Population decline is by no means restricted to the industrial world. Remarkably, the sharp rise in American fertility rates at the height of the baby boom — 3.8 children per woman — was substantially above Third World fertility rates today. From East Asia to the Middle East to Mexico, countries once fabled for their high…
THE words of Pope John Paul II’s Angelus blessing today were “probably recorded” after his voice faltered when he started to deliver the traditional blessing from his hospital window, Italian media reported. —Pope’s blessing ‘probably recorded’ (The Austrailian) Insert your “Ashely Simpson hoedown” reference here. Similar:That Much-Despised Apple Ad Could Be More Disturbing Than It LooksApple…
There was a little turtle. He lived in a box. He swam in a puddle. He climbed on the rocks. He snapped at a mosquito. He snapped at a flea. He snapped at a minnow. And he snapped at me. He caught the mosquito. He caught the flea. He caught the minnow. But he didn’t…
But political conservatives who read the story were convinced the judge must be a liberal activist intent on being politically correct. On the other hand, liberals said the judge and neighbor must be conservatives, who tend to see “terrorists behind every bush and on every porch,” even in a quiet rural neighborhood just south of…
—Wahoooooo! We’re off and blogging, getting er done! (John Haddad) One of my students demonstrates his enthusiasm for a new semester of blogging. Similar:Yahoo, You Nagged Me Too Many Times; Bye!I have a Yahoo account that I use when a…BusinessQuebec teen discovers ancient Mayan ruins by studying the starsThis sounds like the plot of a Young…
There were buttons and switches everywhere – buttons to call for food for music, for clothing. There was the hot-bath button, by pressure of which a basin of (imitation) marble rose out of the floor, filled to the brim with a warm deodorized liquid. There was the cold-bath button. There was the button that produced…
A book with one name on the cover may turn out to have a team of contributors. Most readers may never have pondered the difference, but a history book whose author alone has carried out all of the research and writing is almost always a more dependable work of scholarship than one whose multiple cooks…
The scene: A college classroom at the University of Michigan-Dearborn. The subject: Writing the newspaper column. The question: “Can any of you name a columnist you read — in a newspaper or magazine or online — on a regular basis?” In response: Dead silence. […] “My generation is very visually oriented,” explains Ryan Schreiber, a…
Though “1893” is a homage to bygone text adventures, the sophistication of the programming is a step up. In “Zork,” commands more complicated than, say, “attack troll with rusty knife” would confuse the game. But “1893” can handle much more. “The parser is pretty elaborate at this point,” Mr. Nepstad said. “You can type ‘get…
blogs.setonhill.edu Hacked (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Many of the pages on the blogs.setonhill.edu website have been taken over. As far as I can tell, the blogs are operating correctly and the data are all safe, but the hack is taking over the display. Very frustrating, I am sure, for SHU bloggers. I’m seeking help right now. Update:…
I’m glad I wrote the column, though, even if I’m wrong, because it helped bring into focus something else that I’ve been wanting to say for a long time, which is that it’s a sad state of affairs in our politics when people are so locked into being in one camp or the other that…
Deni Rust, 34, of McCandless, continued her husband’s journal after his death, using the Web site he created to immortalize his writings, to establish a guest book where friends and family can share memories, and to post her thoughts as each day passes. A year later, Deni Rust still struggles to live with her grief.…
Q. Who is responsible for the high cost, high visibility nature of intercollegiate sports? A: You are. Every time you or your family or friends watch a college game on television, buy college apparel with logos, purchase a ticket to the game, or otherwise participate in a college sports activity, you vote for the current…
Concerns have been raised, however, as to whether current copyright law imposes inappropriate burdens on users, including subsequent creators, of works for which the copyright owner cannot be located (hereinafter referred to as ?orphan?’ works). The issue is whether orphan works are being needlessly removed from public access and their dissemination inhibited. If no one…
When I recently asked a group of librarians how they thought Google organized its search results, the first suggestion was that Google counts the number of clicks on the links, and adjusts its rankings accordingly. Most of the people in the room seemed satisfied with that answer, but one person volunteered the clarification that Google…
When a sheet of paper covered in doodles was found on Tony Blair’s desk at the Davos World Economic Forum, handwriting experts delighted in analyzing it, concluding the prime minister was stressed and under pressure. Experts who examined the tangle of boxes, circles, loops and notes on debt and trade variously described Blair as “struggling…
“People who are savvy about how the Internet works don’t even try to find breaking news on the Net.” — Richard W. Wiggins —The Effects of September 11 on the Leading Search Engine (First Monday) Wiggins made this throwaway statement in an article published October 1, 2001. How quickly things change! In his defense, Wiggins was…
So I thought I’d have a go at writing up my notes from the first Technologies of Writing seminar yesterday. (This is the Folger Institute seminar, taught by Peter Stallybrass and Roger Chartier.) There’s no way I can do justice to the three hours, which included not only some terrific conversation but a long presentation…
The story goes that in the first half of last century one Ata Owoo was well-known for making magnificent chairs to transport the village chief on poles or the shoulders of minions. When Owoo had finished one particularly elaborate creation, an eagle, a neighbouring chief wanted one too, this time in the shape of a…
—Grammar and Punctuation Tests (The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation) Nifty little grammar and punctuation/capitalization online tests. Via MetaFilter. Similar:Mount St. Mary's president fires two faculty members, one with tenureMount St. Mary’s fires two faculty membe…AcademiaDon't Automatically Blame the Reporter for a Headline ErrorWriters make mistakes. That’s why we hav…Current_EventsInside Voices — A Weekend MusicalCarolyn was…