The Blogosphere: All Grown Up Now

Much of the Blogosphere’s current claim to fame, of course, has to do with its outward criticism of already established individuals and institutions. Blogs have been responsible for keeping Big Media on its toes and correcting common errors, misjudgments and mischaracterizations that have been spread by Big Media regarding various important stories and issues. Blogs…

Woman sues bar

A Greensburg woman who celebrated her 21st birthday at a Hempfield Township bar and later broke seven teeth after falling from a vehicle in a drunken stupor filed a lawsuit Monday against the bar. —Woman sues bar (Tribune-Review) According to her lawyer, “At one point, she asked for water, and they gave her another (alcoholic) drink.…

Better Dialog Box

Better Dialog BoxJerz’s Literacy Weblog) I recently wrote about a survey with a confusing dialog box… while trying to download a Microsoft update, I came across this dialog box, which does a much better job. Similar:The Days of Microsoft Internet Explorer Are Numbered—But Its Sorry Legacy Will Live OnStarting today, Microsoft will no longer…BusinessHow to…

Talking to your car becoming natural

Voice recognition systems have come a long way in the last decade and are used in places like call centres, home PCs and even mobile phones. Dashboards are becoming the hub of the car But over the next 10 years, we could even be holding virtual conversations with the car dashboard. —Richard Taylor —Talking to…

Airline Meals

—Airline Meals (AirlineMeals.net) It’s been so long since I’ve actually been served a meal on an airplane… Golly, I wish there were a website that had a retrospective of airlime meals from the 70s, 80s and 90s, an index of movies in which in-flight meals were featured, and an archve of thousands of photos of airline…

Sprite Remix

The logic of the remix has made its way into consumer culture – we know that. But what we haven’t yet identified is how to integrate that logic into the university (what I wrote about in my ctheory article). It took hundreds of years before the university completely adopted the logic of print as an…

Indiana Man Tries To Break 'Peeps' Record

John Valiska, known as “Johnny Peeps” to his friends, is trying to eat more than 1,500 Peeps candies this Easter season. —Indiana Man Tries To Break ‘Peeps’ Record (WCPO – Indiana) Similar:In Ferguson, Washington Post reporter Wesley Lowery gives account of his arrestComedian Robin Williams and actress Laur…CultureWired and Business Insider remove articles by AI-generated ‘freelancer’Journalists…

Student Journalists Outed Via Weblog

Check out this news item from Userland CEO Scott Young who started getting calls from Chris Allbritton’s NYU students yesterday who were doing a story on blog software companies… —Student Journalists Outed Via Weblog (Weblogg-ed) One more hazard of edublogging to worry about! Similar:Interview: Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer – Boing Boing GadgetsBoing Boing…

Playmobil Security Checkpoint

—Playmobil Security Checkpoint (Playmobil||Metafilter) I’m not sure what I think of this. It’s far better than plastic grenades to strap around your waist. By the way, the site designers make it extremely hard to link to an internal page… I guess they don’t want much inbound traffic. Link goes to MetaFilter’s page on the subject. Similar:14%…

Draining the Language out of Color

Back in the 1960s a model of color vision propounded by the late Russell L. De Valois, a Berkeley psychologist, had been interpreted as establishing that the categories red, yellow, green and blue were hardwired into the brain. That interpretation, however, fell apart after the model failed to predict the mix of frequencies that the…

How Grammatically Sound Are You?

You are a GRAMMAR GOD! —How Grammatically Sound Are You? (Quizilla) The image is supposed to be of God from Monty Python’s “Holy Grail.” Update: Snagged the image from Amanda‘s copy. Similar:My Son Plays Mozart Too Fasthttps://youtu.be/gXAtRI1NLxs He says “M…AmusingHow it feels to watch a user test your product for the first time Jonathon Shariat.AmusingThe Declaration…

Journals [and Blogging]

Most of what is being said regarding blogs in composition has been said before. Looking at the ?Guidelines for Using Journals in School Settings? approved by the NCTE on Commission on Composition on November 28, 1986 drafted by [Toby] Fulwiler, it seems that the basic assumptions of learning through blogging have been stamped as legitimate.…

How to write a blog-buster

Writers have always used the net to distribute novels and poems that could appear in print. But there’s a tradition of experimenting with online forms such as email and chatrooms to tell stories that could only work online. Writers are taking this further by working with blogs. Indeed, with their short daily entries, reader feedback…