A few months into my new job as a “new media journalism” teacher at Seton Hill University, a small liberal arts school in southwestern Pennsylvania, I was at a fancy on-campus dinner event, where the university president was working her way through the crowd, laying on the charm. I heard her relate a slightly off-color…
At the Marine base several miles southeast, high-speed wires snake down hallways, through doors and out windows. The Navy engineers play “Half-Life 2.” At the gym, where seven Playstations get heavy use, Marines wage “Madden NFL 2005” tournaments. “Neverwinter Nights” reigns in the public affairs office. —Troops stationed in Iraq turn to gaming (MSNBC/AP) Similar:What's wrong…
While the number of new blogs is rising, readership is growing even faster. —Dan Gillmor —A Medium Coming Into Its Own (Dan Gillmor on Grassroots Journalism) Gillmor is commenting on a datum from a new study from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Similar:Tell Me a Smart Story: On Podcasts, Videos, and Websites as Writing…
Ultimately, it became very clear that the most active and influential members of the project–beginning with Jimmy Wales, who hired me to start a free encyclopedia project and who now manages Wikipedia and Wikimedia–were decidedly anti-elitist in the above-described sense. Consequently, nearly everyone with much expertise but little patience will avoid editing Wikipedia, because they…
Leading British computer games maker Peter Molyneux has been made an OBE in the New Year Honours list. The head of Surrey’s Lionhead Studios was granted the honour for services to the computer games industry. —Call of honour for UK games maker (BBC) OBE = “Order Of the British Empire”. The article’s last paragraph: “Being an…
Crichton doesn’t like the idea that someone else is better placed to make judgments than he is. He seems convinced that global warming is largely an invention of careerist scientists abetted by a partisan press. And he seems to find something smug and stifling, if not dishonest, about consensus: “the work of science has nothing…
According to the United Nations, as of 2002, 70 percent of the world’s nations were holding multi-party elections. Fifty-eight percent of the world’s population lived under a fully democratic system of governance. Both of these figures are at their highest points in human history. The Freedom House (search) think tank gave 89 countries containing 46…
IN THE span of 18 months, Isaac Newton invented calculus, constructed a theory of optics, explained how gravity works and discovered his laws of motion. As a result, 1665 and the early months of 1666 are termed his annus mirabilis. It was a sustained sprint of intellectual achievement that no one thought could ever be…
The MASSIVE database (last updated on 12-7-04) contains information on over 1700 science and math songs. Some of these songs are suitable for 2nd graders; others might only appeal to tenured professors. Some songs have been professionally recorded; others haven’t. Some are quite silly; others are downright serious. —MASSIVE (Math And Science Song Information, Viewable…
You awaken to news of a morning traffic jam. Leaving home early for a doctor’s appointment, you nonetheless arrive too late to find parking. After waiting two hours for a 15-minute consultation, you wait again to have your prescription filled. All the while, you worry about the work you’ve missed because so many other people…
Bloggers at the scene are more deeply affected by events than the journalists who roam from one disaster to another, said Xeni Jardin, one of the four co-editors of the site BoingBoing.net, which pointed visitors to many of the disaster blogs. “They are helping us understand the impact of this event in a way that…
The recent popularity of “eBaying” — the sale of seemingly fictive “property” within MMORPG — has raised numerous questions about the nature of MMORPG play. In particular, many have asked why players choose this practice, and how it might affect the game. This paper addresses these issues by examining some of the motives that drive…
Mr. Komarnitsky gave radio interviews to stations as far away as Australia. Web sites from NYTimes.com to geek hangout Slashdot.org linked to his site. An Associated Press item about his site was picked up by newspapers from Los Angeles to Columbia, S.C. As of midday Monday, according to Mr. Komarnitsky, the “Web cam” was asked…
If you could assign a reading list to the world, what books would you want people to read, and most importantly, why? —Moira Richardson —Calling All Readers! Contest! (Literary Tease) I’m still recovering from whatever it is that has struck me down this week… but Moira’s blog entry got me thinking. Even though Moira’s original post…
GM famously learned this lesson in the early 1980s with the introduction in Mexico and Spain of its Chevy Nova coupe. “No va” in Spanish means “won’t go.” —What’s in a name? For cars, everything (Detroit News Auto Insider) And the editors at The Detroit News Auto Insider area about to learn a lesson about urban…
I’ve Been Sick… (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I finished posting all this semester’s grades just before the annual Christmas Mass and faculty/staff lunch on the 21st. That’s the most organized I’ve ever been, when it comes to grades. I was feeling very proud of myself, and very happy to be here at Seton Hill, doing a job…
Vasconcellos argued that raising self-esteem in young people would reduce crime, teen pregnancy, drug abuse, school underachievement and pollution. At one point, he even expressed the hope that these efforts would one day help balance the state budget, a prospect predicated on the observation that people with high self-regard earn more than others and thus…
For way too long, it has been the mainstream media (MSM) that’s played God with the American public, telling everyone what’s news and what’s not, what to play up and what to downplay. But 2004 was the year the power started shifting, that the Little People, if you will, started to tell the gods of…
Researchers singled out the deaths of more than 300,000 cancer patients, because deaths from cancer are usually more predictable and less sudden than those from heart attacks, strokes or other ailments. There was no increase in overall mortality after Christmas. —Liz Szabo —Terminal Patients Don’t Hang on Until After Holidays (TechNewsWorld.com) That probably won’t put that…
—Buttered Mashed Potaotoes Classic Filled Candle (bathandbodyworks.com) I’m sorry, this seems… wrong. Thanks for this link, Rosemary. It has disturbed in me in ways that I would prefer to forget. Similar:In September, 2003, I was blogging about the emerging fad of internet plagiarism, ethnical…In September, 2003, I was blogging about…CultureD&D-Themed movie Zero Charisma pits Nerds vs.…