Prufrock cannot bring himself to ask his companion the “overwhelming question” (which he never identifies) that carries us through the poem. He is paralyzed by the same overwhelming fear of missing out (yes, “FOMO”) that plagues a generation facing endless options and clear few choices: “In a minute there is time / For decisions…
I particularly value blogging because of the visibility of older content. Facebook and Twitter don’t make it easy for you to contextualize links pointing to something relevant you posted a month or a year or decade ago. It may seem right to ask, after so many years: what is left to discuss about blogging? We…
I read this short story as a kid. Not sure how I came across it, but details from this story are burned pretty deep in my head. Jon’s orientation came from the screens. As he grew older, he became aware of the world beyond—the real world outside the Learning Maze. The world which had once…
Authors of overhyped link text are like scam telemarketers. They use their knowledge of language and human psychology to manipulate you. Similar:Another 10 sq cm section of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #designAestheticsA day after using an apparently altered hurricane map, Trump defends his Alabama claimIt was Mr. Trump who used a black Sharpi…Current_EventsSome…
“Punctuating dialogue properly is important,” says the old man, “But actions speak loudly, too. When I offered you tea, and you unlaced your boots at my hearth, we didn’t need any words stating that there was a comfortable lull in our conversation. The careful placement of details created a little pause. It was a good example of showing rather than telling.”
On a web page that I posted in Nov 2000 (on a confusing presidential election ballot that caused controversy in Palm Beach), I included a link to Lycos, a has-been search engine wanna-be, which at the time must have had a convenient way to track backlinks. I haven’t even thought of Lycos for years. The…
If the pre-1978 laws were still in effect, we could have seen 85% of the works published in 1986 enter the public domain on January 1, 2015. Imagine what that would mean to our archives, our libraries, our schools and our culture. Such works could be digitized, preserved, and made available for education, for research,…
The rule against split infinitives is a bookish restriction serving no real function in English. However, many people have memorized the “no split infinitives” rule and take it very seriously. It’s best never to split infinitives (unless you want to really emphasize the risk you are taking). More: Split Infinitives in English: Not Actually Wrong, But…
Jerz > Writing > Grammar and Syntax > The short version: “based off of” is slang. Use “based on” instead. When I first started noticing the phrase “based off of” in student papers, I thought it was just a careless typo. But I’ve noticed it more and more in online writing and in casual speech. (UPDATE — by 2020, I…
These are straight vertical and horizontal lines. It’s your mind that’s twisted. Researchers at Barrow Neurological Institute made a Lego checkerboard and placed white and purple M&Ms on the squares in a way that makes the board appear to bulge. Illusion Chasers, Scientific American Blog Network. Similar:Boston Bombing Survivor Dances Onstage for First TimeTechnology and…
Fascinating example of new media journalism: a graphic novel investigative report. The content is noteworthy, too: our lives have already changed now that we regularly give away our privacy in return for various benefits (lower prices, connection to friends). The corporations who use our data benefit more than we do, and many of us now…
I have found that archaeologists are seldom receptive to the notion of ancient astronauts—although one could argue that, when the archaeologists went looking for answers, all they managed to find was an even bigger and more mysterious stone block. —The New Yorker. Similar:Today's annoying adventures of adulting: fixing the bathroom ceiling fan.Not fun, but done.…
A favorite observation about millennials, both in the workplace and in their daily lives, is how wired in they are with their preferred technologies. Why can’t they just pick up the phone and talk? Surely, their obsessive use of technology is driving this generation to be more isolated and cynical (and more eye contact–averse) than…
Men in authentic period uniforms of the Lancashire Fusiliers and Seaforth Highlanders re-enacted the moment on Christmas Day 1914 when silence fell and men climbed out of mud-filled trenches on both sides to play football together. Similar:New Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand TextFar from being “stochastic parrots,” the…CybercultureOpt Out of Pre-approved Credit Mailings Requires SSN…
Take the background paragraph. It ill-serves everyone. If you know nothing about an ongoing story, it gives you too little history and explanation — how can you possibly hope to catch up on, say, the war in Syria in five lines of type? If you know a story well, this paragraph merely wastes your time and the…
Do the spellings of cough & rough, pony & bologna bug you, too? English evolves organically, without our permission. Words that look similar but are pronounced differently generally came to the language from different sources and/or at different times, by an organic process that is not controlled by people in smoky board rooms. In our day,…
Mr. Sulu, set phasers to delicious! Which makes no sense, but hey, it’s a gingerbread starship Enterprise. Gingerbread USS Enterprise – Imgur. Similar:Fake Graph: The Actual "Dunning-Kruger Effect" Is NOTHING Like I Thought It WasFor years, I’ve been teaching a fake gra…AcademiaThe Enemy (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 7) — LaForge and a Romulan Cooperate…
A thoughtful, informative article on the importance of Roberta Williams, co-founder of Sierra Online (an adventure game titan from the 1980s). Drawing from both media archaeology and feminist cultural studies, this contribution first outlines the function Roberta Williams serves as a gendered subject of game history. The remainder of the essay is organized as three…
Rawitsch, a lanky, bespectacled 21-year-old with hair well over his ears, was both a perfectionist and an idealist. He started dressing as historical figures in an attempt to win over his students, appearing in the classroom as explorer Meriwether Lewis. By now he’d made it through to the western expansion unit, and he had in…
When we envisioned a journal of visual culture issue on ‘Internet Memes’ over two years ago, we sensed that the best way to be generous to our subject matter was to not presume to know what it would look like. Academic publishing – characterized by its long review periods and labored revision processes – habitually…