The case, California’s first on the issue, concerns a University of California student who ranted on her MySpace account about how much she hated her hometown of Coalinga in the Central Valley. The Coalinga Record, the local newspaper, published Cynthia Moreno’s “Ode.” She sued the paper for invasion of privacy after members of the local…
The Interview was not a happy invention. It is perhaps the poorest of all ways of getting at what is in a man. In the first place, the interviewer is the reverse of an inspiration, because you are afraid of him. —Mark Twain (in an essay recently published for the first time) Similar:Why No One…
Sadly, when I use MT5 from my iPad, the Rich Text formatting window is still inactive, and I am puzzled and annoyed by an advertisement for something called Zemanta. I hope that window stays closed when I close it. And I still can’t scroll to see the full list of categories. I remember reading somewhere…
Tin House Implements New Policy for Fall Reading Period. Unsolicited Submissions must be Accompanied by a Receipt for a Hardcover or Paperback from a Real-Life Bookstore PORTLAND, OREGON (JUNE 30, 2010) In the spirit of discovering new talent as well as supporting established authors and the bookstores who support them, Tin House Books will accept…
I haven’t visited Aint It Cool News in a long time. I give Harry Knowles kudos for being who he is and not hiding behind any kind of mask, and I also recognize he’s not writing for the minivan-and-mortgage demographic. Still… I wasn’t prepared for this. (Spoilers!) I fall out of love with ANDY because…
“I think he thinks you’re drowning,” the husband said to his wife. They had been splashing each other and she had screamed but now they were just standing, neck-deep on the sand bar. “We’re fine, what is he doing?” she asked, a little annoyed. “We’re fine!” the husband yelled, waving him off, but his captain…
I don’t get to say much, but I’m honored to find myself associated with such company. The following dialogue was fabricated in order to illustrate the viewpoints of Vannevar Bush, K. Eric Drexler, and Dennis Jerz, and how they relate to the website created by TJ Chapp for Engineering Professional Development: Engineering applications to web…
Recently, while getting the kids ready for bed, my wife picked up the mouthwash, twisted off the lid, and handed the bottle to our daughter. Carolyn, 8, stared in shock. “You didn’t do the dance!” Carolyn has dexterous little fingers that love to pry things apart. When we added mouthwash to the bedtime routine a…
Results: Books Faster Than Tablets The iPad measured at 6.2% lower reading speed than the printed book, whereas the Kindle10.7% slower than print. However, the difference between the two devices was not statistically significant because of the data’s fairly high variability. Thus, the only fair conclusion is that we can’t say for sure which device…
Nearly one in five (19%) who have an account no longer visit Facebook or are using it less. Of the group that are saying goodbye to Facebook (), 45% have lost interest, 16% are leaving because their parents are there, 14% say there are “too many adults/older people” and 13% are concerned about the privacy…
Students almost universally hate close reading, and they rarely wind up understanding it anyway. Forced to pick out meaning in passages they don’t fully grasp to begin with, they begin to get the idea that English class is about simply making things up (Ah yes–the tree mentioned once on page 89 and then never again…
A great collection of bite-sized interpretations. On “Richard Cory”On “Miniver Cheevey” On “They shut me up in Prose”On “Because I could not stop for Death” Similar:Brilliant, Troubled Dorothy Parker by Robert GottliebIn 1915, Parker, aged twenty-two, went t…CultureThe cultural implications of the myth that English majors end up working permanently at St…Would you like facts with…
Wonder Woman to finally start wearing pants “It’s a look designed to be taken seriously as a warrior, in partial answer to the many female fans over the years who’ve asked, ‘how does she fight in that thing without all her parts falling out?’” said incoming series writer J. Michael Straczynski. “It reflects her origins…
I keep forgetting that I can’t use my iPad to blog with MovableType. The WYSIWYG editor does not work, and I can’t even seem to paste a URL when using the text editor. At any rate, this is a Flash video from USA Today. Similar:U.S. Public Wary of Biomedical Technologies to ‘Enhance’ Human AbilitiesAmericans are…
Similar:Just remember: what you’re seeing and what you're reading is not what’s happening.Words apparently spoken by the President…Current_EventsHow to Create a Welcoming Culture for Autistic StudentsAn autistic undergraduate has tips for p…AcademiaI'm just getting around to watching this speech from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Impressive!I really never paid much attention to Sc…AestheticsHow to Annoy Your Parents…
My son has finally found a math textbook he enjoys. A few years ago, he was happy to play Timez Attack, which was really the first 3D game he had played. Now my daughter is ready to learn her times tables, but we’ve been playing Fate and Lego Indiana Jones, Lego Star Wars and Dungeons…
The command line will live on as long as authors and readers keep enjoying fiction made with it. But many have pointed out there is a huge market of readers (print and digital) and casual gamers who ought to love all this free IF, but sadly, they aren’t exactly flocking to it. One reason must…
I’ve been blogging about the climate change issue for some time now. Here’s the latest, which responds to the exposure of private e-mails in which a climatologist is accused of acknowledging deliberately tweaking the data in order to make a stronger environmental case. [N]ot only did British investigators clear the East Anglia scientist at the center…
Graham of Daventry posted to my blog, with news that the fan-produced Kings Quest, non-commercial sequel has risen from the dead. http://tinyurl.com/2em59… The first release date is scheduled for mid-July. Similar:Bing’s A.I. Chat Reveals Its Feelings: ‘I Want to Be Alive. 😈’In a two-hour conversation with our colu…Current_EventsBusy NYC Restaurant Solves Major Mystery by Reviewing…
“[T]here’s leaning left, and then there’s behaving like an idiot.” —Jeffrey Goldberg (The Atlantic) quotes an unnamed Washington Post source on the resignation of Dave Weigel, who until today covered the political right on a blog for the Washington Post. Weigel came under fire for blowing off steam in an online forum, where he invited…