Self-service has been around for decades, ever since Clarence Saunders, an American entrepreneur, opened the first Piggly Wiggly supermarket in 1916 in Memphis, Tennessee. Saunders’s idea was simple, but revolutionary: shoppers would enter the store, help themselves to whatever they needed and then carry their purchases to the check-out counter to pay for them. Previously,…
But how does one measure the godliness of bacteria versus a fruit fly? (Keats opted for flies in lieu of humans, which, he said, would require “a really big bell jar.”) After briefly considering omnipotence, Keats decided to measure omnipresence. Did the number of organisms increase? How fast? In the case of the fruit flies,…
The late writer’s estate hasn’t approved publication of the 1924 piece, a gory, over-the-top parody about a bullfight in the Spanish city of Pamplona, the manuscript’s owner, Donald Stewart, told The Associated Press on Monday. —Found Hemingway Story Won’t Be Published (Yahoo!|AP (will expire)) Similar:Fantasy football and the cold future of robot journalismFor fantasy football…
The Weekly Standard posted an article on its website Saturday charging Tribe with using language that closely mirrors sections of Henry J. Abraham‘s1974 book on Supreme Court appointments, Justices and Presidents. And at one point in his 1985 book, Tribe lifts a 19-word passage verbatim from Abraham‘stext. —Prof Admits to Misusing Source (The Crimson) This is…
The really big mistake comes when you treat people as authority figures when they are not expert but simply well known. There is a terrible tendency to treat people as reliable sources of fact when in fact they are simply “important” people or people who happen to be in the news. It is doubly perverse…
Anywhere Books has piloted a digital bookmobile — a van outfitted with a laptop, laser printer, bookbinding machine and cutter — in remote areas of Uganda to print free books for children since November 2003. Now the project has plans to expand to Ghana and Macedonia. —Rural Kids Print, Bind and Read (Wired) Similar:Final grades…
One complaint that hardcore IF fans have about such derivations from the old school plain text game is that developers often get so caught up in designing the graphics and recording the sound effects that the story line, the most important part of a true interactive fiction game, gets lost in the shuffle. The difference…
Another lesson is for journalists to pay attention to chatter on the Internet. Within hours of CBS making its charges — basically that Bush was a laggard in the National Guard — bloggers and other commentators on the Net expressed doubt over the veracity of documents that CBS used to back its story (and later…
…Everyone gets everything he wants. I wanted a golden ticket. And for my sins, they gave me one. Brought it up to me like room service…. I was about to end all candymakers on earth… and I didn’t even know it yet. —Milloway, Wood and Freese —Chocolypse Now (Freese Design) Similar:I rather like my instructional page…
There is little financial incentive for recycling, and recycling is generally, with a few exceptions, more expensive than dumping and making new goods from virgin materials. Yet there is a growing campaign for recycling, particularly promoted by local government – and more people are taking it up. The ‘black box’ outside your house is becoming…
blogs.setonhill.edu down Whoops… it looks like blogs.setonhill.edu is down. I’ve sent a note to the system administrator, but I’ve got to go offline for the evening now. Let’s keep our fingers crossed… Update: Blogs are back up. Similar:In December 2000, I was blogging about typeface snobbery, freedom in video game spaces, th…In December 2000, I…
Hello, My name is [Name Here] and I am a [My Title Goes Here] facilitating programming in both [Administrative Unit One] and [Administrative Unit Two]. My position is an assistantship through the [Office of Something] program at [Nearby University]. In my [Title of a Class Here] class I have a project where I am to…
Because your Sims are much more self-sufficient than in the original — they can generally manage to eat and go to the bathroom when they need to — you’re freed up to help them out with their aspirations, which puts you more in the role of a benevolent guardian angel than an invisible day-care teacher.…
The Last Starfighter, a world premiere science fiction musical inspired by the 1984 screenplay of the motion picture of the same name, will open the 2004-05 season of Off Broadway’s Storm Theatre, Oct. 15-30.The musical marks the return of lyricist-composer Skip Kennon (Herringbone, Time and Again) and draws on the Jonathan Betuel screenplay, about a…
You’d have thought I’d thrown rats down on the tables. One student got really angry, said he never knew what to expect in this class and now he’d always be on guard from now on. Another said he felt that I’d broken his confidence–“It’s one thing to see it back and forth on e-mail, but…
I begged the Dean not to make me teach “Modern American Politics” this semester. I knew that in order to teach it properly I would have to delve into the secrets of the Bush administration. I knew that I would learn THINGS THAT HUMANS (as we say in these post-sexist times) ARE NOT MEANT TO…
WHEN I heard the learn?d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;…
William Shatner, who played the commander of the starship USS Enterprise in the ’60s Star Trek series, arrived in Riverside [Iowa] Tuesday to hold auditions for four small parts in a low-budget, sci-fi movie he wrote with Star Trek co-star, Leonard Nimoy…..Although Kirk’s hometown was never mentioned in the TV series, Gene Roddenberry, the show’s…
“Yoda’s philosophy was quite simplistic. ‘If you get angry, you’re gonna lose.’ ‘Don’t try, do.’ He has a basic philosophy that is very charming. Not very profound, although young people consider it profound. I wish they would read more.” —Irvin Kershner, mentor of George Lucas. —Naked Wookiees and broken R2-D2s (CNN/AP) Similar:"I don't view Shakespeare's work…
Internet bloggers have drawn blood and American journalism may never be the same…. Orville Schell, dean of the School of Journalism at the University of California in Berkeley, said CBS’s admission of error after days of stalling was “a landmark moment for the balance between the blogosphere and mainstream media.” —Triumph of the bloggers? (CNN/Reuters) The…