This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for–thought they owned.–David Pogue, NYT The citizens whose Kindles needed rectification had purchased unauthorized George Orwell books. So 1984 disappeared down the…
It might sound like a logical extension from the likes of Buzz and You Don’t Know Jack, but you’ll have to believe that this [Xbox Live] game is ringing the death knell for game shows as loudly and vigorously as it possibly can. Why watch a game show, when you can participate? Why shout at the TV,…
Walter Cronkite, the CBS News anchor who famously became the most trusted man in America, died Friday at the age of 92.–NPR Similar:The secret police: Cops built a shadowy surveillance machine in Minnesota after George Flo…Many of the same people who reject maski…Current_EventsThe Rhetoric of Anthems and the Drama of KneelingI don’t follow sports, so…
The HD version actually came out better than I thought it would. More photos after the jump… Similar:Trained eagle destroys drone in Dutch police videoThe animal versus machine moment is brou…BusinessSo glad to be attending another live theatrical production. @quantumtheatre never disappoi…Projections, live music, sounds, props, …BusinessTop deck of a #neovictorian #steampunk cruiser needs an…
The LA Times technology blog critiques the new Google Reader interface. For example, let’s say we have a news article that we like. Well, might as well click the “like” button, right? OK, now we’ve told the Internet that we think it’s cool, and we can see a list of strangers who also think it’s…
Talk about penny wise and pound foolish! NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing. Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been…
Amazing! Similar:Maybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in …CybercultureIn January 2001, I was blogging about Bill Clinton's #WhiteHouse security deposit, anachro…In January 2001, I was blogging about …AcademiaItalian journalist to be beatified for helping Jews escape persecutionJournalist who helped saved Jews from Ho…Current_EventsHard Time #StarTrek…
A great interview, on Adventure Classic Gaming. Was something like Adventure inevitable? That’s a tough question, but I think probably so. I’d say that the real wild-card here is not Adventure but rather Adventure‘s inspiration, Dungeons and Dragons. You just can’t exaggerate the importance of D&D to all of the many storygames that have followed it.…
A bit predictable, but still enjoyable. Similar:The Emissary (ST:TNG Rewatch: Season Two, Episode 20) — Enjoyable Worf-centered RomanceRewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CultureVote for your favorite Monopoly token — or else!One of the six current game pieces will …AestheticsWhy Student Athletes Continue to FailWhen student athletes were asked how muc…AcademiaOnly a Dad (Edgar Guest poem,…
Wired has a good piece about the value of local reporting. “In every town in America, almost, you have reporters going out and doing humble jobs and turning over rocks every day and seeing what’s under them,” says John Carroll, the former editor-in-chief of The Los Angeles Times, a man who led his newsroom to…
And you thought the secrets to academic success would involve sensible stuff like “Study for two to three hours for every hour of class” or “Keep up with the readings” and “Meet all the deadlines your prof sets.” But those won’t help you game the system, which is the strategy Don Asher presents as the…
Clearly by “Them” the sign means “dogs,” but the since the sign refers instead to “Your Dog,” so it was already in need of some attention even before this alteration took place. Via Bryan Alexander. Similar:Just remember: what you’re seeing and what you're reading is not what’s happening.Words apparently spoken by the President…Current_EventsCinderella Deadlines: Reconsidering…
The following started out as routine e-mail feedback on a freshman essay, but I thought it came out well enough that I might want to use it again. I don’t want this to get buried in my existing handout on thesis statements, so I figured I’d just post the good bits here. A good academic…
I missed this when it came out a few weeks ago. At Hopkins, Knudson uses Twitter as an extension of the classroom, asking students to raise questions, hold discussions online, keep up with breaking news and share links to interesting stories. She believes the limited number of characters allowed is a useful way to remember…
A website will re-create the 1969 moon mission in real time (allowing for the 40-year time lag). http://wechoosethemoon.org/ Similar:Darwin Was Wrong: Your Facial Expressions Do Not Reveal Your EmotionsIn real life, people express a given emo…CultureNew Theory Suggests Chatbots Can Understand TextFar from being “stochastic parrots,” the…CybercultureHave 40 years of mobile phones given literature bad…
First, there is a general increase in use of Facebook and a general decline in use of MySpace across the board. In 2007, 79% of the study participants were using Facebook while in 2009, 87% of the sample reports doing so. In contrast, while in 2007, 55% of the group reported using MySpace, in 2009,…
She said the manhole she fell in to was left open and unattended with no warning signs or orange cones. She said two workers with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection failed to secure the area as they prepared to flush the sewer. “It was just really gross and it was shocking and…
Post office boxes! Post office boxes! My face hurts from laughing. New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time Similar:11001001 (TNG Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 14) When Will's holo-date's hacked, and the ship …With the Enterprise in drydock for a com…Amusing‘Twelfth Night’ is a Shakespearean hoot, and Prime Stage actors Carolyn…
Older words also making their debut as a result of renewed interest online: sock puppet (a false identity used to manipulate opinions in online forums) and fan fiction. (Via Guardian) Similar:Student Journalists Are Our Future—We Should Start Treating Them Like ItCatherine Palmer was already a seasoned …CultureOne of the benefits of teaching at a small…
The gradual, and almost invisible, transformation of many “liberal arts colleges” to more comprehensive institutions is similar to another gradual trend that has reshaped the composition and the work of the American academic profession. Over the past three decades, colleges and universities have replaced tenure-track faculty positions with part-time and full-time term-contract positions — a…