“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…
Despite its high visibility, I have not been able to authenticate “May you live in interesting times” as an ancient Chinese curse. —Stephen E. DeLong —Get a(n Interesting) Life I am tempted to comment “Somebody has too much time on his hands,” but the irony of typing that into my weblog would probably be too…
Here I was in a place where the jungle goes all the way to the ocean, with only a strip of beach dividing the two. Sand crabs, hermit crabs, and crab crabs skitter across the path, and lizards are pretty common. If you look up you likely see white faced monkeys, and iguana are common…
“A Sept. 21 item in the Metro in Brief column about a woman fatally shot in Prince George’s County and a child who was wounded incorrectly reported the woman’s age, the child’s sex, the child’s location at the time of the shooting, and the street on which the shooting occurred. A correct account of the…
I had to laugh; well, of course this is why the Saudis hate us. Look at this: a beer garden, games of chance, rock music, hot dogs, teen girls with bare midriffs, purple hair, exposed bra straps and you-go-Jesus! baseball caps – and it’s a Catholic Church Fair. Of course, this is why I love…
It’s true — we learn far more than we are ever able to use…. This may seem harmless, but does it, in fact, hinder our ability to produce? Does all this learning and all the attention span we spend on new technologies detract from what we should be doing in the here and now? How…
I spend an awful lot of time reading textbooks and novels and student papers — and I have sacrificed reading and writing about the art and craft of teaching. I want to more self-consciously research and study pedagogy, learning from the experiences and speculations of others. Even the very definition of the “scholarship of teaching”…
The [1938 Homes & Gardens] article depicts Hitler in glowing terms, such as the “Squire of Wachenfeld,” and extols him as a talented architect, decorator and raconteur who “delights in the society of brilliant foreigners, especially painters, singers, and musicians.” —Old Hitler Article Stirs Debate (Wired) The above article provides some context for what came across…
For the last few months, I have been pondering the question why the present Pope is so keen on making saints — at least 465 at the last count and some 1,300 beatifications, more than all the canonisations and beatifications in the preceding 400 years. —Anne Sebba —Go Straight to Heaven (Spectator) Once again, satire mazine…
The fact is, in science fiction you can have any kind of reading experience you want–the highest art of the word, pure escapism, rattling good stories, dreamy tea drinkers musing on matters of great significance. Explore your favorite political/moral/religious stance. It’s the literature of ideas, isn’t it? —Rose of Charon —SF’s Death Greatly Exaggerated (Rose of…
Comments can now be made on weblog entries. Come on, post a comment and help break the system in! Comments Added to Weblog! (Will Gayther) This entry posted by Will Gayther Similar:Presenting at #NEMLA session 8.1 Friday. “Hacking English: Examining a multimedia sandbox …Academia4 Skills to Help You Stand Out In Any Job InterviewAn employer will…
Look, I don’t believe in the journalist as hero, because I think that wherever we go, and whatever degree of resolve that may be required of us, there are always much, much braver people than us. I travel in a suit of armor. I work for The New York Times. That means that I have…
…I thought [blogs] were stupid and confusing, but now that I have my own, I think its very fun, and its not that hard, I do suppose I’ll get used to it and perhaps eventually I will become and expert. Its nice to know I am not the only one that thought it was confusing.…
I took this photo from my next door neighbor’s front yard. How do I contact the power company about down power lines. It won’t be long before that line comes down. If there is a special number for down or damaged power lines. If so, please email the number or web link to me. —Richard…
Thoughts on Language in the Blogosphere Some thoughts I’m putting together for a paper… In the Blogosphere, one set of emotionally charged terms such as “link love” and its assorted extensions (“link slut,” “link whore”) emphasize proximity and interface. Blog A bestows “link love” on blog B by creating a hyperlink that encourages readers to…
Twice in the last 10 minutes, people have interrupted me with telephone calls, once to admonish me for missing a meeting and again to remind me about another one this afternoon. My syllabus isn’t quite done yet but a student has just e-mailed me for a copy of it. The computer in my office is…
Everyone should agree that good AI certainly creates more enjoyable games (see Barney in Half-Life). This is probably a correlative of the fact that bad AI ruins some games. But query: does smart AI create better communities? | Of course, real-life bots are the subject of a vast amount of pop literature. Asimov is a…
Well, after hours and hours and hours and hours and hours….of work, I’ve finally found a css layout that: Allows the weblog content to appear in the html file before the menu. I don’t know if this will actually help – see * below. Is about 60% the size of your original index.jsp file (mostly…
We write on paper, but we write to a magnetic disk (or tape). Part of what the preposition contributes here is a sense of interiority; because we cannot see anything on its surface, the disk is linguistically refigured as a volumetric receptacle, a black box with a closed lid. —Matthew G. Kirshcenbaum —Write To (MGK) Thus…
I add entries to various writing-charts like an accountant keeps a ledger book (and I do keep a ledger or sorts, too, for all my writing income and expenses). Why? Because no one else will…. There are lists that everyone should keep and others that some of just keep because we’re odd. To each his…