Studying the faked predictions was more fun than finding out the actual gadget. I’m very interested in seeing how this shakes up the competition, but I’m not going to be one of the early adopters. Plato’s Phaedrus tells the story of Theuth, inventor of the alphabet. The god Thamos said, “O most ingenious Theuth, the…
As a kid growing up in Fairfax County, just a commute away from Washington D.C., I remember often looking out the window of the family car and seeing a statute of a huge dog cocking its head at a phonograph machine. Washington Post Here we see the sculpture on top of a museum roof in…
Interesting use of pseudo-Arabian exotica that Edison used in order to communicate to the public of 1905 just what his cylinder phonographs could do, likening them to rings to place on the finger of a musical genie. “Wouldst thou have melody? Place thy ring upon my finger and I will sing for thee a tender…
I have not been ravenously following the streamed coverage of the iPad release, but I did note that the NYT was the first site Jobs presented during the demo. I really hope someone from Improv Everywhere runs up the center aisle, whirling a hammer around her head. It’s very significant, of course, that Apple is…
With its six wheels stuck in powdery sand and two wheels no longer working, the resilient little explorer will become a fixed, immobile scientific observatory — if it can survive the harsh temperatures of the upcoming winter. —LA Times Similar:Dog and TP WallAmusingA crushing backlash to Apple’s new iPad adHave you seen Apple’s “Crush” ad?…
While the Bible does present Jesus as being able to read, and there is a story of Jesus drawing something unspecified in the dirt, the first followers of Jesus lived in an oral culture. The Gospel of Luke begins thus, identifying to the difference between oral culture and print culture: Since many have undertaken to…
“Worldwide, there is increasing recognition of a digital divide, a troubling gap between groups that use information and communication technologies widely and those that do not,” the team explains. “The digital divide refers not only to unequal access to computing resources between groups of people but also to inequalities in their ability to use information…
It seems to me that they’re simply asking everybody to use external aggregators as a replacement for the nytimes.com homepage as the best tool for reading the site. Even people using the NYT’s own RSS feeds to find the stories they want to read might well be able to consume an unlimited amount of online…
Over the past two decades, the way we learn has changed dramatically. We have new sources of information and new ways to exchange and to interact with information. But our schools and the way we teach have remained largely the same for years, even centuries. What happens to traditional educational institutions when learning also takes…
Diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma of the rectum, author and cyberthinker Howard Rheingold responds with humor, and a new blog. http://howardsbutt.tumblr.com Similar:NASA finally makes contact with Voyager 2 after longest radio silence in 30 yearsI was thrilled as a middle-schooler to s…Current_EventsWhy Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending OtherwiseA reminder that polls that ask people…
Amazon.com unexpectedly announced the Kindle Development Kit Thursday morning, which will allow developers to develop “active content” for the Kindle platform, to take advantage of the e-reader’s electronic ink display, Whispernet 3G technology, and days-long battery life.–PC Mag Somebody, please create a Z-code interpreter. I want my Kindle to guide me through a maze of…
It might be time to crowdsource this ritual, lest Poe be toasted nevermore. Every year since 1949, the stranger – known locally as the Poe Toaster – has left three roses and a half-bottle of cognac on Poe’s grave in Baltimore on his birthday. The roses are believed to represent the three bodies buried beneath…
A little context… a popular internet meme involves adding creative subtitles to a movie in which Hitler reacts to some very bad news. Here we see the evil dictator responding to some recent developments in academia. Similar:In February 2000, I was blogging about "The Heist" (Sorrels); the "Instant Muse Poetry Gen… In February 2000, I…
On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory. Take, for example, the lead story in The New York Times on Sunday, November 8, 2009, headlined…
I have watched none of the TV coverage of the Haiti earth quakes. That’s not to say I haven’t been following the story — I just prefer to get my news online. So I’m blogged this story which discusses what appears to be a trend in TV coverage. The aftermath of the Haitian earthquake is…
Great collection of essays that capture the wonder of now-ubiquitous technology that was once strange. Oliver Wendell Holmes on photography in 1859, Mark Twain on telephones in 1880, Philip G. Hubert Jr. on the phonograph in 1889, up to James Fallows on the personal computer in 1982. These eight excerpts show the attempts of writers,…
The number of crayons in a Crayola box doubles every 28 years. What colors have been in said box over the years? See the full-size version at weathersealed.com Similar:The woman and the car: a chatty little handbook for all women who motor or want to motor (…Great piece of history, from 1909. Dorot…AmusingHome Soil (TNG Rewatch:…
I’m getting ready to teach a one-credit journalism course on editorial writing, which will also be a test case for a potential “topics in advanced composition” course. This essay looks like a good way to start the class. The good nouns are the thousands of short, simple, infinitely old Anglo-Saxon nouns that express the fundamentals…
Two Seton Hill sources are mentioned in this local story. Millennials appreciate professors who bring technology into the classroom, whether it’s YouTube, PowerPoint or posting grades online after assignments, said Theresa Conley, 27, a junior at Seton Hill University in Greensburg. “That way, you can see where you’re at and what you’re getting, so you’re…
I will miss it, but honestly, I do not see myself likely to start paying for this news source. Were I a media professional living and working in New York, I might have a different opinion. I’ll check out a copy in the library if I hear of something that’s a must-read. The argument for…