In theory, technology lets people make and distribute perfect copies of digital artifacts. In practice, we compress our media, which introduces imperfections. YouTuber canzona recorded a short video, uploaded it to YouTube, then downloaded it and uploaded it again. Here’s what happened on the way to 1000 iterations. (Apparently, he turns into a Tholian.) …
From Thrilling Tales (where the future is retro). Ambushed in the Unknowable Vacuum Tube Preserved in the Ultimate Star The Women of Pohl’s Meteors The Satellite from the Equation Hovering Artifact The Poisonous Cat of Space The Comet of Gernsback’s Pool Captives of the Eldritch Behemoth Creature that Blasted Phobos Men of the Unlikely Doctor…
The Crackberry-addict-in-chief warns graduates about a bunch of different, non-Crackberry gadgets, that are bad, apparently because they aren’t Crackberries. “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than…
Facebook’s increasing breeches of user trust have even spawned a new term, “zuckering,” as in “That user-interface totally zuckered me into sharing 50 wedding photos,” inspired by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who once used private Facebook data to access email and other accounts of classmates while at Harvard. —NBC Bay Area Similar:Confronting the Myth of…
War is peace, ignorance is knowledge, and Apple is open. Oh, the fun one can have with search-and-replace. Here’s the doubleplusfun Hoopty Rides found: Before: Adobe’s Flash products are 100% proprietary. They are only available from Adobe, and Adobe has sole authority as to their future enhancement, pricing, etc. While Adobe’s Flash products are widely…
“I shouldn’t be saying this, but I think I’ll love you always, baby, always,” Adam cried into the email. –Shexmus Amed The winner from Adam Cadre’s “Lyttle Lytton” contest (an awful-first-line contest, named after the author who famously penned “It was a dark and stormy night”) My favorite was actually: There was only one man…
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Jason Kottke uses standard Latin typesetting dummy text to express his opinion of the technology media’s coverage of the iPad. Hilarious! Lorem iPad dolor sit amet, consectetur Apple adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua Shenzhen. Ut enim ad minim veniam, quis nostrud no multi-tasking ullamco laboris nisi ut aliquip…
What would our lives be like, in the post-newsprint world, without important cultural expressions like this? Similar:''Uh…''And yes, Liz’s face registers the shift …AestheticsUnnatural Selection (ST:TNG Rewatch Season 2, Episode 7)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…MediaStudents Learning about First Amendment FreedomsIn an opening lecture for my journalism …CultureHow CNN Found the Reddit User Behind the…
I was told I needed “followers.” These were people who would sign on to receive my messages, or “tweets,” whatever those might turn out to be. I hummed a few bars from “Mockingbird Hill”–Tra-la-la, twittly-deedee–and sacrificed some of my hair at the crossroads, invoking Hermes the Communicator. He duly appeared in the form of media…
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In addition to providing better supervision and overall direction, school-homing has become popular among mothers and fathers who just want to be less involved in the day-to-day lives of their children. “Parents are finding creative ways to make this increasingly common child-rearing track work,” Miller said. “Whether it’s over-relying on after-school programs and extracurricular activities,…
Today’s schadenfreude comes from WSVN. Several people had the chance to catch this error. It’s not any one employee’s fault, but the school’s reputation won’t exactly be helped. Further, the school missed the opportunity to make the experience into a teachable moment, and instead apparently chose to make no comment. (It’s never too late, FCC…
The viral clip has been viewed almost 54 million times and gave rise to the catchphrase, “Is this real life?” It was the second most-watched video of 2009, according to YouTube, trailing only Susan Boyle‘s appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” It’s also been an unexpected bonanza for the boy’s Orlando, Florida-area family, who, despite some criticism that they exploited their…
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If that doesn’t make you want to read more, there is probably something wrong with you. Dr. Michael Sykes, a San Diego molecular biologist who runs the International Center for Bathroom Etiquette blog says he’s surprised at how long it’s taken for high-tech toilets to hit the U.S. —MSNBC Via Karyssa Blair, who also notes…
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Dumbfounded citizens from Maine to California gazed helplessly at the frightening chunk of print, unsure of what to do next. Without an illustration, chart, or embedded YouTube video to ease them in, millions were frozen in place, terrified by the sight of one long, unbroken string of English words. “Why won’t it just tell me…
Legendary headlines from years past (some of which verge on the mythical) include “Giant Waves Down Queen Mary’s Funnel,” “MacArthur Flies Back to Front” and “Eighth Army Push Bottles Up Germans.” The Columbia Journalism Review even published two anthologies of ambiguous headlinese in the 1980s, with the classic titles “Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim” and…
Professor, please assign us another paper, so we can use Turnitin.com again! If we could, we would stay here in front of this building, submitting papers to Turnitin.com all day long, stopping only to care for our amazing teeth! Look at our eager faces — can you not tell that this software makes us want…