A six-part adaptation of Life, the Universe and Everything will be up first in the spring. This will be followed towards the end of 2004 by an eight-week serialisation combining So Long and Thanks for All the Fish with Mostly Harmless. | The news comes just weeks after confirmation that the planned movie version of…
It’s not hard to imagine the power of millions of people each taking pictures and attaching them to physical places. You’re headed into Helsinki, and you want to see what the Esplanade looks like in mid-August. Or you wonder what the inside of the Intercontinental hotel looks like. | There’s immense potential for people to…
Torill ‘thinking with my fingers’ Mortensen @ Seton Hill UniversityLiteracy Weblog) For the past few days, I have been showing Torill’s “thinking with my fingers” blog to my new media journalism students. Around the time that our own “New Media Journalism @ Seton Hill University” blog was lagging, Torill posted about the lack of personal…
The Internet is coming of age, and the era of innocence is gone. while the digital axis of evil takes over. It’s high time we leave the term ICT (information and communication technology) behind unless we claim that it stands for “indifferent capitalist thrash”, or “infamous crime technology”. —finn —Infamous Crime Technology (Saywords) Similar:Understanding Shakespeare: "Pick…
Kitty Kelly has sold it to CBS. No, just kidding. A tremendous night. It’s the beginning of a second media century, Joe, where it’s much more of a people-driven media. And I say that not lightly. It was the Internet, it was talk radio, it was cable that put pressure on CBS, and heretofore, there’s…
Software which enables e-mail writers to choose the image they want to portray is being developed by a team of Scottish researchers. —How to Become an E-Mail Extrovert (BBC) Hi!!!! This new software sounds cool! ;) Its supposed to make your writing more cheerful and outgoing!! The article is a bit vauge — maybe the designers…
“The pirate’s life is so deadly that humor is an essential part of what they do. They tell jokes, they make jests, they perform plays. They’re hilarious.” People are obsessed with pirates, Rediker says, because, while pirates may be “the common enemy of mankind,” they’re also “the freest people on earth,” which makes pirate humor…
After inviting every robot maker with a dream to take part in the Grand Challenge, Darpa, the Defense Department’s research arm, has suddenly declared that only 20 drone roadsters will be allowed to enter. This may not mean much to the conglomerate-sponsored, university-backed outfits in the race. But bootstrapping crews like Chabe’s six-man Team LoGhIQ…
The wildfires weren’t the only things burning in Southern California last week. Web servers at The San Diego Union-Tribune were also hot with traffic. —Wildfires Break Records at San Diego Website (Editor and Publisher) The California wildfires forceD journalists to improvise in order to provide audiences with the coverage they need in a time of crisis.…
A while back Michael Lesk wrote a paper called “How Much Information is There in the World?” That work has now been updated by a team led by Peter Lyman and Hal Varian: “How Much Information 2003?” —How Much Information? (Via MGK) Similar:I accidentally started a Wikipedia hoaxHoaxes roam the Information Superhighway…BooksStar Wars' Original, Scum-Caked BrillianceThe…
Professors today often believe erroneously that they are already teaching critical thinking in their courses and that students are absorbing it… “[College seinors] say, ‘Look how open-minded I am.’ But when pressed to say, ‘What do you think about this? What suggestions would you make and what are they based on?’ – that’s when the…
This Vampire Killing Kit complete with a wooden stake and 10 silver bullets sold for $12,000 as part of Sotheby’s sale of 19th century furniture and decorative works of art in New York, Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003. The kit, a walnut box that also contained a crucifix, a pistol, a rosary and vessels for garlic…
The feature is particularly troubling to reference-book authors who think they may lose a sale if a user can find “the best place to hike in Chaco Canyon” or “where to find the best airfare to Cuba” by using Amazon’s search feature instead. —Monica Soto Ouchi —Amazon’s inside look irks authors: Search function previews any…
Once adopted, the credit hour became a driving force in higher education. | It presented students with a specific time frame in which they were expected to complete course work, usually one semester…. But Wellman and Ehrlich, a senior scholar with the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, argue in their book that using…
—Canstruction Model of Independence Hall, birthplace of the American Revolution. Made out of cans. Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary. Similar:Buzz Aldrin: It’s Time to Put a Man on Mars There are eight U.S. astronauts left o…CultureHow Humans Respond to RobotsThe play that coined the word “robot,” K…AestheticsTWEEN GIRL: "What's a tribble?"TWEEN GIRL: “What’s a tribble?”…
Please — Never Do This!E-Mail) This message, with the uninformative subject line “November Hours,” an empty body, and a 45K MS-Windows attachment (see tips #1, #2 and #3 of “Writing Effective E-Mail: Top 10 Tips“) went out to about 450 people By my count, this single message consumed 20MB of storage space on computers across…
I know this is probably a very uncool and politically incorrect thing to say these days, but I am going to brave it anyway. | I have wondered why, with all the briliant people writing in the different group blogs, am I not toally enchanted with them? —Torill —No Personal Touch (Thinking with My Fingers) The…
The butterfly effect has, until now, been cited only as an illustration, but Professor Jim Spanners of the Pennsylvania Institute for Making Stuff Up takes it seriously, and believes that butterflies are directly responsible for most of the world’s major problems. —Butterfly (The University of the Bleeding Obvious) Similar:What Grammar and Style Checkers MissTeaching students to…
—Sounds of History From Abbot and Costello to Malcolm X — historical audio recordings. Similar:Arsenic and Old Lace. I haven't seen this show since I played the lead as a high school ju…CultureIn November 1999, I was blogging about books, camomile tea and Skylon 4, the death of Star…In November 1999, I was blogging about…
How Amazon can make money from books you already own. We tend to think of search requests as generally taking the form of “find me something I’ve never seen before.” But real-life search is often different: You’re looking for something you have seen before, but you’ve somehow mislaid or only half-remembered. You search for your…