I tell my free-verse-loving creative writing majors that Picasso learned to paint traditional portraits before he chose to put two eyes on one side of a figure’s nose. Likewise, learning the traditional rules of grammar will make your writing more powerful, since if you choose to ignore a convention, it will be a deliberate action,…
Rather than link directly to the article, which was published by the Associated Press (an organization that tries to charge bloggers for quoting excerpts of more than a few words), I’ll link to the Slashdot discussion of the article. Similar:Reading-Is-Fundamentalists Slaughter 52 IlliteratesCommitted to the eradication of illitera…CultureI, Borg (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode…
The other day at the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, I attended a brown bag talk given by my Seton Hill colleague, Maureen Vissat, The Art of the 1940s: Styles and Influences. I had seen her present as part of a series of teaching demonstrations, so I knew her talk would be excellent. She wove…
Fascinating stuff… according to CNN, the story is, in order to secure the release of 15 hostages, the Colombian military set up a fake website that borrowed heavily from a real organization’s identity. The organization’s logo — a stylized red bird on a white background in the centermost of three concentric circles, with blue leaves…
From the L Magazine. Some are actually just unfortunate art, but the whole list was worth it for this one:In addition to the usage error, I particularly like how the highlights on the drops of blood seem to be made by a light shining *up* from the lower right. Okay, and this next one is…
A great introduction to some of the reasons why I love studying the English language. From John McIntyre’s You Don’t Say. The malapropism: This venerable category of errors derives from the delicious and eponymous Mrs. Malaprop from Richard Brinsley Sheridan’s The Rivals of 1775. Mrs. Malaprop (from the French mal a propos) pretentiously and unknowingly…
ZDNet: Researchers at software vendor CA have discovered that social networking site Facebook is able to track the buying habits of its users on affiliated third-party sites even when they are logged out of their account or have opted out of its controversial “Beacon” tracking service. Similar:Pope Leo XIV names AI one of the reasons…
On a listserv of which I’m a member, Jerome McDonough points out that Tennis for Two is an analog game, so not only does it not require a computer, the medium itself — an oscilloscope — is an analog, so the information being represented on the screen isn’t digital at all. An even earlier game,…
Every year, the Army recruits, at great expense, tens of thousands of young men and women. Given the costs of recruitment (and the dearth of eligible recruits), the Army cannot afford to lose many of these new soldiers. Army training is designed to take recruits who may know nothing about military life, discipline, or maneuvers,…
Threat Level has a story on the McCain campaign’s tracking of the Obama website. Nothing really new about the practice, and nothing stunning about the revelation that the Obama camp sometimes updates its website (gasp!), but what’s unusual is that instead of independent pundits doing this in their pajamas from their living rooms, this is…
One of my favorite things — a photograph of a mistake on a sign. From Language Log. Similar:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – About the game30th anniversary refit of the cruel, cru…AmusingBBC News – TS Eliot's widow Valerie dies aged 86 She guarded her late husband’s liter…CultureBehold this stack of August Wilson library booksYay,…
Modern recreation of the 1958 video game “Tennis for Two” (Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories) Similar:Practicing with materials and geometry. The lamps and chair require hundreds of times as m… AestheticsSerious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say The brain was not designed for r…BooksThe Article is Dead. Long Live the ArticleTake…
The Boston Globe: We are most human when we feel dull. Lolling around in a state of restlessness is one of life’s greatest luxuries — one not available to creatures that spend all their time pursuing mere survival. To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one.…
You won’t find this sort of thing on the TV news shows. Stanley Fish: Milton’s poetry never lets you relax. Even when one of the famous similes wanders down what appears to be a desultory path of mythical allusions and idealized landscapes, it always returns you in the end to the moral perspective that had…
Employees of the New York Times are expected to follow these guidelines for ethical online activity. B5. Web Pages and Web Logs 126. Web pages and Web logs (the online personal journals known as blogs) present imaginative opportunities for personal expression and exciting new journalism. When created by our staff or published on our Web…
If the following line doesn’t get you reading The Steampunk Home, nothing will: I can think of two steampunk references to octopodes. Thanks for the link, Rosemary. Similar:A Successful Failure: The TI-99/4A Turns 40My family had one of these when I was 12…AwesomeNo, Dr. Seuss is not being "banned" or "censored" — but Dr. Seuss…
From a collection of writings by Kurt Vonnegut. Read the full text of the essay, which is summarized (by Vonnegut) as follows: 1. Find a subject you care about2. Do not ramble, though3. Keep it simple4. Have guts to cut5. Sound like yourself6. Say what you mean7. Pity the readers Similar:Games Without Frontiers: Victory in…
I came across this brief article in Pocket Gamer. I don’t have an iPhone, so I can’t check out this version of the game. The 1977 date for the Don Woods expansion is correct, but (“[s]ources that incorrectly date Crowther’s original to 1972 or 1974… are sourced thinly if at all. The new evidence establishes…
Leigh Alexander makes some good points in this GameSetWatch article. Most lifetime gamers, then, have a built-in bias engine, whether they acknowledge it or not. For some, it’s much more conscious and overt – hence the “Fanboy” network of platform-specific sites, hence forum flamewars, hence almost frighteningly irrational ire over certain reviews. Most reviewers dread…
From the New York Times blog, The Lede: In the four-missile version of the image released Wednesday by Sepah News, the media arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, two major sections (encircled in red) appear to closely replicate other sections (encircled in orange). (Illustration by The New York Times; photo via Agence France-Presse) Latest update at…