AltaVista
may be crappy, but its CEO claims to have patented the search engine. Kieren McCarthy.AltaVista
Sharing news articles via email: compulsive metacontent
One example of metacontent: “People often pass around news articles via e-mail. Some even do it compulsively, in part because it’s so easy…” NY Times (registration required)
Once again, The Onion gets it right: Clinton Not Expecting To Collect White House Security Deposit
Once again, The Onion gets it right. Clinton Not Expecting To Collect White House Security Deposit Surveying the White House’s walls and bathroom fixtures in preparation for move-out, President Clinton said Monday that he expects to forfeit his security deposit. “It’s just not worth it,” Clinton said. “I’d rather lose the $575 than have to…
Who Killed George Washington?
“Once we accept something as ‘good,’ we often persist in doing it even when the result is clearly bad, while telling ourselves that we just haven’t done enough of it. We are subject to a defect of reason…” Dave Kopel —Who Killed George Washington? (National Review)
DirectTV’s war against hackers
Fascinating account of DirectTV’s war against hackers. Slashdot.
Allen L. Sack
, a Notre Dame football player in the ’60s, argues that “The gap between college sports and the fundamental mission of higher education has widened significantly since that time.” Allen L. Sack
Healing the Web
The lessons I learned in just over an hour showed me how poor most Websites are and just how easy it would be for companies to perform their own usability tests to fix a lot of the problems.–David Lidsky, Healing the Web Update: Dec 2014. I originally blogged the above back in 2001. Lidsky’s brief article, written as the…
Writing Effective E-Mail
Top 10 Tips: Write a meaningful subject line; keep the message short and readable; avoid attachments; identify yourself; don’t flame (and more). Jessica Bauer. —Writing Effective E-Mail
Rethinking Internet news
“A new era of newspaper experiments on the Internet, fueled in part by the fear that the Web will not generate profits, has begun.” (NY Times… free registration required.) —Rethinking Internet news
Monsters and dungeons and gender, oh my
“Fighting monsters and escaping from dungeons is a whole different world when you’re a woman. Men are oh-so-helpful when they’re not busy whistling at you.” Andy Patrizio cross-dresses as a half-naked elf babe. Wired.com
Filter THIS!
The American Library Association is none too pleased with a new federal law requiring Web filters in public schools and libraries, and has decided to sue. ZDNet —Filter THIS!
The ultimate snack-chip adjective
“As any snack aficionado knows, crunch-tastic is the ultimate snack-chip adjective, outranking crunch-riffic, crunch-rageous, and even crunch-mongous.” The Onion.
Textual detective Don Foster works with the FBI
For textual detective Don Foster, “it’s certainly been interesting going to Shakespeare class, coming back to my office and talking with the FBI or the police department about some document in a criminal case.” Todd Winters.
MLA-Style Bibliography Builder
— updated to handle web sources Choose a form, fill it out, and push the button… you will get an individual MLA “Works Cited” entry, which you may then copy and paste into your word processor. Dennis G. Jerz —MLA-Style Bibliography Builder
David Carkeet exposes Titanic blunders
Every damn fool knows that the phrase “masters of the universe” came from a 1980s TV show. So why did they put that anachronism in the Titanic movie script? After spending all that money on sets and special effects, did they have nothing left to hire a starving English grad student? And when Rose gives…