The shuttle has cost the lives of 14 astronauts since the first flight in 1982. Roger Pielke Jr., a space policy expert at the University of Colorado, estimates that NASA has spent about $150 billion on the program since its inception in 1971. The total cost of the space station by the time it’s finished…
WASHINGTON, DC—Congress scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of the Constitution Monday, only two months after it went live. “The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. “But when so-called ‘contributors’ began loading it down with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought…
“Don’t panic over the latest techno jargon like … peer-to-peer, wi-max, 80211, bittorrent … the only thing that gives purpose to all these remarkable delivery systems is the kind of creative content we all produce,” Eisner said. —Eisner’s parting words to Hollywood: “Don’t panic” (Breitbart.com) I don’t feel much pity for the hordes of netizens who…
I wonder what they call it when you can’t think of what to write in a weblog? Writer’s Blog, weblock? —Anna-Marie —Comfortably Numb (ilex) One of Mike Vitia‘s students coins a term. Students in several of my classes are engaging in drive-by blogging, which is the flurry of entries that one posts just before the blogging…
The wild rumors filled the vacuum and seemed to gain credence with each retelling — that an infant’s body had been found in a trash can, that sharks from Lake Pontchartrain were swimming through the business district, that hundreds of bodies had been stacked in the Superdome basement. “It doesn’t take anything to start a…
In addition to a Sony PlayStation 2, the family has some special equipment: a S.M.A.R.T. BrainGames system that consists of a special controller, a helmet with built-in sensors for monitoring brain activity and a Smartbox that receives the brain signals. As long as the boys remain calmly focused on the game, it plays normally, says…
The tomb of Odysseus has been found, and the location of his legendary capital city of Ithaca discovered here on this large island across a one-mile channel from the bone-dry islet that modern maps call Ithaca. —Thomas Elias —Archeologists make historic discovery (Madera Tribune) Similar:Criminal Code: Procedural Logic and Rhetorical Excess in VideogamesGreat example of the…
There was always a notion in the past of putting out information that people need to know. Now the entire industry is driven by providing what people want to hear and see. And that gives you more Michael Jackson than Social Security. That gives you Chandra Levy and Gary Condit, not local government. That gives…
Back then, most directors were too old to play games, and clearly didn’t bother to observe anyone who did. But to be fair to Hollywood, game culture is also hard to film because so much of a game’s appeal is internal. All the strategizing, the mental mapping, the cybernetic thrill of being in a loop…
In “Drama as Literature,” I assigned the first third or so of Oedipus the King, which always throws students for a loop. What’s with the “strophe,” which is the part of the choral performance chanted as the performers dance from right to left, and the “antistrophe,” which is chanted as the performers dance from left…
—Austrian national anthem ‘sexist’ (BBC) Should that caption read “Austrian schoolchildren are taught the national anthem during solar eclipses”? I can’t imagine why else they might be wearing those goggles. I don’t mean to make light of the subject. I’ve written a handout on gender-neutral language, and in my American Lit class, we discussed the ritualistic…
Usually once a decade an invention comes along that makes everyone revise the way they think about an accepted form of technology. In the first decade of the 21st Century the invention is Uni-Screw?. Uniscrew? replaces Slotted, Phillips,? Pozi-Drive,? Torx? and Square Head style screws and offers significant advantages compared to these fastening mediums. As…
Hi, I’m a reporter with National Public Radio and I’m doing a story on the plague that’s hit World of Warcraft. I’m really interested in talking to some people who play the game about the plague and what’s been done about it and generally how it feels to have your virtual character done in by…
In these days of instant messaging, e-mail, videophones and nearly instantaneous satellite communication with all parts of the world, the idea of communicating by telegraph is perhaps best described as “quaint.” However, it would be difficult to overestimate the impact that the telegraph had on worldwide communications at the time of its introduction. —The road…
Clutching the shredded tatters of my pride and dignity, I trudged to the office hours of my math instructor every week, seeking an explanation for the increasingly mysterious problems in the textbook. My instructor welcomed my presence as she would welcome the Angel of Death. Irritated? She was terrified. Explain…the problems? Articulate…the steps? Relate…the concepts?…
During the 1990’s, Lorin Anderson (a former student of Benjamin Bloom) led a team of cognitive psychologists in revisiting the taxonomy with the view to examining the relevance of the taxonomy as we enter the twenty-first century. REMEMBERING Recognise, list, describe, identify retrieve, name ?. Can the student RECALL information? UNDERSTANDING Interpret, exemplify, summarise, infer,…
More and more, video game-related courses are being offered in colleges around the country in response to the digital media industry’s appetite for skilled workers and the tastes of a new generation of students raised on Game Boy and Xbox. —Michael Hill —More Colleges Offering Video Game Courses (AP|MyWay) Seton Hill University January, 2006 (3 weeks,…
Ambiguous word choices are the source of some misunderstandings. Scientists often employ colloquial terminology, which they then assign a specific meaning that is impossible to fathom without proper training. The term “relativity,” for example, is intrinsically misleading. Many interpret the theory to mean that everything is relative and there are no absolutes. Yet although the…
Sheehan moved to New Orleans in 2004 to take a year off from the University of California at Berkeley, where administrators had temporarily suspended the stem-cell research program in which he was enrolled in hopes of helping to combat his younger sister Ruth’s spinal meningitis. Friends report that his public spirit continued in the Big…
—Keybag (João Sabino) I can hear my wife now… “Where did I put my keys?” Similar:Gem of the Ocean (August Wilson's Century Cycle, 1 of 10)August Wilson’s Century Cycle > Spoil…BooksHow Are Websites Made?This one chart is actually the punch lin…AmusingOn Stephen Hawking, Vader and Being More Machine Than HumanIn one version of Hawking’s eulogistic s…CybercultureEverybody…