Sites are getting better at using minimalist design, maintaining archives, and offering comprehensive services. However, these advances entail their own usability problems, as several prominent mistakes from 2003 show. —Jakob Nielsen —Top Ten Web Design Mistakes of 2003 (Alertbox) Usually Nielsen’s blurbs are more informative… the “summary” on his site reads more like a marketing tease.…
His full-time job is to keep software-loving scientists and engineers from burying their “whats” in their “hows.” It’s not easy, because PowerPoint’s “hows” get more numerous and distracting with each new release. MORE, the original presentation software, was a 300k program that turned outlines into “bullet charts,” its two-word noun for slides. The latest versions…
Some legal experts said that posting documents detailing the criminal charges against the 45-year-old entertainer was a breakthrough for public access. Others countered that it would undermine the spirit of the law and court proceedings, creating even more of a circus-like atmosphere. —Sue Zeidler —Jackson Web Site Unites, Divides Legal Profession (Yahoo/Reuters) I’ve blogged about Jackson’s…
I can also bake JUST as much as I like. OK, so I like baking a little more than strictly needed, and who really needs seven types of cookies these days, but it’s fun! And some traditions, like the ginger-bread house, have become too important to ignore. —Torill Mortensen —Christmas Eve (Thinking with My Fingers) Simply…
He wrote his plays in longhand. He took his time. He followed the news; he was politically brave. He wrote of the self and also of the world. He wrote for the stage and also for publication. He was theatrical; he was dialectical. He cultivated a public image; a small crowd of remarkable people intersected…
“Embedded,” as in the reporters assigned to accompany military units during the war, beat out “blog” and “SARS (news – web sites)” as the top word of 2003, Web site yourDictionary.com (http://www.yourdictionary.com) said….”Shock-and-awe,” the phrase the U.S. military used to describe the type of campaign it would wage in Iraq, topped other Iraq-related terms like…
Feeling Like a Dad at ChristmasJerz’s Literacy Weblog) Last night, Peter sang in the children’s choir for Christmas Eve mass. I nodded and smiled poudly at him whenever he caught my eye. His baby sister Carolyn spotted him after about twenty minutes, and kept shouting “Peter! Peter” and clapping and going “Yay!” whenever the choir…
He was reading from a university mission statement and other material on its website. “To provide outcome-related research and consultancy services that address real-world issues” – shrieks of laughter. The university’s “approach to quality management is underpinned by a strong commitment to continuous improvement and a whole-of-organisation framework” – uproar in the room. The university…
Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that, as of Nov. 30, women represent 50.6 percent of the 48 million employees in management, professional and related occupations. —More U.S. Women Crack Glass Ceiling (Washington Times/UPI) Women are much more likely to go to college than men; they tend to study harder, get higher grades, have fewer drug…
I love the 10 minute presentation. You have enough time to get your points across to the audience without boring them. There is enough time, but it concentrates your mind on cutting out the waffle and making it snappy. Remember nobody ever complained about a presentation being too short. —Jonty Pearce —Ten Minute Presentations (Presentation Helper)…
While many of my students are getting the hang of this, just as many aren’t. I’m sure it’s that some are simply more motivated than others, some feel more comfortable writing for an audience, others are more passionate about their topics, and some are just more confident in their abilities in general. But what those…
Same color palette: greens, blues, and reds on a synthetic base of white. Same kinds of curves and contours, same balance and proportions. Whereas once upon a time toothbrushes were made from a single plastic cast, contemporary models, like contemporary athletic shoes, are built up out of inscrutable deposits of layers and sediment that speak…
You could dismiss this as nostalgia, GenX-ers pining for the simpler pleasures of their Cold War youth. But that doesn’t really explain it, because half the people buying these games are teenagers at Urban Outfitters. No, these Jurassic games are popular for a more powerful reason: They’re the canon of video games, and they prove…
In my opinion, Google today is far from the great search engine it was in those far-off days, yet I still use it. Even knowing that it indexes only a small proportion of the web using a technique that too often gives precedence to pages that lack authority or coherence, that it is skewed by…
Thanks to the fact that I write, my life is satisfactory: I can inhabit gloom and live in joy. When something unpleasant happens to me, provided only that is potentially of literary use, my first thought is ?How best can I describe this?? I thereby distance myself from my own displeasure or irritation. As I…
“A hole in the ground, like any other structurally engineered design, is just an artifact of human technology,” said Will Whitfoot, mayor of the town of Michel Delving and a spokesman for the hole-dwelling community of Hobbiton. “Like any tool or technological artifact, it has no moral imperative per se, but performs strictly according to…
Look at the room you’re in. Chances are it has thousands of objects in it. Imagine having to write a description of every single one of those objects and its relationship to every other. Eeeagh! Instead, you winnow it down to the objects you’ll actually need, plus a bit of scenery. In other words, the…
Beneath the arena’s grandeur lay a netherworld of gladiatorial schools and storerooms, all linked by corridors filled with pulleys and levers, animal cages and gladiators. | The system was run by teams of slaves who faced being fed to the animals themselves if their timing went awry.-Michael Leidig —Animal magic of Rome’s Colosseum underworld (Sydney Morning…
Bjorn Lomborg, the author of a controversial book attacking the environment movement, was cleared yesterday of “scientific dishonesty” by the Danish science ministry. The ministry overturned a ruling in January by the Danish committee on scientific dishonesty (DCSD), part of the Danish Research Agency, that Mr Lomborg’s book The Skeptical Environmentalist was “clearly contrary to…
Thus we are pleased to announce the winners of The Chronicle’s First Annual Awards for Self-Consciously Provocative MLA Paper Titles (also known as the Provokies). All selections are cited as listed in the program for the 119th MLA Annual Convention, to be held this month in San Diego. (In other words, no paper titles were…