“A deal struck between Sims publisher Electronic Arts and the fastfood mega-corporation allows Sims players to open up their own McDonald’s kiosk and improve their game stats by consuming McD’s greasy goodies. While news of this groundbreaking sponsorship deal fades quickly from memory, failure to address this latest barrage in the war on ad-free gaming…
“If you’ve recently created your first website and you’re getting ready to submit it for a class assignment, then this page is for you. Follow this checklist before you submit your project, and you’ll avoid many of the simple technical issues that might prevent your instructor from accessing or fully appreciating your content.” —Newbie Web…
“A Tablet PC is about the size of a legal pad and includes a digital pen for handwritten data entry and navigation. Its advocates say it will be just the thing for the most mobile workers, including those who work standing up and those who just don’t like to type. But naysayers point out that…
“Ever since Martel won Britain’s prestigious Man Booker Prize last month for ‘The Life of Pi,’ charges of plagiarism and intellectual theft have swirled around him. But as damning as the accusations may sound, the controversy reflects more poorly on those who have propagated it than on Martel. The brouhaha provides less insight into the…
“The overriding principles were of simplicity and speed, oft-expressed in the maxim ”the story is the star.’ Anything that would distract from that, either in terms of the attention a member of editorial staff would be able to give it, or the attention a user would give it, was pretty ruthlessly discarded. The other thing…
“What books should every young woman read? We put this question to a distinguished group of writers and intellectuals. We asked them to name four books they consider essential for the educated woman. If you’re curious, Jane Austen won the pageant with the most mentions. Tied for second place: two dead white males, Aristotle and…
“Harry Potter is no braver than his best friend, Ron Weasley, just richer and better-connected. Harry’s other good friend, Hermione Granger, is smarter and a better student. The one thing Harry excels at is the sport of Quidditch, and his pampered-jock status allows him to slide in his studies, as long as he brings the…
“We thought it would be a great idea to hook up two instances of the A.L.I.C.E chat bot to each other, despite pleb’s pleas that it would have a catastrophic effect on the universe. The results are amusing, you can see them below.” Alice1: You can download me for free!Alice2: No I don’t think I…
“[A] tenured professor of history sent a young Air Force Academy cadet some e-mail containing inflammatory, anti-military comments. Professor Peter N. Kirstein, an avowed pacifist, quickly apologized to the cadet and to the Air Force Academy for his e-mail message, but in the meantime thousands of other interested parties have taken offense.” —“Furious” Peter N.…
“To appear on the construction site drinking a beverage that is both calorie- and caffeine-free would be an emasculating blow to my carefully cultivated image as a burly, rough-and-tumble working-class type,” Burdon said. “The sight of me consuming such a soft drink would diminish the respect I enjoy from my professional peer group by casting…
“So far, however, I have not seen a book that explains how to build crummy, dysfunctional Web sites that chase away customers and produce no useful results. Of course, there is no shortage of sites of this kind out there, but until now there has never been a systematic, comprehensive guide to how to create…
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. “In English,” he said, “A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.” A voice from the back of the room…
“navigate Avoid the verb navigate to refer to moving from site to site, page to page within a site, or link to link on the Internet (or on the desktop or in other applications, as well). Instead, use explore to mean looking for sites or pages generally, move to or move through to refer to…
“Walt Disney first sketched his character in 1928 but an Austrian art historian spotted an uncannily similar drawing. The painting, which has been dated back to the early 14th Century, is in the Community Church in Malta, Carinthia. Next to a large sketch of St. Christopher is a clear drawing of the mouse.” —700-year-old picture…
“This psychological battle between intellect and intuition was played out in almost every episode of Star Trek in the characters of the ultrarational Mr. Spock and the hyperemotional Dr. McCoy, with Captain Kirk as the near perfect synthesis of both. Thus, I call this balance the Captain Kirk Principle: intellect is driven by intuition, intuition…
An in-depth analysis of the research of Elisabeth Targ. “None of the patients knew which group they had been randomly assigned to, and thus whether they were being prayed for. During the six-month study, four of the patients died – a typical mortality rate. When the data was unblinded, the researchers learned that the four…
“It was there we all huddled in the concrete-block laundromat while the storm passed overhead, with lightning so continuous, the ground was lit up like high noon. What we didn’t know then was that there was a tornado passing directly above us, one that had touched down just a few miles away, then lifted up…
Religion and science: “As recently as the ’70s, intellectuals assumed that hard science was on track to resolve the two Really Big Questions: why life exists and how the universe began. What’s more, both Really Big Answers were assumed to involve strictly deterministic forces. But things haven’t worked out that way. Instead, the more scientists…
“When workers willfully become less productive, the economy of the household suffers,” Browning said. “But in a society where a range of ability naturally exists, someone is bound to object to picking up the slack for others and end up getting all pissy, like Josh does.” —Marxists’ Apartment a Microcosm of Why Marxism Doesn’t WorkThe…
Bob Bailey traces the spread of the popular “7 plus or minus 2” meme: “I have had people tell that [Miller’s] ‘Magic 7’ paper is the reason why the local telephone number has seven numbers. This is not true. I have had others tell me that the ‘Magic 7’ paper is the reason they: place…