Welcome to the "fakeosphere." Internet marketing veteran and analyst Jay Weintraub says fake blogs - or flogs - fake news sites and manufactured testimonials are the fastest-growing segment of Internet advertising. He thinks it's a $500 million-a-year industry - and he compares it to the explosive growth of spam a decade ago.

"I don't think people realize how big this has become, and how quickly," said Weintraub, adding that a popular top flog campaign can generate 10,000 daily sales. --MSNBC

I certainly realize it. Now that a lot of the conversations that used to take place on blogs are taking place on Twitter, I'm getting far more comments from spammers than from visitors. I'm glad to see someone's writing about this advertising trend.

Here at Sunlight we want the government to STOP publishing bills, and data in PDFs and Flash and start publish them in open, machine readable formats like XML and XSLT. What's most frustrating is, Government seems to transform documents that are in XML into PDF to release them to the public, thinking that that's a good thing for citizens. Government: We can turn XML into PDFs. We can't turn PDFs into XML.

Flash isn't off the hook either. Government has spent lots of time and money developing flash tools to allow citizens to view charts and graphs online, and while we're happy the government is interested in allowing citizens to do this, Government's primary method of disclosure should not be these visualizations, but rather publishing the APIs and datasets that allow citizens to make their own. Only after those things are completed to the fullest extent possible should government be working on its own visualizations. While Adobe may say in their open government whitepaper:

"Since the advent of the web, an entire infrastructure has evolved to enable public access to information. Such technologies include HTML, Adobe PDF, and Adobe® Flash® technology."

This is nonsense. --Sunlight Labs (via)

The Kindle e-book reader frees academics from having to carry around a huge collection of chunks of matter, but flipping from main text to footnotes is awkward, and the highlighting tool doesn't replace the bracketing, underlining, and commenting that we do between the lines.

In a few days, I expect to be the owner of a new Kindle DX (the full-page reader, designed for magazines and full-page PDF readings). I found the Kindle most useful when I was reading for pleasure.

I have to admit I am scared silly by the idea of a generation of students so alienated from material they are supposed to be immersed in that they rent digital textbooks that they do not intend to keep, cannot dog ear and underline, and otherwise feel totally alienated from. Even the current trend of students not underlining in books so as to preserve their resale value strikes me as appalling. Taking ownership of your education -- and indeed, just learning how to read closely -- means making your books part of your physical environment. In an era when you thought criminally overpriced textbooks full of uselessly pretty pictures and pre-chewed content was the absolute nadir of education, the Campus Full Of Kindles demonstrates we still have lower to sink. If, that is, the Kindles alienate students from their libraries rather than empowering them to immerse themselves in them. --Alex Golub, Inside Higher Ed

I hear students tell me that in some disciplines, individual textbooks cost $200. I don't think it's the Kindle that's done the alienating.

Update: MIke Arnzen invokes the Kindle in a good post on teaching creative writing in the digital age. His reflections parallel many of my own, as I contemplate my role as a teacher of journalism.

http://www.60secondrecap.com/resource/

How to Write a Paper

• 1: Get Psyched
• 2: The Thesis Statement
• 3: Organization
• 4: Proving you know what you're talking about
• 5: Your teacher is not a mind-reader
• 6: In Conclusion
• 7: Rah-rah-rah, etc.

Avi sez, "'Mickey Mouse in Gurs' is a tragic 'comic' book made by Horst Rosenthal in 1942 while incarcerated at the Gurs internment camp in France. Rosenthal uses Mickey Mouse as a kind of subversive Virgil to guide us through the hellish experiences of the concentration camp. Horst Rosenthal was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942." --BoingBoing

A few of the many events scheduled in the Pittsburgh region.

"Of Faith and Kristallnacht," a panel discussion with keynote speaker Dr. Robert Ericksen, Pacific Lutheran University; Sister Gemma del Duca, National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education at Seton Hill University; and the Rev. Don Green, executive director of Christian Associates of Southwestern Pennsylvania; among others. 7 p.m., Wednesday, The Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Monroeville (412-421-1500).

"The Use of Comic Books in Teaching the Holocaust," a lecture by Beverly Harris-Schenz of the University of Pittsburgh German Department, on teaching the Holocaust to German students. 8 p.m., Thursday, Jewish Community Center (412-421-1500).

"Brundibar," a children's opera originally performed by the children of Theresienstadt concentration camp, adapted by Maurice Sendak and Tony Kushner, Opera Theater of Pittsburgh. Friday through next Sunday, CAPA Theater, Downtown (412-456-6666).

--Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

I just excerpted and linked to a story from the Huffington Post Blog, and after I checked my blog I found a strange link floating above all the rest of my text, making both my own text that was under the link and the link itself illegible.

I had already included a link to the HuffPo. I had to spend extra time locating and removing this extra crap that appeared in my clipboard buffer.

<div style="position: fixed;"><div id="new_selection_block0.017883485913577468" style="border: medium none ; overflow: hidden; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); background-color: transparent; text-align: left; text-decoration: none;"><br /><br />Read more at: <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lenore-skenazy/as-goes-halloween-so-goes_b_340163.html" target="_blank_">http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lenore-skenazy/as-goes-halloween-so-goes_b_340163.html</a></div>

I feel bullied, or at the very least treated with the assumption that anyone copy-pasting from HuffPo intends to steal the content.

The next time I think of driving traffic to The Huffington Post, I'll remember how their CSS trick messed up my layout, and I'll probably pass.

While much of the talk covered well-known libraries (SDL, OpenAL), game engines (Ogre, Irrlicht), physics engines (Bullet, Tokamak), and content creation tools (Blender, GIMP), there were a few surprises. One was how many open source game-creation systems I found (4, more than the zero I expected). These are Game Editor (2d with export to some mobile devices), Construct (2d, some 3d), Novashell (2d), and Sandbox (3d). Another surprise was the game Yo Frankie! (pictured above), which has very high quality animation and artwork, and was produced using Blender. --Jim Whitehead

Peter Mawhorter offers up a reading list on games:

For anyone curious about what I've been reading, here's the list of what I've read to get an introduction to this area:

• "Why We Play Games: Four Keys to More Emotion Without Story" by Nicole Lazzaro.
• "GameFlow: A Model for Evalucating Player Enjoyment in Games" by Penelope Sweetser and Peta Wyeth.
• "An Experiment in Automatic Game Design" by Julian Togelius and Jürgen Schmidhuber.
• A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster.

One other thing that I've not yet read but am interested in is Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi's Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. It's not targeted at games, and in fact looks at fun from a psychological perspective, but it's cited by most of what I've read so far, and is the product of some very thorough research.

I don't usually link to sites that collect a bunch of links and serve them up on a page full of ads, but this is a pretty good list from Squidoo.

Here you'll find the educational sites where my kids play online, and that are most often recommended by other parents who value fun learning games for their children.

1. Jumpstart Online Virtual World
2. PBSKids
3. Sesame Street
4. Disney Preschool
5. Nick Jr.
6. National Geographic Kids
7. Kaboose Funschool
8. FunBrain
9. Starfall
10. iKnowthat.com

Will I miss Geocities? No, not really. In 1998 or possibly 1999, I was teaching web authorship as part of a freshman composition class, and this page from a student project made me keep the "make a Geocities home page" and "make a creative hypertext" project around, even though every semester, a certain chunk of students complained about it. The plug has been pulled on Geocities, but I'm preserving a chunk of what it meant to me, as a teacher.

Miraculously, I, [Name], am able to create my own web pages.  The unthinkable is possible.  My ignorance about the computer world is coming to an end.  I am a student at the University of Eau Claire and I'm creating several web pages for English 110.  Come and check out my first web page at meet the family.  This link briefly summarizes a few childhood memories, personality traits, and individual hobbies. 

At the University of Eau Claire's home-page, you find information on UWEC's registration process, available classes, student services, job opportunities, blugold system, International exchange, and much more.  Search the UWEC home page to get a look at what the college has to offer.   

My English Professor, Dr. Jerz, and some of his students have created several web pages for faculty members and students to benefit from.  The Online Reading Room will guide you to helpful information on how to create a web page, how to write effective e-mails, top 5 tips for note taking, and more.    

If you like to play amusing, addicting computer games, try playing Eliza.  You make conversation with Eliza who listens and talks back.  She asks a lot of questions about your problems and sometimes does not make sense. 

English 110 with Dr.Jerz is not like the other English 110 classes.  His course page is the student's syllabus explaining the guidelines to assigned papers and projects.  Helpful examples of problems students run into when writing papers and creating web pages are also found at this site.  

My essay on how the Internet has affected my education. The challenges that I came across at college with computers were frustrating, but later greatly appreciated.  Computer skills are critical for college classes and in the end the frustration turns into gratitude.  

Read Martha's essay  one her web page about how the Internet has affected her education. She used the Internet in high school for fun and for note taking.  In college she now uses her computer skills for academic purposes.  Even though Martha uses the computer daily, she still feels much has to be learned.

 Danielle's essay is about her experience with the Internet.  She had some computer experience in her high school anatomy class looking at a fetal pig, but she came familiar with e-mail in college.  Now Dr. Jerz is challenging her and every student in English 110 to become less ignorant about the computer world.

For my creative hypertext, I wrote three essays from three different perspectives.  I wrote one essay from my dad's point of view, one from my point of view, and one from my point of view if I would still be living in Kansas today instead of living in Minnesota.  The three blurbs below give a brief summary of each essay.

Most students spent their spring break somewhere warm while I spent my break in Kansas visiting relatives.  A little conversation never hurt anyone even if it's farm talk.  With age comes an appreciation of understanding to not take history for granted.

Read from Dad's perspective of Kansas.  He tells how the vacation was through his eyes telling the highlights of the trip were seeing his sister, brother, and old friends.  Abilene recaptures old memories and by visiting he creates new.

Just imagine what life would be like if I would have remained living in Abilene.  Read the what if life where lived differently.   I go to college in Kansas, I am going to school to become a Vet (I hate animals), and I never had the chance to travel.  For my spring break, my brother and I take a trip to New York to visit my sister and trust me cowboy boots and hats don't fit in with the New Yorkers.

Looking forward to this promising resource.

I've wrapped the blogs up,  tidied them up, corrected & updated them and put them into 1 handy ebook for you to download and take home. It means you have have an all-in-one desktop reference to giving your multimedia journalism more spark, and getting in the entrepreneurial mindset.

Chapters include: video, audio, storytelling and branding.

It'll be available from Monday, it's 100% free and there's no registration or anything. Just click on the button and you'll be able to download it outright. --Adam Westbrook

From Awful Library Books.

For more schadenfreud, see Cake Wrecks, Photoshop Disasters, and Fail Blog.

Great stuff from Mark Marino... not only is the content fascinating, but the blog-sized presentation, for discusison, of a fundamental theoretical concept is a great example of what the blogging medium can do for (and to) scholarship.

Item for today: =

In Donald Knuth and Luis Trabb Pardo's article on the history of computers, the note the moment at which = moves from equivalency to assignment. Here is a moment where mathematical notation and code separate on the basis of assignment, where it moves from a real that represents abstractions to a realm that controls memory locations.

For all intents and purposes
Algebra: x = 0; and computer code: x=0;
seem to mean the same thing.

However, on the most fundamental levels, they are not. The one establishes equivalence of signs. The other tells the computer to store the value 0 in the location represented by x.

In CCS, we have not just a mathematical system, for surely much of algorithms is mathematical. However, when critics talk about the materiality of these performative declarations in programming languages, they are talking about this latter notion of x=2.

Again, I don't want to rule out the possibility of critically analyzing mathematics. I just want to talk about this moment of the separation, where the computational instructions gain additional semantic meaning because there signs are not just representations, but commands with material ramifications. --Mark Marino, Critical Code Studies

I assigned book one of Maus: A Survivor's Tale to a "Writing About Literature" class, the designated writing-intensive course for our English majors.

The students discussed the abrupt ending, the use of ethnic stereotypes, and of course the comic book medium itself. One student's "Hearing through Yiddish... Seeing in Ink..." is particularly thoughtful.

About a third of the class went on to read book two, even though it wasn't on the syllabus; one student read the book aloud to her nine-year-old sister.

This weekend, Seton Hill is home to a conference sponsored by the National Catholic Center for Holocaust Education.  I'm canceling all my classes during one day of the conference.

Movie critics are sometimes asked why all movies cost the same to view, even though some may have cost $100 million to make, and others $500,000. It's a reasonable question. I suppose the reasoning is that you get about two hours of movie either way. Now 3-D has provided exhibitors with a subterfuge to force consumers to subsidise their upgraded projection facilities -- which is deceptive, because most theatres are upgrading to digital projectors anyway. This could be called the 3-D children's tax.

Do kids really care? --Roger Ebert, Spectator

Don't hate on the TV media just because they helped the nation fall for the Balloon Boy Hoax. Back in the day, the print media were the obvious target.

On April 13, 1844, Edgar Allan Poe wrote an article in The New York Sun, chronicling how Monck Mason, leaving England for Paris drifted off course and had traveled across the Atlantic in three days, landing safely on Sullivan's Island near Charleston South Carolina, while riding an ``egg-shaped gas-filled balloon'', named the Victoria.

The story caused such a stir that an excited mob quickly gathered outside of the editorial offices of the Sun, hoping to land a copy of the historic edition. Not until two days later did the New York daily publish a correction, noting the story was pure fiction. The published correction read: ``We are inclined to believe the intelligence is erroneous.'' -- The Morning Delivery

A fascinating twist to the complex story behind the legal battle behind the iconic Obama "HOPE" poster.

New filings to the court, he said, "state for the record that the AP is correct about which photo I used...and that I was mistaken. While I initially believed that the photo I referenced was a different one, I discovered early on in the case that I was wrong. In an attempt to conceal my mistake I submitted false images and deleted other images." 

In February, the AP claimed that Fairey violated copyright laws when he used one of their images as the basis for the poster.  In response, the artist filed a lawsuit against the AP, claiming that he was protected under fair use. Fairey also claimed that he used a different photo as the inspiration for his poster.

After Fairey's admission, a spokesman for the Associated Press issued a statement saying that Fairey "sued the AP under false pretenses by lying about which AP photograph he used."

Fairey said that his lawyers have taken the steps to amend his court pleadings to reflect the fact that "the AP is correct about which photo I used as a reference and that I was mistaken." --Los Angeles Times

Jaw-droppingly cool-- though it probably helps if you've ever worked with Flash.

Animator vs. Animation

In a bid to save money, the station is planning to reassign the technicians who operate the electronic prompters that feed scripted news copy to the anchors while they're on the air. Instead, the station wants its anchors to do the job themselves.

[...]

"Instead of orchestrating coverage, fact-checking, handling breaking news, paying attention to the [newscast], engaging reporters, questioning authorities, covering bad writing and technical mistakes, anchors will now spend most of their time" running the prompter, said one newsroom employee, who asked not to be identified because he's not authorized to discuss the change. "It's kind of like a literal one-man band -- singing, banging a drum, crashing cymbals, playing a trumpet and strumming a guitar . . . except we're not playing show tunes here." Washington Post

When people can more easily fire off all sorts of messages--from updates about their breakfast to questions about the evening's plans--being able to figure out which messages are truly important, or even which warrant a response, can be difficult. Information overload can lead some people to tune out messages altogether.

Such noise makes us even more dependent on technology to help us communicate. Without software to help filter and organize based on factors we deem relevant, we'd drown in the deluge.--Jessica E. Vascellaro, Wall Street Journal

The article is more about the rise of microcommunication tools than it is about the end of e-mail, but it does a fair job explaining the difference. 

I don't use APA style, but this article about nine pages of corrections to the APA style manual caught my eye.

"It's egregious," said John Foubert, an associate professor of education at Oklahoma State University, who bought two copies of the book - one for his office and one for home - when it was released in July. "These are the standards for how we write our manuscripts and how our students write their papers .... The irony is so thick."

The corrections include four pages of "nonsignificant typographical errors" and five pages correcting errors in content and problems with sample papers in the book. The APA also released four corrected sample papers in their entireties. One correction is "Page 88 - Change last line under 'Exception' to read 'Spacing twice after punctuation marks at the end of a sentence aids readers of draft manuscripts.' " Another is "Page 64 - First paragraph, line 2, insert a comma after 'e.g.' " --Inside HIgher Ed

In the figure of the coltish, resolute Sigourney Weaver, Alien may just be the film that overhauled the old, unreconstructed horror genre and dared to put a woman centre-stage. Because make no mistake: a horror movie is what Alien is. "It's basically a haunted house film," explains the critic David Thomson. "The only difference is that the old dark house just happens to be a spaceship." --Xan Brooks, Guardian

Alien came out thirty years ago.  Thirty years ago!

I would have just turned 11.  I remember reading all about the movie in Starlog (a science fiction magazine my sister and I read from about issue #6 or #7, and we later ordered back issues so we had the complete set), and I remember seeing advertisements for Alien-themed toys, but I wondered who would want them... I'm sure I saw an edited version of the movie on TV, or maybe I rented the video, but I really wasn't into horror. 

The sequel, Aliens, came out when I was a teenager, and was a big hit with my peer group. It made me re-watch the first film, and I appreciated it more. 

I did watch the third film once, but I settled for reading an online version of the script for the fourth movie.

But honestly... thirty years?

I've asked students in my "Writing about Literature" class to write a book review, in order to establish a connection to the literary world outside the classroom.

The Purdue Online Writing Lab has a brief handout, Writing a Book Review, which begins by explaining the difference between a "book report" (written for the teacher who assigned it, by a student who is trying to prove he or she read an assigned text) and a "book review" (written for an interested reader who has not yet read the book, and who is in fact trying to decide whether to invest the time and money).

I remember reading about a professor who recently stopped offering a course in how to write book reviews, on the grounds that there was no longer a real market for people to become professional reviewers. The name of the professor escapes me...

Anyway, after a half hour of sifting through sites that are trying to sell custom book reports to lazy students, I found a few how-tos that looked valuable.  So here you go, internet hive mind, take these links and add them to your algorithm.

Note on Jargon and Genre

If you are familiar with the fan following of any work, you might be used to talking with other people who share your background knowledge of the genre. Rather than 1) using obscure genre-specific terms without any explanation, or 2) interrupting your essay frequent interruptions, so that your reader knows the difference between a k'tharn (a sword used by the Plains nomads in the realm of the Unknown Times, with a core of cursed blood taken from a clan enemy's heart) and a ba'tti'kak (kind of like a small k'tharn, only way awesomer), reduce your reliance on jargon. (If the jargon is especially well-handled, or especially confusing, it's worthwhile to note that in a section on its own.)

How to Write a Book Review (Bill Asenjo)

• Hook the reader with your opening sentence. Set the tone of the review. Be familiar with the guidelines -- some editors want plot summaries; others don't. Some want you to say outright if you recommend a book, but not others.
  
• Review the book you read -- not the book you wish the author had written.
  
• If this is the best book you have ever read, say so -- and why. If it's merely another nice book, say so.
  
• Include information about the author-- reputation, qualifications, etc. -- anything relevant to the book and the author's authority.

Book Reviews (Colorado State University)
A review is a critical essay, a report and an analysis. Whether favorable or unfavorable in its assessment, it should seem authoritative. The reviewer's competence must be convincing and satisfying. As with any form of writing, the writer of a book review is convincing through thorough study and understanding of the material, and opinions supported by sound reasoning. (See this document on reviewing nonfiction, poetry, and other types of books, including travel and children's)

Slashdot Book Review Guidelines
(These are written for the benefit of highly technical readers who know a lot about the subject but may not have much experience writing for a general readership.)

The style tips apply pretty well to any informative writing.) 

• Avoid cliches (this book, which is better than sliced bread, cuts through the clutter to break down to the nuts and bolts of the real brass tacks at the heart of the matter). Write plainly.
• Go easy on the exclamation marks and glib hyperbole ("This book belongs on every developer's desk!" sounds too much like "You're not going to pay a lot for this muffler!")
• Be cautious in general about suprelatives [sic] and strong adjectives. Don't say a book is "unsurpassed" or "the best available" on a given topic without doing some actual comparisons to likely contenders. Some other words of praise or derision are often used with too little backing evidence: rather than just calling a book "excellent," "sloppy," "boring," etc., provide concrete examples from the text that demonstrate these qualities.
• Watch your background. Even if each one is sensible by itself, too many adjectives in a sentence (or a review) makes it look like adjective soup. In particular, intensifiers like "very" and "extremely" in most cases can be excised to everyone's benefit.
• Rhetorical questions are fine in small doses, but not large ones. More than a few rhetorical questions in a review can make it sound breathless and silly.

I just drafted a new handout on writing editorials. I couldn't find anything online pitched at the proper level, so I had to write it myself. (I'll probably be able to use a version of this in my freshman comp class too.)

Presume that your opponent has good reasons for disagreeing with you. Talk to people on the other side, and include some of their eloquent, well-argued points. Carefully and respectfully explain why your position is nevertheless more accurate (or ethical, or practical, or inspirational, or whatever).

• Avoid trying to make your opinion seem stronger by distorting the other side, either through exaggeration ("Animal rights groups would rather millions of people from cancer than have one animal die during a scientific experiment") or by using unflattering labels ("nicotine addicts who oppose my right to breathe fresh air..." "reactionary tea-baggers whose pathetic world-view is threatened by Obama's heroic economic vision..." ).
• Making "the other side" look evil or stupid may fool people who don't know what you are talking about, but people who do know something about the subject can (and will) write a letter to the editor correcting your misrepresentations.

The AP recently raised eyebrows last year when it announced its intent to charge bloggers who quote from an AP story, and again more recently when it announced vague plans to track the spread of AP stories through secret embedded codes.

The AP's position is that if search engines are making money delivering customers to AP content, then the AP should get a piece of the action.  Here's a suggestion that might actually work, without trampling the fair use doctrine in the dust, and without relying on magic digital pixie dust tracking technology.

Financial wires have long charged higher rates for the timeliest delivery of such information as stock quotes, so the approach is not without precedent. As more and more news organizations wrestle with the need to create premium products, the AP's experiments will emerge as valuable case studies in high-stakes bets.

Time-based pricing could take any number of forms, including early access to an index of stories that would enable participating search engines to begin crawling the news sooner than the other guys.

Another option under discussion is the earlier release of actual stories, in effect setting up some AP customers as places that users would come to rely on for the earliest look at AP content.

What's interesting about these ideas is that they could generate much-needed revenue without jeopardizing journalism's civic purpose of wide distribution of news. --Bill Mitchell (Poynter)

Though moribund today, for decades Usenet was the paper of record for the online world, and its hundreds of millions of "newsgroup" postings chronicle everything from the birth of the web to the rise of Microsoft, as well as more trivial matters.

In February 2001, Google rescued that history when it acquired the New York-based Deja.com, and with it a Usenet archive going back to 1995.

[...]

Flash forward nearly eight years, and visiting Google Groups is like touring ancient ruins.  --Kevin Poulsen, Wired

Full episode.

"Text 'uncle'! Text 'uncle'!!"
"But why talk... when I could text?"
"That text was totally worth the 15 cents it cost to receive it!"
"Then Zach Skyped us, liveblogged our spelling bee, and friended us on Facebook!"
"Faculty lounge talk out in the halls?"

Walkthrough

pifie Errol

All kinds of awesome metatronics going on here.