Muppet Terror Alert

—Muppet Terror Alert (Geek and Proud) Found on Sarcasmo’s Corner Similar:Kate Upton and Ryan Gosling Explain the SequesterApparently these are two famous and phys…AestheticsifMUD IF discussion | Emily Short's Interactive StorytellingEmily Short on the limitations of parser…CybercultureRediscovering History’s Lost First Female Video Game DesignerRCA’s console never rivaled the impact o…CybercultureStudents Produce Breathtaking 3D Simulation of 17thC…

Interactive Fiction

Barriers are being destoyed at the same time as bridges are being built within the literary community just as in almost every other field affected by the almighty computer. Arguments fly on all sides especially as to what constitutes art. Progress constantly changes the determination–even when it may be that it is a subjective view,…

Grading Papers

It must be that time of the semester (no, no, Michelle, not that time): people are talking about grading student papers. —Ron Vitia —Grading Papers (Vitia) I don’t understand the in-joke referring to Michelle, but the conversation that ensues is good. Via Clancy on KairosNews. Similar:The Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our ImaginationsPossibly, in a few months, we’ll…

Neil Postman, Mass Media Critic, Dies

A note from C.M. Worth reminds me to blog that Neil Postman, author of Amusing Ourselves to Death died this weekend. —Neil Postman, Mass Media Critic, Dies (NY Times) Similar:Power Play (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 15) Troi, Data and O'Brien Take Host…Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise foll…CultureDress Rehearsal for "My Son Pinocchio"My wife, daughter, and…

High-tech targets bad bar customers

Once the system is in place, patrons will be asked to stand in front of a camera to have their picture taken and will then swipe their drivers’ licence, or possibly show some other form of identification, that will automatically give the establishment the patron’s name and age and show if he or she has…

Rael's Clones a Hoax?

Raelians have made fun of the media that gave such extensive coverage to their cloning story. —Brigitte McCann —Rael’s Clones a Hoax? (Calgary Sun) This article refers to the burst of media attention this odd sect got over claims that a human had been successfully cloned. Similar:Fox News, accused of manipulating news images, relabels them as…

Are the News Media Too Liberal?

Forty-five percent of Americans believe the news media in this country are too liberal, while only 14% say the news media are too conservative. These perceptions of liberal inclination have not changed over the last three years. A majority of Americans who describe their political views as conservative perceive liberal leanings in the media, while…

Keeping a Lid on Your Blog

A very outgoing young man in my class (“Troy”) keeps a blog (Internet diary) about his schoolwork, partying, and politics. As I read his entries, including his grousing about my class, I tell myself that I am not eavesdropping, and that he is entitled to write whatever he likes in a public forum. Yet his…

Grading Congress

[T]he recipients of higher education (along with the parents whose experience is 30 years out-of-date if they had one) do not know in advance what they need. If they did, they wouldn’t need it, and what they often want, at least at the outset, is an education that will tax their energies as little as…

Wanted: A Legible Voting Ballot

A study carried out by USA Today and seven other newspapers in 2001 concluded that faulty design, not punch-card machines, was responsible for voters’ confusion in Palm Beach County in 2000. Despite this finding, states have focused their election-reform energies on upgrading old punch-card machines to optical-scan systems or on implementing electronic voting. They have…

Mental Ability Linked To Survival Age

A person’s mental ability as a child could well be an indicator of their chances of surviving to a ripe old age, according to a landmark study which has followed up on surveys carried out in the first half of the last century. —David Salt —Mental Ability Linked To Survival Age (Discovery) Similar:My Anti-Linkbait Pledge: Cynical…

Blog has become former actor's portal into new career

News makers have always had ways of getting their news and views before the public. Often with the help of public-relations professionals, they’ve held press conferences, issued statements, offered interviews. In the past decade, they’ve created Web sites, though those pages have usually contained public-relations puffery, not candid communications.|Recently, a few forward-thinking news makers have…

Proto-Indo-European Culture

Dear Dennis: Rosemary asked me to pass on the following passage from J.P. Mallory’s “In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archeology and Myth” (which is actually a good book). “Our review of Proto-Indo-European culture omits volumes that have been written about the reconstructed vocabulary, since much falls under the category of predictable phenomena or else…

Movie Posters Redone in Lego

—Movie Posters Redone in Lego Similar:IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE — Berkeley Rep audio productionSinclair Lewis’s 1935 anti-fascist novel…CultureGiving Obsolete Books an Afterlife as Theatre PropsOnce, someone really cared about these o…AestheticsMore Evidence that Choosing a Typeface Is ImportantAestheticsWhile at Sadecky's Puppets to record the role of Heidi, Carolyn met a new friend.We spent Sunday afternoon…

The Blogging Iceberg

Apparently the blog-hosting services have made it so easy to create a blog that many tire-kickers feel no commitment to continuing the blog they initiate. In fact, 1.09 million blogs were one-day wonders, with no postings on subsequent days. The average duration of the remaining 1.63 million abandoned blogs was 126 days (almost four months).…

Rock Paper Scissors Championships

Noticed that you had written about our site, The World Rock Paper Scissors Society (www.worldrps.com) on your blog before and thought you may be interested in the upcoming 2003 Rock Paper Scissors International World Championships taking place on October 25th. Couple notes about the Championships: – We have built a new Championship specific site at…

Degree Confluence Project

What does it look like at exactly 25 degrees N, 8 degrees E? What about the other places on the globe where latitutde and longitude lines intersect? Find out at Confluences. —Degree Confluence Project (Orbitals) Link via Rosemary Frezza, who also sends this BBC article: “A Unique Picture of the World.” Similar:The dress we ordered for…