“In a four-paragraph release sent to area news organizations Tuesday, the sheriff department reported the investigation of several complaints of possible telemarketing fraud in the area, especially targeted at the elderly…. Detective Dan Nichols, who wrote the release, said Tuesday he did collect some of the information from The Onion, not knowing it was a…
“in the beginning, there was nothing. well, actually, there was pinball, some shooting gallery games, a few nickel peep-show machines and those mechanical genies that would guess your weight and give a glimpse of your future.” william hunter —the history of computer games: from ‘pong’ to ‘pac-man’ (designboom) Hey designboom webmaster… your “Shift” key is broken!
“The purpose of NASA’s Visible Earth is to provide a consistently updated, central point of access to the superset of NASA’s Earth science-related images, animations, and data visualizations. These images are considered to be public domain and, as such, are freely available to the interested public-at-large, the media, scientists, and educators for re-use and/or re-publication.”…
“Ebonics may be an inferior dialect of English (contributors vilify that notion), but communicating that to students won’t encourage them to practice [Standard English]. The cultural roots run too deep, and for every student who masters SE there are are a dozen who tune out, react in anger, and disappear.” Review of The Skin That…
“We despised the Dockers-wearing advertising-executive manqués who somehow scammed enough money to start up Web sites that gave license to appalling ideas, chief among them convergence….It seems that online content has fossilized. Online ventures doing exactly the wrong thing or the right thing the wrong way are no longer the norm…” —Has Online Content Jumped…
“Playing IF is the first thing I remember doing on a computer actually, on my Commodore 64 (with cassette drive!). I suspect that I called it something other than ‘interactive fiction’ at the time, but I’m not sure what that was.” Steve Himmer —I was trying to familiarize myself with the current state of Interactive…
“The last natural blondes will die out within 200 years, scientists believe. A study by experts in Germany suggests people with blonde hair are an endangered species and will become extinct by 2202.” —Blondes ‘to die out in 200 years’ (BBC) Two comments. First, this reminds me of the game theory scene in A Beautiful Mind,…
“He appeared to be able to manipulate atoms with amazing grace. He seemed to be able to force electricity to do seemingly impossible tricks, and claimed he’d found ways to make working molecule-sized electronic components.” Jan Hendrik Schön was also, apparently, a plagiarist. —The Undoing of a Star Scientist (AP/Wired) From this site: more about plagiarism
Google scans thousands of online news sites and automatically assembles what it thinks are the most newsworthy items. —Google News (Google)
“A neighbour – an eminent retired politician, philanthropist and keen ornithologist – has just acquired an owl whistle, beautifully crafted from wood. When blown, it makes a most realistic toowooo…. The next day, another neighbour – a retired military man and also an ornithologist – showed me his latest toy, coincidentally also an owl whistle….…
“For the first time ever, information and pictures of all ACME products, specialty divisions, and services (from 1935 to 1964) are gathered here, in one convenient catalog. For more information about any ACME product, simply click on the thumbnail picture.” G.P. Markham —The Illustrated Catalog of ACME ProductsLooney Lyrics)
“British composer Mike Batt found himself the subject of a plagiarism action for including the song, ‘A One Minute Silence,’ on an album for his classical rock band The Planets. He was accused of copying it from a work by the late American composer John Cage, whose 1952 composition ‘4’33″‘ was totally silent.” —Composer Pays…
Pacemakers: “Batteries must be replaced, at further risk and expense, every 5-10 years, and patients must avoid strong magnetic fields, such as metal detectors and some medical scanners. The new approach instead adds a gene that changes the flow of chemicals in and out of heart cells.” —Gene Therapy Could Replace PacemakersNature)
“Are any biotech companies or researchers putting animal DNA into human embryos? Nobody knows. But, unbelievable as it may sound, some bioethicists and philosophers explicitly endorse engineering animal DNA into human embryos as one method of producing the ‘post-human’ race.” Wesley J. Smith —The Transhumanists: The Next Great Threat to Human DignityNational Review)
“The chromosome unique to men is a microscopic metaphor for those who bear it. For it is the most decayed, redundant and parasitic of the lot… From sperm count to social status, and from fertilisation to death, as civilisation advances those who bear Y chromosomes are in relative decline.” Steve Jones —End of Sperm ReportGuardian)
“This paper proceeds first by reviewing literature on bullshitting. I then provide the definition of bullshitting that guides the subsequent analysis, and include a description of its key features. A brief discussion of the ubiquity of bullshitting also is provided. Drawing on related research, illustrations from everyday life, and social theory, I next explore the…
“Japanese never touch. It’s not even customary among themselves when they meet to shake hands. So how to explain why this woman would so casually reach over and adjust my collar? In public! And yet, not exactly…. My moment of contact, I concluded, could have only happened in an elevator, and then perhaps only in…
“Florida found itself in another voting debacle during last week’s primary election: Tens of millions of dollars spent to abolish hanging chads and they still can’t get it right.” Lauren Weinstein —A Vote for Touch and Go Away [Florida Ballots]Wired)
No charges will be filed against Buzz Aldrin for allegedly punching a man who called him a liar for claiming that he’d been on the moon. —Update: Moon Hoax Conspiracy Theorist Punched by Buzz Aldrin (Space.com)
“Mel Gibson is set to direct a movie about Christ’s last 12 hours played out entirely in two ancient tongues – Latin and Aramaic – with no subtitles. The formula hardly sounds like the recipe for a hit movie but Gibson thinks language should be no barrier for the film, titled Passion.” —Mel Gibson to…