The industry’s great hope was that the iPad would bring electronic books to the masses–and help make them profitable. E-books are booming. Although they account for only an estimated three to five per cent of the market, their sales increased a hundred and seventy-seven per cent in 2009, and it was projected that they would…
For my money, memes on the Internet don’t get any better than the Hitler one. You know, the one in which you take some current event (the more mundane, the better) and shove it into the scene from the German film Downfall in which Hitler is told in his bunker that he cannot win the…
Compare Graduation Days with this Victorian comparative geography image. I’m not sure the diploma motif of “Graduation Days” works, since there’s nothing on a a diploma that has vertical lines like that. The density of information takes a while to absorb, but other than the pie chart seal, there’s nothing particularly interesting to look at…
Responding to reader input, we are changing Web site to website. — Associated Press Stylebook Similar:No one’s ready for this: Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to… Everyone who is reading this article…CybercultureOverheard at Quora: "Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?"Moodle is a free course-management tool …AcademiaIn discord…
Roger Ebert recently tweeted this video, calling it a “Brief, well-made video mounting an optimistic defense of videogames.” Similar:CNN Profiles Former White House "Chief Calligrapher"Today was the last day of the manuscript…AestheticsThe Case for Slow Journalism: When to Unplug from the Endless News CycleOften when I see people in my social med…CybercultureLighten Up (an…
Roger Ebert expounds upon — but does not reconsider — his rejection of the aesthetic possibilities of the video game. Ebert is prompted to return to the topic because of a talk by Kellee Santiago, who used cave paintings and stills from early black and white movies to argue that just as painting and movies…
“I shouldn’t be saying this, but I think I’ll love you always, baby, always,” Adam cried into the email. –Shexmus Amed The winner from Adam Cadre’s “Lyttle Lytton” contest (an awful-first-line contest, named after the author who famously penned “It was a dark and stormy night”) My favorite was actually: There was only one man…
Even for those who love books enough to persevere with reading without e-ink will soon face another problem with the awesomeness of the iPad. The device does so many different things so well that there’s a constant urge when you’re using one to do something else. Two or three pages into a book, you’re already…
I just posted a new handout, introducing students in my “History and Future of the Book” course to Vannevar Bush and his memex. I’ll probably tweak that handout a bit more, but it’s quitting time today. In 1946, Vannevar Bush published “As We May Think” (I assigned it in EL236, but I’m not assigning the…
“As We May Think” has been constantly cited ever since, a development that has been analyzed by Smith (1981), who noted that the article has been used as a symbol for a number of different concepts. However, references to it often have little substance. The paper has become a fashionable icon of modern information science,…
Similar:Checking sources back in 2006 involved using this *steampunk* contraption.Research Before Google Books AcademiaSpace:1999 design aesthetic merged detailed miniatures with curvy Euro-futurist interior d…Clearly influenced by Kubrick’s 1969 fil…AestheticsObamacare's broken website cost more than LinkedIn, Spotify combinedMuch of the criticism of Healthcare.gov …CultureHow Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”I remember…
The world’s first copyright law was passed by the English Parliament on 10 April 1710 as ‘An Act for the Encouragement of Learning’. The Queen Anne Statute, as it is known, marked the beginning of modern copyright law. Professor Gillian Davies, author of ‘Copyright and the Public Interest’, describes it as ‘the foundation upon which…
PIXELS by Patrick Jean from ONE MORE PRODUCTION on Vimeo. Similar:‘Chronicles of Prydain’ Movie: Disney Acquires Rights to DevelopWe went through a Lloyd Alexander phase …BooksI sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface, but…I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin inter…CybercultureThe Myth of the MegalithI have found that archaeologists are sel…CultureJaz Parkinson "Colour Signatures"Amusing visual representations of…
Responding to Apple’s most recent legal agreement governing the way apps are developed for the iPhone. Some popular apps have been written in Adobe Flash and converted to work on the iPhone; this is cumbersome, but at least it lets designers use the Flash skills they already have. I have no love of no love…
I was a sophomore in college when Star Trek: The Next Generation aired. Most of the guys in my suite watched the premiere episode, and then sampled a few after that. Then, the guy who owned the TV wanted to watch basketball instead, and after a few attempts to find a place to watch Trek,…
Today the most consistently pleasurable pursuit in my life is playing video games. Unfortunately, the least useful and financially solvent pursuit in my life is also playing video games. For instance, I woke up this morning at 8am fully intending to write this article. Instead, I played Left 4 Dead until 5pm. The rest of…
The graders working for EduMetry, based in a Virginia suburb of Washington, are concentrated in India, Singapore, and Malaysia, along with some in the United States and elsewhere. They do their work online and communicate with professors via e-mail. The company advertises that its graders hold advanced degrees and can quickly turn around assignments with…
Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age (1995) features a fantastic interactive book that educates a neglected guttersnipe, turning her into a capable, intelligent independent heroine. The iPad doesn’t quite match the vision of that book, but this video is still amazing. Similar:Churning Out More Non-profit Arts PromosAs part of my volunteer work for a local…AestheticsWinnie the Pooh…
At a faculty senate meeting, the provost announced that all faculty on an annual contract will receive iPads before summer break. She asked us all to come up with a meaningful way to incorporate iPads in at least one course in the fall and one course in the spring. The iPads are not just for…
“Those big, heavy textbooks that kids go around with in their backpacks are going to be a thing of the past,” said Mary Ann Gawelek, vice president of academic affairs at Seton Hill, which is giving iPads to its 2,100 students and 300 faculty members beginning this fall. —Wired But we don’t have 300 faculty…