With presidential campaigns now poised to spend hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising that will blanket television before November 2008, this seemingly home-produced video — created with software and a laptop, and likely without the benefit of a team of expensive political consultants — opens a new window, Rosenberg said. It has dramatized a…
The researchers then studied 68 men and found that those who played even one racing game took more risks afterward in traffic situations on a computer simulator than those who played another type of game. Then the researchers had 83 men play either a racing game or another type of game, and found that those…
By presenting us with a limitless number of nonstopped stories, the narratives that the media relate – the consumption of which has so dramatically cut into the time the educated public once devoted to reading – offer a lesson in amorality and detachment that is antithetical to the one embodied by the enterprise of the…
Mars’s southern polar ice cap contains enough water to cover the entire planet approximately 36 feet (11 meters) deep if melted, according to a new radar study. —Mars Pole Holds Enough Ice to Flood Planet, Radar Study Shows (National Geographic News) Awesome news. I had no idea there was that much water — but apparently the…
MYTH: Frankenstein, the most famous work of English Romanticism, was written by an uneducated, teenaged girl, who took part in a ghost-story contest in Geneva, had a nightmare, and was inspired to write a story “which would frighten my reader as I myself had been frightened that night!” REALITY: Frankenstein is a work of profound…
— Building a MAME console inside a TARDIS (STAR WARS ASCIIMATION) Awesome. I particularly like the image with the caption “Another famous folding design.” Similar:"What Teachers Make" Sequence of AssignmentsEvery year I rewatch Taylor Mali’s passi…AcademiaI Hate Your BlogI hate your blog. Your recipe for vegan …AmusingFanciful Fun in Theatre Factory’s “The Fantasticks”A great review from…
To Generalize is to be an Idiot. To Particularize is the Alone Distinction of Merit–General Knowledges are those Knowledges that Idiots possess. —William BlakeBlake on Generalization (The Poetical Works of William Blake) Jotted in the margins of his copy of another author’s work. Similar:Carolyn is in PICT Classic Theatre adaptation of Oliver Twist (opened Sat night,…
Why did Lord Vader decide to break all protocols and personally pilot a lightly armored TIE Fighter? Conveniently, this placed Lord Vader outside of the Death Star when it was destroyed, where he was also conveniently able to escape from a large-sized rebel fleet that had just routed the Imperial forces. Why would Lord Vader,…
The fantastically-colored star is our own sun as STEREO sees it in four wavelengths of extreme ultraviolet light. The black disk is the Moon. — Stereo Eclipse (NASA) A movie sequence shows the sun slowly turning from left to right, while the disc of the moon approaches from the left and crosses the face of the…
”slip of the click” (Google Search) Just now, a colleague accidentally hit “reply all” instead of “reply,” and immediately sent out an apology: “Got you all by a slip of the click.” I’d never heard that term before, but I like it. A quick search of Google reveals only 5 references on the internet. Similar:So Long…
A group of Buddhist monks in Malaysia is appealing for help to solve a problem with ants. Buddhism forbids devotees from harming any living creature. So the monks are looking for a creative and non-violent solution to deal with the insects, which are biting worshippers. —Malaysian monks face ant dilemma (BBC) Rosemary, who sent me the…
The music-master of George III said to his royal pupil, “There are three classes of violin players; those who do not play at all, those who play very badly, and those who play well. Your Majesty has already succeeded in reaching the second class.” —Constructive Exercises in English (Boogle Books) Now that’s tact. Similar:Wanted in College…
Then they tried to do a documentary of their own about him — and ran into the same sort of resistance Moore himself famously faces in his own films. The result is “Manufacturing Dissent,” which turns the camera on the confrontational documentarian and examines some of his methods. Among their revelations in the movie, which…
Then how the pussy-cats did mew What else, poor pussies, could they do? They screamed for help, ’twas all in vain, I So then, they said, “We’ll scream again. Make haste, make haste! me-ow! me-o! She’ll burn to death,- we told her so.” So she was burnt with all her clothes, And arms and hands,…
The first person to come to his stand is a man from the Mekong Delta. He’s got a letter with him, addressed to a businessman from Europe. He’s his chauffeur, and he’s been driving him to business meals and meetings for a year. He asks in writing if the man can get him health insurance…
The new policy, which is currently under discussion by the community of users who regularly write and maintain the site, is being considered after it emerged this month that one of Wikipedia’s most respected editors didn’t hold the qualifications he claimed. The user, who went under the pseudonym “essjay,” described himself in an online profile…
I had begun with a flourish, emphasizing the excitement created when a young curator at the British Museum first deciphered the Gilgamesh epic, with its seeming confirmation of the biblical story of the Flood: “When George Smith discovered the Flood story in the Epic of Gilgamesh in the fall of 1872, he made one of…
During the Stalin era, Soviet officials frequently vanished from official photographs after falling out of favor at the Kremlin. But the advent of Photoshop and its variety of tools has made it easier for photographers to tinker with images after they’re captured. By the same token, the internet has allowed skeptical bloggers around the world…
Disneyland is a perfect model of all the entangled orders of simulation. To begin with it is a play of illusions and phantasms: pirates, the frontier, future world, etc. This imaginary world is supposed to be what makes the operation successful. But, what draws the crowds is undoubtedly much more the social microcosm, the miniaturized…
Described in its patent filing as a “hype-generating mechanism with fully integrated Mac compatibility,” the iLaunch is powered by Intel dual-core processors optimized to calculate a product’s gravitas. Apple claims the iLaunch can garner the same amount of press attention as a major scientific discovery, high court ruling, celebrity meltdown, or natural disaster at 200…