Eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern: two horizontal stripes followed by a vertical stripe. —F-Shaped Pattern For Reading Web Content (Useit.com) Your goal as a web author is to put your best stuff in the hotspots. Obviously you can direct the user’s attention somewhat, using whitespace and graphics. But…
In Writing for the Internet, I had my students read some articles about e-mail and power relationships in the classroom. They are raising some very good questions in response. One asked me whether professors expect their students to send thank-you messages after every e-mail exchange. I just checked with two colleagues, and their reactions confirmed…
A man with a black trench coat whose shooting rampage in a Montreal college killed one person and wounded 19 others before he was slain by police said on a blog in his name that he liked to play a role-playing Internet game about the Columbine shootings. —Montreal gunman liked ‘Columbine’ game (Yahoo! | AP) Of…
Why did Godin decide to create a book series based on third-party NES games, and why did he use the name F.X. Nine? His reasons were both sentimental and practical. Godin was talking to his 10-year-old nephew about his hobbies, and was surprised to discover that the boy had never read a book for fun.…
A full day of radio programming from WJSV (now WTOP), Washington, D.C., for September 21, 1939. This project presents a representative sample of the mix of network and local programming of a major metropolitan network affiliate of the period. It also suggests a good deal about the programming mix of such stations: early morning breakfast…
Children are being deprived of the right to grow up at their own pace by a combination of advertising, junk food, pressures at school and TV and video games, experts have warned. —Junk Food, TV and the Internet ‘are poisoning childhood’ (This Is London) While video games are mentioned last in the lead, what does the…
When four planes were hijacked on a sunny fall morning, easy-to-use blogging services were still few and far between. Yet many who witnessed the horror of the attacks firsthand took to the keyboard to talk with the world. Horrified Americans used e-mail, instant messages, any available communication tool. But weblogs meant large audiences, not just…
—live bloopers (YouTube) Similar:'Anti-dopamine parenting' can curb a kid's craving for screens or sweetsA good article about kids and dopamine.&…Cyberculture5 of the Fiercest One-Liners in HistoryYes, the Spartans’ one-word response to …CultureHide and Q (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 9) Riker, buffed up by Q, grants desires of the…Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…AmusingPen Pals (ST:TNG…
CAA spokesman Michael Mand said he “could neither confirm nor deny” that the agency is representing whoever is behind the 27 video posts. (Other talent agencies and production companies contacted by The Times denied any connection.) As to horror film rumors, calls made to several studios found no such plans — but plenty of fascination…
The 75-year-old actor said: “I’m interested in man’s march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with the vomit hovering over me.” Onboard the Starship Enterprise, sci-fi fans saw Shatner freely ‘explore the final frontier, seeking out new life and strange…
The outcry suggests the exhibitionism and voyeurism implied by participation in social networking sites has ill-defined but nonetheless real limits, and expectations of privacy have somehow survived the publishing free-for-all. For many people, apparently, pushing information to everyone on a friends list is not at all the same as publishing the same information on one’s…
A squirrel scampered into the bicycle wheel of an unlucky Finnish opera singer, causing him to fall, knock himself out and break his nose just ahead of the world premiere of a new opera. —Squirrel in spokes floors cycling opera singer (Yahoo!) Hm…. I don’t think the word “floors” is good for this headline, since “squirrel…
Western civilization did not exactly end last night as Katie took to the anchor chair. But the changing of the guard did represent another kind of cultural change. As of yesterday, network TV has proven it no longer feels the need to pretend that its nightly news broadcast is sober stuff, populated by earnest men…
In addition to creating massive numbers of phony blogs, sploggers sometimes take over abandoned real blogs. More than 10 million of the 12.9 million profiles on Blogger surveyed by splog researcher Vasa in June were inactive, either because the bloggers had stopped blogging or because they never got started. (The huge mass of dead blogs…
Amusing orchestral piece that features an unusual solo instrument. Various
By “library smut” I am in no way referring to the photo books on native peoples, or the illustrated health manuals, or any of the other volumes which, in your childhood, you lurked about the library aisle to find with the sole purpose of sneaking guilty glances at naked bodies. Nor am I referring to…
There are many thing that are true — the state is a parasite on society, private property would solve most social problems, rock music is tedious and stupid — but are nonetheless not generally known or applied. The truth that shaving cream is a racket should be added to this. —Jeffrey A. Tucker —The Shaving…
I started out by trying to be the easygoing candy civilian instructor — “No, just write your name anywhere, pen or pencil is fine” — answering all the questions, and then a couple of the jokers decided to tweak things a bit more: “Sir, cursive or print?” And I couldn’t not be the smartass in…
There was no separating the two Treks, the vacuous and the visionary. It’s no coincidence that one of the most legendary episodes — “The Trouble with Tribbles” — was essentially a comic take on the show’s established themes. Given some distance from the moment, I realize this is actually an entirely healthy attitude. It’s the…
The story’s happy ending depends on a signal fact: the Banks children will no longer be brought up by servants. Henceforth, their own mother — corralled homeward through the beneficent intercessions of Mary Poppins — will do the job herself. “Mary Poppins” advocates the kind of family life that Walt Disney had spent his career…