Mr. Kazan’s achievements in theater and cinema helped define the American experience for more than a generation. For Broadway, his legendary productions included “A Streetcar Named Desire” and “Death of a Salesman.” His movie classics included “On the Waterfront” and “East of Eden.” —Elia Kazan, Influential Director, Dies at 94 (NY Times) Since the link to…
If I was to get a fake diploma, I’d pick a forger who could SPELL! But then, I have most of the real diplomas I need. Perhaps what this tells us is: if you are clever enough to figure out that a fake diploma needs to be free from typoes and look real, that means…
The nonprofit library cooperative that owns the Dewey Decimal system has filed suit against a library-themed luxury hotel in Manhattan for trademark infringement. —Dewey Decimal Owner Sues ‘Library’ Hotel (AP/Wired) Similar:The Bill That Could Save College Students $1,200 a YearFaculty who need to publish for professi…AcademiaPeter's Evil Overlord ListPeter Anspach posted this list. Here are…AmusingEpic Game…
Not only does the author give examples that avoid sexist language, it differentiates between those which are stylistically desirable and those which are stylistically awkward. The site also explains the difference between gender neutral and non-sexist language, something that could be very helpful for students trying to understand sexist language. The author asks (but does…
The House and Senate voted Thursday to grant the Federal Trade Commission explicit authority to create a national “do not call” list for telemarketers, but the move prompted a second federal judge to block the move. —‘Do not call’ list faces more hang-ups (CNN) An amusing side note… the judge who initially blocked the motion has…
The bottom line is that scholarly publishing isn’t financially feasible as a business model — never was, never was intended to be, and should not be. If scholarship paid, we wouldn’t need university presses. —The Invisible Adjunct —Crisis in Scholarly Publishing (Invisible Adjunct) Similar:31 Undeniable Truths That Journalism Majors Can All Agree OnBecause you know you…
The Invisible Library is a collection of books that only appear in other books. Within the library’s catalog you will find imaginary books, pseudobiblia, artifictions, fabled tomes, libris phantastica, and all manner of books unwritten, unread, unpublished, and unfound. —The Invisible Library I think I blogged this a long time ago. It’s not in my…
Doctor Who is coming back to BBC One in 2005. It will be a new live-action series, written by Russell T Davies. —New Doctor Who TV series (BBCi/Doctor Who News) My son Peter will be thrilled, as will my wife. She has old videotapes from her teenaged years, and pulled them out to amuse our…
—Who Buys Rainbow Hector Weblog Shares? (Blogshares) Who is deb_c and why, why did she purchase 2,500 blogshares of my Rainbow Hector Weblog just a few hours ago? According to Blogshares (fantasy blog stock market), deb_c’s homepage is www.sugarfused.com. Similar:In May, 2000, I was blogging about the 'I Love You' virus, hacking URLs, PG Wodehouse, and…In…
Teachers should teach nothing. Students should learn nothing. Students should know nothing. Nothing is worth teaching. Nothing is worth learning…. —Nothing Matters Read the whole thing — I’ve had students stop after the first section, but the whole page expresses a single unified thought that develops from the first “Nothing Matters” section. I’ve blogged this…
O proud left foot, that ventures quick within Then soon upon a backward journey lithe. Anon, once more the gesture, then begin: Command sinistral pedestal to writhe.Shakespeare’s ‘Hokey Pokey’ (Google It) Via Karissa Kilgore. Originally from a Washington Post contest. I’m sure the link has vanished by now. Similar:Unless Buzzfeed-style Clickbait Replaces all Forms of Human…
A single sheet looks pretty much like ordinary paper. But the ink can be rearranged electronically fast enough to show video movies. —Philip Ball — Electronic paper reaches video speed (Nature) Similar:Sam Shepard Giggles, Doesn't GoogleI wrote my undergraduate honors thesis o…CybercultureEffects of Internet use on the adolescent brain: despite popular claims, experimental evid…Big difference between…
There are two very different reasons why papers like the Times default to the opposing view format for covering a subject. One is that fights make good stories, and the easiest fights to cast and cover are ones with only two sides…. The second reason that journals, and journalists, default to the Opposing View format…
Microsoft is closing internet chat rooms because their misuse by spammers, paedophiles and others is damaging the reputation of its MSN service and the internet as a whole. —Chris Nutall —Microsoft to curb chat room abuses (Financial Times) Similar:Why is Elon Musk attacking Wikipedia? Because its very existence offends him So, the sight of Elon Musk…
J-Lab: The Institute for Interactive Journalism Hildy, You’re a Newspaperman: Collecting Screen Scribes (“One film I never see on anyone’s list is “Doctor X,” an uneven 1930-something thriller in which the reporter not only climbs a drainpipe to look in a window, but crawls under a sheet to impersonate a corpse (complete with toe-tag) and…
A U.S. court in Oklahoma has blocked the national “do not call” list that would allow consumers to stop most unwanted telephone sales calls, the Direct Marketing Association said on Wednesday. —Judge Blocks ‘Do Not Call’ Law (AP/Arizona Central) Breaking news. Starting next week, it would have been illegal to call people on that list. Curse…
The Keyword Variation Checker is a tool I wrote using the Google Web API. It will go through all kinds of variations of a given keyword and google the result. All that was needed is a little text-file with possible endings for a word from a free dictionary I found online. For example, the word…
In honor of Mike Arnzen’s unmasking of a plagiarist, here are a few recent blog entries on academic dishonesty: Blair Hornstine (Plagarizing Valedictorian Kicked out of Harvard) (For those who think plagiarism isn’t serious) Worse than a Plagiarist.. a SPAMMING Plagiarist! (what it feels like to have your work appropriated — the evildoers did give…
Chemtrails: 18,600 hits on Google. A lunatic fringe of dittoheads, convinced Doom is wafting down on the populace via 747s and DC-10s. A whole subculture of contrail conspiracy freaks. God bless ’em, at least they’re looking up. —Matt Rasmussen —Contrails (Orion Online) Similar:In October 2001, I was blogging about nothing, apostrophes, the anthrax scare, and Boilerp…In…
“English books and maps published through the 19th century generally spelled the country’s name as Corea, as did the British government in laying the cornerstone of its embassy in Seoul in 1890. But some time in the early 20th century, the spelling Korea began to be seen more frequently than Corea, a change that coincided…