I mourn the great quotes I’ve lost to indecipherable notes and the quotes abandoned when speakers simply outran my note-taking ability. And it’s not just me being left in the dust by fast talkers. When I peer over a reporter’s shoulder at some freshly recorded notes, the mess I see never inspires confidence. Yes, a…
We think of precociousness as an early form of adult achievement, and, according to Gladwell, that concept is much of the problem. “What a gifted child is, in many ways, is a gifted learner. And what a gifted adult is, is a gifted doer. And those are quite separate domains of achievement.” To be a…
Of those praised for their effort, 90 percent chose the harder set of puzzles. Of those praised for their intelligence, a majority chose the easy test. The “smart” kids took the cop-out. […] Having artificially induced a round of failure, Dweck’s researchers then gave all the fifth-graders a final round of tests that were engineered…
Sometimes lawyers contact me about a case featuring URL hacking (or, as one such lawyer called it, “URL typing”). I haven’t yet been interested enough in a case to offer to do any writing or testifying for free. But I’ll summarize my position here. If a company built a private warehouse, not intended to be…
The BBC televised a 38-minute adaptation in 1938 – probably the first ever example of science fiction television. —My Science Fiction Life: The Story of Science Fiction in Britain (BBC) The excerpt is from the entry on one of my favorite plays, Rossum’s Universal Robots. Similar:Filmmakers Find Section of Destroyed Space Shuttle Challenger on Ocean FloorInstead…
Pundits have been predicting the arrival of “interactive fiction” for decades — dating back at least to the clunky, campy Choose-Your-Own-Adventures of the 1980s. Video games ploughed some of this terrain: Some of the first, like Zork, were text-based adventures, which themselves were born out of the storytelling vibe of Dungeons and Dragons. But Hotel…
As I stared at the screen glassy-eyed, reveling in this whole new subculture I did not even know about, I stumbled across a Web site for Inform 7, http://www.inform-fiction.org, a design system for interactive fiction. Much simpler than a programming language, Inform 7 is a free, easy way for nerds like me to create their…
I forgot–on the way out Z, at w-l=Z-1, Rick Olsen, at great cost to his body, entered the tight canyon heading south with the great water sounds. It turned out to be a 1′ high 9″ wide waterfall. The canyon continues as a very bad lead ‘2’h X 1’w with a 1″ stream in the…
In a bizarre attack, a well-known author and Holocaust scholar was dragged out of a San Francisco hotel elevator by an apparent Holocaust denier who reportedly had been trailing him for weeks. —Adam Martin —Elie Wiesel attacked in S.F. hotel (Examiner.com) He wasn’t hurt, but this is scary. Similar:Troy Sterling and the Active and Passive VerbsJerz…
It’s just 12 hours. (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) When I told a colleague that I was planning to stay at work until midnight in order to work on an abstract, her eyes bugged out. “I didn’t come into work until noon today,” I said, “so I’ll only spend 12 hours in the office.” Her look of pity…
“I really don’t know whether we’ll be printing the Times in five years, and you know what? I don’t care either,” he says. —NY Times publisher: Our goal is to manage the transition from print to internet (Haaretz.com) Similar:Star Trek TOS Main Theme but it never gets to the Main ThemeArrgh! This is sooo stressful! (Some…
Friday the entire Field Camp crew went to the Bedquilt Entrance to remove the debris from that project. This consisted of the old gate, a steel monster that took four people to haul up the hill, the broken concrete from the former gate base and the tools used on the project. We formed a chain…
They call it ‘iPod oblivion’ — when you’re talking on a cell phone or listening to an iPod while crossing the street. “It can be a distraction you know but most times I stay alert … I’m aware of my surroundings,” iPod user John Palmer said. But Albany thinks it’s a problem, and so Senator…
The newspaper, founded in 1645 by Sweden’s Queen Kristina, became a Web-only publication on Jan. 1. —World’s Oldest Newspaper Goes Digital (Guardian) Yes, you read that right. 1645. Similar:So glad to be attending another live theatrical production. @quantumtheatre never disappoi…Projections, live music, sounds, props, …BusinessGoogle Favors Good Reporting, Not Liberal Views: StudyIt’s a logical fallacy to…
You currently have no blogs. (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) When my students and I log into MovableType, we get the message “You currently have no blogs.” (I’ve put in a support ticket, and can’t do anything until they respond.) I’m supposed to be taking items off my to-do list… Similar:All Sheep MatterCultureAll the 'Happy Birthday' song copyright…
—Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us Fantastic content. No time to comment on it — not until my to do list is clear. But this is definitely worth a link. I will say that this is a far more optimistic depiction of The Machine than E. M. Forster had in “The Machine Stops”…
To Do List (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) No recreational blogging for me until I’m done with everything on this list. Write letter of ref for recent grad (deadline was Feb 1; turned in letter Jan 31) Finish new article on a classic work of interactive fiction (deadline was Feb 1; I’ll have it done in a few…
To gather up a few logs, it might seem like lunacy to deploy the same kind of sophisticated and pricey ROVs used to explore the Titanic or investigate 9,000-foot-deep geothermal vents along the mid-Atlantic seafloor. But do the math and Godsall’s method starts to make good financial sense. Operated by just one person, a so-called…
—Boston Ad Prank Suspects Talk About … Hair (Fox | Youtube) I sense these two fellows might be worried their 15 minutes of fame might be receding faster than my hairline. It was a nice try by the reporter who asked a question about whether the suspects felt their hair would be safe if they went…
What makes Ledonne think that a video game is the best way to try and deconstruct the tortured minds that led to Columbine? Gaming is essentially escapist entertainment and while there are plenty of violent games out there to help you get off, if that’s what gets you off, no one has ever confused a…