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)

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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.

"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)

"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.

"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)

"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)

"[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)

"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.

"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."

"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)

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."

"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)

"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])

"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)

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)

"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.

"[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)

"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.

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)

"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.

"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."

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?

"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.

"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.