“The ideal of objectivity, properly understood, is vital not only for responsible journalism but responsible scientific inquiry, informed public policy deliberations and fair ethical and legal decision. The peculiar Western attempt to be objective is a long, honorable tradition that is part of our continuing struggle to discern and communicate significant, well-grounded truths and make…
A computer that learns to play a ‘scissors, paper, stone’ by observing and mimicking human players could lead to machines that automatically learn how to spot an intruder or perform vital maintenance work, say UK researchers. CogVis, developed by scientists at the University of Leeds in Yorkshire, UK, teaches itself how to play the children’s…
Literary critics who never use but one approach remind me of a child who, playing with a piece of transparent red plastic, has just discovered this effect. ?Look, mommy,? she says, ?the refrigerator is red!? ?Look, mommy, the stove is red too!? ?Look, mommy, the dish towel is light red and dark red!? ?Look, mommy,…
Google greatly advances its web search by raising the word limit to 32 words. Previously, only up to 10 words were allowed. —Google Raises Word Limit to 32 (Google Blogoscoped) The casual user probably won’t notice a difference. It was really hardly any trouble to cut out some of the words in a string that Google…
After 130 years of typing the same way the keyboard has finally grown up. [Who or what was doing the typing? The subject of the sentence is “the keyboard”. The word “typing” is a dangling modifier.] Standard Keyboards of Santa Maria, California announced [missing word — “an”] “alphabetical” keyboard that offers user-friendly benefits and quick…
Sure, blogging can serve as a corrective to the ideological blind spots and commercial orientation of the corporate media monopoly, Fact Checking Their Asses and Working the Ref and restoring some semblance of balance in the absence of the Fairness Doctrine. But bloggers who want to remedy what ails the corporate McMedia monopoly should grab…
A Columbia University study released Tuesday suggests that viewing fewer than four hours of television a day severely inhibits a person’s ability to ridicule popular culture. “An hour or two of television per day simply does not provide enough information to effectively mock mediocre sitcoms, vapid celebrities, music videos, and talk-show hosts?an essential skill in…
Until a few months ago, the attention paid to web logs, or blogs, focused mainly on politics and the media business. However, many in academia followed the web-diary of Salam Pax, the famous Baghdad blogger during the build-up to the war in Iraq. Now, the technology that has been an alternative source of news to…
In many cases, children’s literature and game studies are growing in non-traditional ways by including an emphasis on the culture of their readers and players. As two emerging fields, children’s literature and game studies have more in common than the two fields realize. —Taylor and Martin —E for Everyone — A Call for Interdisciplinary Studies (IGDA)…
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:Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh sentenced to 3 years for ‘Healthy Holly’ children’s …Former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh,…
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:That…
—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…