORT has learned that reporter Michael Isikoff developed the story of his career, only to have it spiked by top NEWSWEEK suits hours before publication. A young woman, 23, sexually involved with the love of her life, the President of the United States, since she was a 21-year-old intern at the White House. She was a frequent visitor to a small study just off the Oval Office where she claims to have indulged the president's sexual preference. Reports of the relationship spread in White House quarters and she was moved to a job at the Pentagon, where she worked until last month." Matt Drudge

--Drudge's Website Broke Clinton Sex Scandal 5 Years AgoDrudge Report)

"When humans use a personal computer, we enter into the computer's world. If it can't do something, or if it crashes, too bad; we have to deal. But a robot enters into our world. If floors are uneven, if legs get in the way, if lighting conditions change, the robot has to deal." George Musser's review of the Roomba robot vaccuum cleaner explains why Robot armies haven't taken over the world yet. --Robots that SuckScientific American)

Another quote from the article: "What makes it a breakthrough is the price, $200, which approaches the don't-need-spousal-preapproval range." The word Robot was popularized by Karel Capek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), which was written in 1920.

"[T]he promise of a pill for every ill remains, as it always will, unfulfilled. Anyone who had read his Shakespeare would not have been surprised by this disappointment. When Macbeth asks a physician:

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles of the brain,
And with some sweet oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

"The physician replies laconically: 'Therein the patient / Must minister to himself.'

"Every day, several patients ask me Macbeth's question with regard to themselves-in less elevated language, to be sure-and they expect a positive answer: but four centuries before neurochemistry was even thought of, and before any of the touted advances in neurosciences that allegedly gave us a new and better understanding of ourselves, Shakespeare knew something that we are increasingly loath to acknowledge. There is no technical fix for the problems of humanity." Theodore Dalrymple --Why Shakespeare is for All TimeCity Journal)

"Hundreds of thousands of books, movies and songs were close to being released into the public domain when Congress extended the copyright by 20 years in 1998.... [That] would have cost entertainment giants like the Walt Disney Co. and AOL Time Warner hundreds of millions of dollars. AOL Time Warner had said that would threaten copyrights for such movies as Casablanca, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind." --Supreme Court Upholds Copyright ExtensionWired (AP))

Disney doesn't want to lose hold of Mickey Mouse, so 20th century scholarship will suffer. I chose the years 1920-1950 as the time span for my dissertation, figuring that as I worked my way through my academic career, the plays I had studied would one by one come out of copyright, and I could publish critical editions that would be available at an affordable rate. Looks like that ain't gonna happen. Since hundreds of millions of dollars are at stake, I figure it would be sensible to tax old copyrighted materials, making it more and more expensive for copyright holders to maintain their monopoly on a particular title. The money gained could support the scholars who will work on the material that copyright holders feel is not worth paying the extra money to protect beyond a reasonable limit (say, 25 years free, another 25 years if you're still alive and you still want it, then another 25 years for a modest fee, after which each 10 years the company has to report how much money they made off of the material, and pay a user fee that supports the common domain. Sigh. Dream on, Jerz.

Women in Bangladesh who fold their saris filter out more of the disease-carrying organisms that cause cholera than the women who filter through unfolded cloths, or who don't filter at all. While folding saris to make eight layers filters out almost all of the harmful organisms, this method means that women gathering water had to wait seven minutes for the water to seep through the cloth.

--Fight cholera with Sarees, Says StudyTimes of India)

That's a usability issue -- the material (saris) are cheap & plentiful, but getting them to work effectively takes time. People don't like changing their habits if they don't see any immediate benefit -- not even when their lives depend on it. As it happens, folding a sari so it has four layers is still effective enough to cut cholera cases in half, and it doesn't slow down the water nearly as much.

This is great news of a low-tech, low-cost strategy for fighting disease.

On a completely different note, here is the abstract of the article in which the researchers publish their findings. "Based on results of ecological studies demonstrating that Vibrio cholerae, the etiological agent of epidemic cholera, is commensal to zooplankton, notably copepods, a simple filtration procedure was developed whereby zooplankton, most phytoplankton, and particulates >20 µm were removed from water before use. Effective deployment of this filtration procedure, from September 1999 through July 2002 in 65 villages of rural Bangladesh, of which the total population for the entire study comprised 133,000 individuals, yielded a 48% reduction in cholera (P < 0.005) compared with the control." Is this good scientific writing? Can scientists do better, especially when people's lives are at stake?

"At one time, voices glanced against its metal walls. Dates were made here, secrets exchanged. Once people lined up, shifting from foot to impatient foot, pointedly lifting their watches, Hey, lady, how long you gonna talk?

"But today, the pay phone by the Rodman's grocery store at Randolph and Selfridge roads in Wheaton stands empty, a smelly, rusting piece of metal and plastic. As if to highlight its obsolescence, Andres Castro stands right next to it and dials the office from his Nextel cell phone.

"He has come to demolish it."

--Requiem for the Pay Phone: As Cell Phone Use Increases, an Icon Gradually DiesWashPost)

I cannot resist this opportunity to suggest an inexplicably popular work of interactive fiction, "Pick up the Phone Booth and Die."

"A serious literary magazine published by a hospital? Sounds unlikely. But the Bellevue Literary Review, published by the New York University department of medicine at Bellevue Hospital, is drawing on a long literary heritage. Bellevue has nursed William Burroughs, Eugene O'Neill and many other close-to-the-edge writers and artists. Danielle Ofri, the review's editor-in-chief and a doctor at Bellevue, believes scientists and doctors too often dismiss the power of language." --The Word DoctorNew Scientist)

Ofri asks her medical students to write up patient histories as a first-person narrative, I presume in order to encourage greater empathy with the human patient. Several years ago, I found NYU's excellent Medical Humanities website. Georgetown also has a site on Disability Studies in the Humanities, an interest that has arisen in part due to the near-obsession humanities scholarship developed in the study of "the body" in the 90s.

"Israeli geologists say a purportedly ancient stone tablet detailing repair plans for the Jewish Temple of King Solomon is genuine... Our findings show that it is authentic... If officially authenticated, the find would be the first piece of physical evidence backing up biblical texts. It could also intensify competing claims to the site in Jerusalem's Old City, where the stone is said to have been found, which go to the heart of the Arab-Israeli conflict." --Biblical Technical Writing: Plan for Repairing Solomon's Temple FoundBBC)

Update, 20 May -- Scientists: its a fake.

"Pooh would no doubt scratch his fluff-stuffed head in disbelief at what's going on. Shirley and her daughter, Pati, are embroiled in an epic legal battle with the Walt Disney Co. over the merchandising rights to the world's most beloved bear. Shirley's former husband, Stephen Slesinger, acquired the merchandising rights to Winnie the Pooh in 1930 from his creator, A.A. Milne. After Slesinger died, Shirley granted the rights to Walt Disney himself." --The Curse of PoohFortune [annoying pop-up])

"From an educator's perspective, games may be the most fully realized educational technology produced to date. Tom Malone (1981) showed how games use challenge, fantasy, player control, and curiosity invoking designs to create intrinsically motivating environments. More recently, Lloyd Rieber (1996) has argued that digital games engage players in productive play -- learning that occurs through building microworlds, manipulating simulations, and playing games. Rieber argues that historically, educational games have relied heavily on exogenuous game formulas, meaning that content is inserted into a generic gaming template, like hangman, rather than seamlessly integrated with gaming mechanisms as in SimCity .(He calls this endogenuous game design)." Kurt Squire --Games-to-Teach ResearchMIT)

The artificial world of the college campus is, itself, a kind of simulation of real life. Via thinking with my fingers.

"Why is this a hobby horse of mine? Largely because I've been trying to promote the idea that games are an artform since I was a teenager, when I first started designing them professionally. Also because the rest of the world, both inside and outside the game industry, is starting to realize the validity of the idea--with increasing academic attention to games, increasing press coverage of them, and an increasing interest among game developers in thinking about design on a theoretical level. And finally, because so much nonsense is written about games that I think there needs to be a venue for a viewpoint that both values games and realizes their limitations--and the often stringent limitations of the sometimes soul-crushing engine we call the games industry." Greg Costikyan

--Games * Design * Art * Culture G*D*A*C)

Another comment from Costikyan: "Games are art. Most of them are bad art, to be sure." See also Costikyan's "I Have No Words and I Must Design. BTW, it was pretty easy figuring out which categories to use when I posted this entry.

"Most writers know the value of an informative title, but many beginning web authors don't know that each web page needs two kinds of titles. The in-context (IC) title always sits at the top of a page, with the rest of the document immediately beneath it.... The out-of-context (OOC) title is frequently displayed by search engines or archive pages, as part of a long sorted list." Dennis G. Jerz --Titles for Web Pages: In-Context and Out-of-ContextLiteracy Weblog)

The document referenced above is indebted to a 1998 AlertBox column, "Microcontent," which is far too geeky for my newbie web author students who need the excellent lessons it contains.

"The commemoration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of August 16, 1977 seemed more than anything a media mirage churned up by Graceland smoke machines. A Graceland spokesman had recently discussed the problem facing the operation: if Elvis Presley was indeed immortal, his fans were not. Many of Elvis's original fans were dying off; if the enormously successful marketing of Elvis Presley over the last twenty-five years were to continue, they would have to be replaced by people who were not even born when Elvis Presley died." Greil Marcus

--Elvis AgainThreepenny Review)

It's not often that you read an article about the decline of a pop culture phenomenon, unless it's simply a passing reference like, "Whatever happened to Garbage Pail Kids?" At the beginning of a literature course, I enjoy telling my students that the movies and recording stars that seem to be the center of their world right now -- and that may seem much more interesting than the "old" works we well be studying in class -- will soon be as dated as the pop culture icons that were canonical among youth when I was an undergrad. During the 80s, the "cool" kids watched Miami Vice and lyp synched to Falco's "Rock Me, Amadeus." And when I'm in a nursing home, they will try to placate me by piping in Muzak versions of Michael Jackson and Madonna songs. The horror! The horror!

"The main conclusion by DCSD [Danish Committee on Scientific Dishonesty] finds that my book is 'clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice' because of systematically biased selection of data and arguments. But since the DCSD has neglected to take their position on the technical scientific disputes their conclusions are completely unfounded. The DCSD does not give a single example to demonstrate their claim of a biased choice of data and arguments. Consequently, I don't understand this ruling. It equals an accusation without defining the crime." Bjørn Lomborg

--Lomborg Responds to Dishonesty AccusationsLomborg.com)

Lomborg ran afoul of traditional eco-scientific interpretations of data involving the global environment. I am not an expert in the matter, but I was troubled to read of what appears to be an ad-hominem attack by members of the scientific community on Lomborg. This is Lomborg's response to being censured for his book The Sceptical Environmentalist.

"Some people prefer 'sneakers' to 'running shoes,' others 'soda' to 'pop.' But it's in Montreal - where many people use the French 'liquor douce' instead of 'soft drink' - that some Canadian language scholars are really bubbling with enthusiasm over the nature of English. 'It's so special because it's the only major city in North America where English is a minority language.'" Interview with Charles Boberg --Montreal English is a "Linguistic Laboratory"CBC)

Thanks for the link, Jim.

"Music, a social and artistic activity of the first importance, inevitably makes its way, often quite a substantial way, into literature of all kinds. Monographs have been, or could be, written on music in Jane Austen's novels, or Thomas Hardy's, or J. B. Priestley's, or on music in Galsworthy's FORSYTE CHRONICLES, to name a few instances at random. It may, then, be of some interest to recall (and I do not believe it has been done previously at length) some of the musical associations of the vast bulk of British crime fiction." Philip L. Sowcroft via Waterboro Public Library --Music in English Detective FictionMusicweb)

Naturally, the article starts with Arthur Conan Doyle, due to Sherlock Holmes's love of the violin and the opera.

"An act of reading electronic language involves:

1. Setting up an electronic language environment;
2. Selecting particular input into the electronic text;
3. Receiving the output;
4. Analyzing what the electronic text does."

--Someone Writing about Their Reading of GoogleTechnacy Weblog)

I'm reminded of Espen Aarseth's definition of Cybertext -- a system that includes not only the array of bits in memory or phosophors on a screen, but the whole thing -- including the software used to create and view the text, the hardware (keyboard, mouse, monitor), the power grid that runs the whole system, and even (without stretching the point too much) the whole system of laws, guidelines and practices that control what sort of text gets created, distributed, rewarded, penalized, etc.

According to Jenkins, "Technacy primarily is about a new consciousness, an extended consciousness beyond oracy and literacy that encompasses the problems posed by a new language order - electronic language." I'm very happy I found this website. As soon as I get my course syllabi set up next week I'm goint to spend more time here.

"Although office clutter is usually almost entirely work-related, it tends nevertheless to be treated as though it consisted of the dirty socks and crisp packets of an adolescent. Workers are confused. They know that creating clutter is an essential part of the way they work, but they are made to feel guilty about it." --In Praise of ClutterThe Economist)

The paperless office isn't.

"By downplaying competition, There hopes to attract women to its universe, which is roamed much like the legendary computer game Myst. In fact, some areas look and sound like the mythical Myst island with the constant chirping of birds and distant roar of surf. 'If we can build a product that women love, guys will show up,' Melcher said. 'The reverse is not true.'" --New Game "There" Puts you ThereCNN/AP)

And how will they build a world that women love? By letting gamers shop in virtual stores, for virtual clothes for their virtual bodies. An interactive Myst sounds like a good idea, but Atrus wouldn't have approved of the commercialization.

Amusing WebWord thread about awful headlines and the misuse of "Ye Olde English" grammar. This particular awful title detracted from a very sensible article by Peter Seebach. --"Here ye -- let thine site visitors speak" discussion on WebwordWebword)

"As his twenty fourth year as Pontiff comes to a close, the physically frail yet still forceful Pope John Paul II has told his clergy to add 'Blue Stars' to the revered rosary beads. These stars will replace every fifteenth bead on the traditional talisman." --In Departure For Catholic Church, Pope Adding 'Blue Stars' to RosaryBroken Newz [satire])

The article creates an alternate history timeline in which the introduction of Lucky Charms to Poland inspires the collapse of the Communist empire. Not quite as good as The Onion's "Aged Pope 'Just Blessing Everything in Sight,' Say Concerned Handlers".

"A recently leaked trailer for The Return of the King has Tolkien fans outraged over the apparent addition of a new character - Jar-Jaromir. The scene depicted in the trailer shows Jar-Jaromir shouting, 'Gondora gonna fallsa'; he then trips over a corpse and knocks down a couple of Uruk-hai." Brian Biggs --Fans Outraged at New Character in The Return of the KingBBspot [satire])

The comedy bits added for Gimli's scenes in The Two Towers do seem to have been a bit much, though I have to admit I laughed (or at least chuckled) when I first saw them. But if Lucas had done Tolkien, the satirical article linked above might not be too far-fetched. "Gondora gonna fallsa"? You could have come up with better spoof dialogue than that, Mr. Biggs. Still, the fake quote from a fan trying to rationalize the connection between Middle Earth and Star Wars is hilarious.

"2002 Year-End Zeitgeist offers a unique perspective on the year's major events and hottest trends based on more than 55 billion searches conducted over the past year by Google users from around the world."

Top 5 gaining Google queries from 2002:

1. spiderman
2. shakira
3. winter olympics
4. world cup
5. avril lavigne

Top 5 declining Google queries from 2002:

1. nostradamus
2. napster
3. world trade center
4. anthrax
5. osama bin laden

--2002 Year-End ZeitgeistGoogle)

This listing indicates that the world is moving beyond the events of 9.11.2001. I had toyed with the idea of making Morrowind my next comptuer game purchase... the fact that it's 9th on the "gaining" list makes me more confident it will be a good use of my limited free time. The singers on this list mean nothing to me, though I've used Eminem (7th gaining) in class when my students complained that the rhymed verse of Moliere's 1660's play Tartuffe was unrealistic. Thanks for the link, Rosemary.

"Creating imaginary worlds while trying to do it in a personal style to at least be able to retain some originality in my work, was always an enjoyable challenge for me and my favorite thing while drawing Fantasy themes." Luis Peres --Fantasy Illustration by Luis Peresworld4mysheep.com)

"The evidence that mother-only families contribute to crime is powerful. When two scholars studied data from the National Longitudinal Study of Youth, they found that, after holding income constant, young people in father-absent families were twice as likely to be in jail as were those in two-parent families. And their lives did not improve if their mother had acquired a stepfather. Fill-in dads don't improve matters any more than do fatter government checks." James Q. Wilson

--The Family Way: Treating Fathers as Optional has Brought Big Social CostsOpinion Journal)

Some bold statements that you don't hear people making every day; one hopes that this article won't simply be dismissed as being "reactionary", and that the important pro-fatherhood message won't be drowned out by voices accusing the author of wanting to bring the woman-oppressing 50s back. Of course there are families that are better off without a father, but most single mothers aren't Rosie O'Donnell or Jodie Foster. This article calls for active, involved fathers, not lord-of-the-manor breadwinners who demand the food on the table when they come home from the local bar so that they can spend the evening reading the paper and watching sports.

Google didn't find anything on the "National Longitudinal Study of Youth," but it did return a National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. It's annoying that I can't check Wilson's sources -- it wouldn't have taken up much space to give the names of the two scholars he mentions.

The article also paraphrases advice from William Galston, a former assistant to Clinton: "To avoid poverty, do three things: finish high school, marry before having a child, and produce the child after you are 20 years old. Only 8% of people who do all three will be poor; of those who fail to do them, 79% will be poor." Wilson's use of the statistics seems to confuse causality with correlation, which is something I'm sure Wilson wouldn't permit his philosophical opponents to do. Still, it sure looks like a strong correlation.

Bjorn Lomborg - the director of Denmark's Environmental Assessment Institute and a leading would-be debunker of mainstream scientific opinion on issues like global warming and overuse of natural resources - has been found guilty by a Danish government committee of 'scientific dishonesty'. --Paul Brown --Anti-green Author Dishonest, Says Scientific Panel (Guardian)

This is the peer-review process at work. Somebody will doubtless publish a rebuttal, and the debate will continue. The panel concluded "Based on customary scientific standards and in light of his systematic one-sidedness in the choice of data and line of argument, [he] has clearly acted at variance with good scientific practice." I'm a little troubled by the idea that a particular "line of argument" is equated with "dishonesty," but I'm not an expert in the subject matter.

"Apparently Jennifer Lopez is coming out with a new 'fragrance' (which is what they call perfume these days, I guess) called Glow by J-Lo. Here's some others that will follow on its heels.

• Mince by Prince
• This Is How You Should Smell by Martha Stewart
• Texas Tea by G.W.B.
• Free For The Taking by Winona
• Affair by Cher
• I Am Led To Understand That This Has An Agreeable Odor But, Lacking A Nose, I Cannot Vouch For It Myself by Michael Jackson
• Stink by N*Sync
• Attack of the Colognes by Lucas
• Drool by Jewel
• I Hereby Command You To Purchase This by Oprah
• Republic of Sudan by Alan Greenspan
• Stench by Judi Dench"

Matthew Baldwin

--Non ScentsDefective Yeti)

BTW, I get a lot of links from Jorn Barger's Robot Wisdom.

"Welcome to Google Village. This is part of a wider project exploring, analyzing, detailing and educating people on the issues to do with the new skills required to communicate now and in the next century. Literacy is no longer the key attribute to desire, work for and acquire in this world of electronic language (where people communicate across the internet). What we require now is Technacy." Elwyn Jenkins

--What Does it Mean for Internet Dwellers to Live in the Google Village?Technacy Log)

"Google Village" is a play on Marshal McLuhan's concept of the "Global Village." I'm glad I found this site. Perhaps fittingly, I stumbled across it while searching Google for new references to my own name.

"The speed of gravity has been measured for the first time. The landmark experiment shows that it travels at the speed of light, meaning that Einstein's general theory of relativity has passed another test with flying colours." Hazel Muir --First Speed of Gravity Measurement Revealed New Scientist)

"There may well be people who abandon Neuromancer on the grounds that it's riddled with sentence-fragments, but, in a sense, the sentence-fragments are there to scare off readers who aren't ready for that, and to encourage those who want to see the envelope of language pushed even further, the pedal taken even closer to the metal? I do know how to write formal standard English without making a great many mistakes." --William Gibson's WeblogWilliamGibsonBooks.com)

In his novel Neuromancer, Gibson coined the term "cyberspace". Now Mr. Gibson has a weblog. Welcome to the blogosphere!

"The MetroCard Vending Machines in New York's subways are a classical case of programmer-directed hierarchical menu hell, forcing the user to make choices without knowing the consequences, and throwing the user off altogether at the smallest problem. With a little careful thought, we are able to improve the interaction considerably, while at the same time extracting some valuable heuristics for interaction design. " Lars Pind

Submitted by my former student Matt Hoy, who writes: "Excellent write up, well thought out points. The reader responses at the bottom are a little troubling. Do people reall view usability reviews as 'attacks' on the current design? Is it normal for usability testers to encounter this kind of opposistion?"

--MetroCard MessPinds)

Yes, Matt, there's often a huge gulf between the brilliant "ar-TEESTS" who dream up fancy designs, and the usability trolls who seem to scour the underworld seeking the densest, stupidest users to botch up even the simplest transactions. In retail, the cusomter is always right -- even when the customer is obviously wrong. Good design does not try to force the user to behave a certain way -- instead, it watches the way people behave, and then builds a system so that people can use it effectively by doing what comes naturally. Pind suggested that it wasn't necessary for the New York metro subway vending machines to present the user with a language-selection menu first, but a reader comment pointed out that people will walk past a machine displaying the "wrong" language. So, Pind's suggestions can't all be taken without scrutiny -- and they would, of course have to be subjected to usability testing by a wide range of users. One good way to do that is to put two machines with different interfaces side-by-side, and see which one gets more use. Let's just hope somebody from the New York transit authority read the article and the reader comments.

"This is the story of the revival of York Mystery Plays from the Festival of Britain in 1951 to the present day told by the many individuals who have been involved with the Plays - whether as actors, stage hands or front of house - through their personal memories, photographs and press cuttings."

--York Mystery Plays -- Illumination: From Shadow into LightNational Centre for Early Music)

A wonderful site that focuses on the music that accompanied these wonderful devotional and instructive plays from the Medieval town of York, England. (See my own York Corpus Christi Simulator.) Thanks for the suggestion, Heidi Johnson of the National Centre for Early Music, in York, England.

Blessed be God, at the end of the last year I was in very good health, without any sense of my old pain, but upon taking of cold.1 I lived in Axe Yard having my wife, and servant Jane, and no more in family than us three. My wife . . . . gave me hopes of her being with child, but on the last day of the year . . . .[the hope was belied.]2 The condition of the State was thus; viz. the Rump, after being disturbed by my Lord Lambert, was lately returned to sit again. The officers of the Army all forced to yield. Lawson lies still in the river, and Monk is with his army in Scotland. Only my Lord Lambert is not yet come into the Parliament, nor is it expected that he will without being forced to it. The new Common Council of the City do speak very high; and had sent to Monk their sword-bearer, to acquaint him with their desires for a free and full Parliament, which is at present the desires, and the hopes, and expectation of all. Twenty-two of the old secluded members3 having been at the House-door the last week to demand entrance, but it was denied them; and it is believed that [neither] they nor the people will be satisfied till the House be filled. My own private condition very handsome, and esteemed rich, but indeed very poor; besides my goods of my house, and my office, which at present is somewhat uncertain. Mr. Downing master of my office.

This morning (we living lately in the garret,) I rose, put on my suit with great skirts, having not lately worn any other, clothes but them. Went to Mr. Gunning's chapel at Exeter House, where he made a very good sermon upon these words:--"That in the fulness of time God sent his Son, made of a woman," &c.; showing, that, by "made under the law," is meant his circumcision, which is solemnized this day. Dined at home in the garret, where my wife dressed the remains of a turkey, and in the doing of it she burned her hand. I staid at home all the afternoon, looking over my accounts; then went with my wife to my father's, and in going observed the great posts which the City have set up at the Conduit in Fleet-street. Supt at my, father's, where in came Mrs. The. Turner and Madam Morrice, and supt with us. After that my wife and I went home with them, and so to our own home.

--1 January 1659/60 (Lord's Day) [Samuel Pepys' Diary]PepysDiary.com)

Weblogs have gotten a lot of people excited about historical diaries. Perhaps the most famous is that of Samuel Pepys, who kept a diary from 1659-1669, a span that includes the Great Fire and the Great Plague. The diary will be posted online in chunks, and readers can comment on the postings, just like a weblog. The online verison is slightly edited, leaving out the bits perceived by previous editors as too salacious or unseemly for respectable audiences. (Thanks for the link, Ben.)

"The high-tech industry plans to launch a sophisticated new lobbying campaign later this month to strike back against Hollywood in a battle to shape rules of the road for new digital technologies. The Business Software Alliance and Computer Systems Policy Project....hope to convince Congress that strict copy-protection legislation that sets technological mandates would stifle innovation, harm consumers and threaten an already suffering tech industry." Heather Fleming --Tech Industry to Take on Hollywood over Digital RulesMercury News)

Before you jump up and down cheering, note that Microsoft is one of the companies behind this new legal strategy. The end result will be to put more power in the hands of technology monopolists, instead of the publishers of entertainment media. So either way, you'll still have to pay to let Hollywood entertain you.

"Clonaid, linked with a group that believes life on Earth was originally cloned by aliens, said two women had given birth to babies it had cloned. It at first said it would present DNA evidence but has delayed doing so." --A Name for Clone Babies: 'Hoax' Wired)

More news from the department of "duh": the "cloned baby" reports are probably hoaxes. I'm amazed at the amount of press this "scientific" announcment has received, and how little skepticism I've seen in the mainstream media.

"Big media barons are routinely accused of dominating markets, dumbing down the news to plump up the bottom line, and forcing U.S. content on world audiences. But these companies are not as big, bad, dominant, or American as critics claim. And company size is largely irrelevant to many of the problems facing today's Fourth Estate." Benjamin Compaine

--Global MediaForeign Policy)

Since I've devoted class time and blog bits to lamenting the reach of multimedia corporations, it seems only fair to link to this opposing view. Interesting quotation from the article: "A merger of Time Inc. with Warner Communications and then with America Online dominates headlines, but the incremental growth of smaller companies from the bottom does not." Weblogs are apt vehicles for promulgating the "media convergence is bad" meme, but if Compaine is right, then the growth of weblogs themselves is an argument against the idea that convergence is the dominant model. Another quote from the article: "Make no mistake: an activist with a dial-up Internet connection and 10 megabytes of Web server space cannot easily challenge Disney for audiences. But an individual or a small group can reach the whole world and, with a little work and less money, can actually find an audience." That sounds more like the point of view expressed in the blogosphere.

"I heard of the play when it opened in Paris. But I am ashamed to say I did not see it. I had no idea that it would shortly dominate my life....My 16-year-old daughter was baffled by the programme material detailing the play's controversial history. 'What on earth is there to understand?' she said. 'It's perfectly clear what it is about. You only have to listen.' How stupid it seems now that, 50 years ago, people denied that this play was a play." --Godotmania [50-Year Appreciation of Waiting for Godot]Guardian)

"In 1811 the Herr von Reisswitz, the Prussian War Counselor at Breslau invented an innovative wargame. First, he constructed a table with a model actual terrain. He then represented units by blocks. Each side would give their orders to an umpire who was required to update the terrain table, resolve combat and tell each sides only what they would know. To determine casualties umpires first consulted complex tables that indicated a envelope of likely attrition based on range, terrain and other factors. The exact attrition was determined by a die role, to depict the uncertainties of the battlefield!" Matthew Caffrey --Toward a History Based Doctrine for WargamingAir & Space Power Chronicle)

"In what will surely be regarded as one of the best science-fiction 'fan film' projects of all time, a pair of 'Star Trek' fanatics have created a new episode in exacting 1960s style using their own actors, sets and props." Julio Ojeda-Zapata --"Star Trek" Reborn in Online EpisodePioneer Press)

Sigh. I am such a Trek Classic geek. This news made me weep. Which is nothing compared to what will likely happen when the lawyers at Paramount Pictures hear about this flagrant breach of copyright. After the above link expires, you can still read the discussion on Slashdot.

"You find technology virgins everywhere: Teachers who insist on getting detailed training for every new piece of technology that shows up; librarians who refuse to figure out the Internet text searching tools; doctors who won't use computer technology because it is beneath them; managers who deny their employees access to the Internet. Common to them all is that they are severely middle-aged -- in soul, if not necessarily in body -- and still think of PCs and the Internet as something new and extraneous to their jobs and lives, something they can choose not to be involved with." Espen Andersen

--Stamp Out Technology VirginityUbiquity)

See also Henry Adams's "The Dynamo and the Virgin" (1900). An excerpt: "As he grew accustomed to the great gallery of machines, he began to feel the forty-foot dynamos as a moral force, much as the early Christians felt the Cross. The planet itself seemed less impressive, in its old-fashioned, deliberate, annual or daily revolution, than this huge wheel, revolving within arm's-length at some vertiginous speed, and barely murmuring,-scarcely humming an audible warning to stand a hair's-breadth further for respect of power,-while it would not wake the baby lying close against its frame. Before the end, one began to pray to it; inherited instinct taught the natural expression of man before silent and infinite force."

"Proposal. Develop a false website and organization concentrating on the newest national concern: videogame addiction and violence. This organization is called Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence (MAVAV, www.mavav.org). There is a great amount of stereotypes about people who play videogames (anti-social, depressed, unintelligent) and a lot of videogame violence bashing and blame (scapegoat) by the media and the government. So I decided to play off this, exaggerating all the common stereotypes, creating absurd facts, and officially linking violence in videogames to killers. :)" David Yoo --Interactivity Final Assignment: Create a Hoax. Submission: "Mothers Against Videogame Addiction and Violence" (Parsons School of Design)

For years, undergraduates everywhere will be citing this website in their freshman composition papers. Hint to students: look for peer-reviewed academic journal articles, not web pages that pop up in response to a google.com search!

"Throughout the 1990s, my basic philosophy was this: Work=Boring, but Work+Speed+Risk=Cool. Speed and risk transformed the experience into something so stimulating, so exciting, so intense, that we began to believe that those qualities defined 'good work.' Now, betrayed by the reality of economic uncertainty and global instability, we're casting about for what really matters when it comes to work." Po Bronson --What Should I Do With My LifeFast Company)

This essay wins my prize for "best cultural reflection written by somebody sharing the name of a Teletubbie."

"For recent Ph.D.'s looking for positions in the fields of language and literature, the frantic surroundings of the M.L.A. convention offer the only dusty rays of hope. It's a bleak landscape for academic job-seekers in any field, but this year, a flyer in the conference press room trumpeted 'the sharpest decline in Language and Literature jobs' since the 1992 recession." --The Droves of AcademeNY Observer)

I personally have no cause to complain about how the English professor meat market has treated me, but this article brings back many, many painful memories.

"The 1970s boast a slew of what could be pegged essential Internet milestones, including the advent of e-mail and the splintering off of ARPANET from military experiment to public resource. But perhaps the most famous of the lot is the acclaimed Jan. 1, 1983, switch from Network Control Protocol to Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol." --Happy Birthday, Dear InternetWired)

"By processing information sent from physiological sensors the human counterpart wears, the Vanderbilt robot can detect when its master is having a bad day and approach with the query: 'I sense that you are anxious. Is there anything I can do to help?'" --Feeling Blue? This Robot Knows It.Wired)

The story includes an amusing opposing view: "Speaking as a former soldier, the last thing I would want is an artificial girlfriend by my side to nag me about how I am feeling while out in the battlefield."