To amuse the crowds around the arena the gladiators would display broad fighting skills rather than fight for their lives, argues archaeologist Steve Tuck of the University of Miami. “Gladiatorial combat is seen as being related to killing and shedding blood,” he says. “But I think that what we are seeing is an entertaining martial…
Only 38% of users are aware of the distinction between paid or “sponsored” results and unpaid results. And only one in six say they can always tell which results are paid or sponsored and which are not. This finding is ironic, since nearly half of all users say they would stop using search engines if…
The model is: [W + (D-d)] x TQ M x NA The equation is broken down into seven variables: (W) weather, (D) debt, (d) monthly salary, (T) time since Christmas, (Q) time since failed quit attempt, (M) low motivational levels and (NA) the need to take action. —Jan. 24 called worst day of the year (MSN)…
The company behind the US-based internet search engine looks set to launch a free telephone service that links users via a broadband internet connection using a headset and home computer. —Elizabeth Judge —Google gears up for a free-phone challenge to BT (Times Online) The acronym BT isn’t explained in the article… from the context, I’m assuming…
A man who went missing five weeks ago in south-western France has been found alive in an underground cave system where he had got lost. —Hugh Schofield —Man found after weeks in cave (BBC) What’s French for XYZZY? Similar:Touch Me Now: York Plays 2025A cast of hundreds participated in a pub…AcademiaFair use prevails as Supreme Court…
In a move students protested last year, Princeton became the first elite college to cap the number of A’s that can be awarded. Previously, there was no official limit to the number of A’s handed out, and nearly half the grades in an average Princeton class have been A-pluses, A’s or A-minuses. Now, each department…
Is not rhetoric, taken generally, a universal art of enchanting the mind by arguments; which is practised not only in courts and public assemblies, but in private houses also, having to do with all matters, great as well as small, good and bad alike, and is in all equally right, and equally to be esteemed-that…
Orality, Literacy, and Writing Technology (U Penn) Images of Orality and Literacy in Greek Iconography of the Fifth, Fourth and Third Centuries BCE — compiled by Andrew Wiesner, who also points to James O’Donnell’s Some manuscript images of the technology of the word in the Middle Ages I’ll look through these in more detail later. Similar:Choice…
—I Love Forms: ”Discussion Reflection Worksheet.rtf” (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Will a form like this – filled out in the last five minutes of a class period, and then compiled and resubmitted in a portfolio — help students recognize and develop the critical thinking skills necessary for participation in college seminars? Or will they blow it off…
[March 20, 2000] I turned to the lady next to me and said, ?excuse me, I just got my sight back last week after being totally blind for 43 years. Could you help me figure out what I am seeing?? [May 8, 2000] I was mesmerized by the glint of the sunlight on the crest…
Buffy has introduced new slang terms and phrases in nearly every episode, many of them formed in the usual ways, some of them at the crest of new formative tendencies. The show incorporates familiar slang, too; the familiar and newly coined slayer slang together compose a particularly vivid snapshot of current American teen slang. —Michael…
“If you’re looking for a job with instant and guaranteed success, this isn’t it.” — David Atkinson, scientist whose 18 years of work on a space probe experiment were trashed when someone forgot to turn the thing on before the probe’s 1997 launch. —Professor’s Saturn Experiment Forgotten (AP/My Way) Similar:Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg strides past fettered…
Welcome Back, Blog (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Dear blog, I missed you while you were down. Let’s take this opportunity to thank Will Gayther for helping me bring you back, and to thank those who e-mailed me to let me know you weren’t well. Welcome back. Similar:My 10yo Created Bookmarks to Express Her Complex Relationship with ReadingMy…
While acknowledging that the new nofollow tag will not do anything — immediately — to stop comment spam, I think most of the criticisms are off-base in one way or another. —More on the Google nofollow tag (Dave Does the Blog) One blogger’s reaction to the new “nofollow” tag, which is aimed at denying spammers the…
The sonneteer is the wedding singer of modern poetry: a member of the bride’s party by way of technicality, he is never embraced and rarely photographed. More entertainer than poet, more trickster than artisan, he welcomes the casual onlooker and –in a supreme affront to the “vitality” of the art– will don a bright red…
In probably the biggest break from tradition, the paper may solicit content from readers, asking them to write their own stories about topics that interest them, whether it be a Scout leader writing about a volunteer activity his scouts undertook or a local politician writing an alternative story about a government program the paper’s reporters…
The prime reason the Google home page is so bare is due to the fact that the founders didn’t know HTML and just wanted a quick interface. Infact it was noted that the submit button was a long time coming and hitting the RETURN key was the only way to burst Google into life. —Alan…
You wouldn’t buy a car or a house without asking some questions about it first. So don’t go buying into someone else’s data without asking questions, either. Okay, you’re saying… but with data there are no tires to kick, no doors to slam, no basement walls to check for water damage. Just numbers, graphs and…
—Web Site Usability (Mind Tracks) A good collection of links introducing usability and web design. I’ll keep it in mind for the next time I teach “Writing for the Internet“. Similar:Meet the 12-year-old boy who makes games instead of going to schoolTurning on the anti-clickbait filter: Ho…CultureOfficial Rules to NanofictionaryI was at a youth car wash…
Administrations and faculties need to stop caring how much someone writes or publishes or says, or even how important what they?ve published is according to some measurable or quantifiable metric. Not only because trying to measure productivity in terms of scholarship destroys scholarship, but because it detracts from the truly important kind of productivity in…