“Too many ?studies? and ?reports,? with tables of data in small print appended, have purported to reveal truths about welfare or policing or sex education but in fact have revealed nothing but the initial prejudices of the ?investigators.? For me, the epiphany came when I interviewed the nation‘sleading climatologists for a magazine article on acid…
—Bikini Model Photos, Before and After Retouching (Greg’s Digital Portfolio) Yes, this is a link to an attractive woman wearing a bikini — but it shows the unretouched, “before” pictures, too. A great set of photos for a gender studies class: marketers make big bucks forcing women to compare themselves to models whose bodies don’t exist.…
“I have concluded that AOL’s brand would benefit from being removed from the corporate name…” AOL executive Jon Miller —AOL Time Warner (Internal Memos) Yup, just like it’s good for the diseased limb if you cut if off from the rest of the body. This is an amusing attempt at corporate spin. He even tries to…
“Yes, the game business is increasingly reliant on movie licenses and sequels. It is less willing to take big risks, particularly in themes or audiences. But that risk aversion reflects an industry that largely is making fewer, bigger titles with absorbing, often branching narratives, well-written dialogue and much larger budgets — as much as $10…
This preoccupation with holding on to pre-college relationships would often get in the way of students forming new relationships in college. Female students seemed to fear that new friendships formed in college would lack the depth and intimacy of those friendships that took root in their growing-up years. —‘Friendsickness’ affects freshman female college students (EurekAlert) As…
“When students in Biloxi, Miss., show up this morning for the first day of the new school year, a virtual army of digital cameras will be recording every minute of every lesson in every classroom.|Hundreds of Internet-wired video cameras will keep rolling all year long, in the hope that they’ll deter crime and general misbehavior…
“As most people know by now, dictionary makers today merely record how the language is used, not how the language ought to be used. That is, lexicographers are descriptivists, language liberals. People using “disinterested” when they mean “uninterested” does not displease a descriptivist. | A prescriptivist, by contrast, is a language conservative, a person interested…
Be warned; this is a (strictly hypothetic) Google fan’s nightmare. 2014: Google, using its Geolocation feature, starts to heavily censor content for certain countries. Entering “Hitler” at Google.de returns zero results. 2015: Google buys the Yahoo! Directory and removes the DMOZ Open Directory Project. 2016: Google is successfully sued by Microsoft for spidering Windows Servers.…
Fully 80% of adult Internet users, or about 93 million Americans, have searched for at least one of 16 major health topics online. This makes the act of looking for health or medical information one of the most popular activities online, after email (93%) and researching a product or service before buying it (83%). |…
“After a user selects ?print? from the browser, the page is formatted before it is sent to the printer. The width of the layout is reduced to about 650 pixels for 8.5″ x 11″ paper, or 630 pixels for A4, assuming normal margins.|If all the elements of a page can’t wrap around to fit within…
“Information pollution is a worldwide scourge that afflicts not just travelers but everyone. In the United States, for example, you can’t buy a lawnmower without a label saying that you’re not supposed to mow your feet. |Most instruction manuals are littered with “important” warnings that caution against obvious stupidities, burying actual dangers amid a mass…
“I couldn’t help reflecting on the connection between hypertext and napalm, via Vannevar Bush…” Jonathan Delacour —As We May Incinerate (Jonathan Delacour) A fascinating exercise in connecting the dots, and a glimpse into Vannevar Bush’s “war guilt”. Similar:FBI launches flurry of arrests over attacks on journalists during Capitol riotImagine that. Nearly six months after t…Current_EventsRest assured,…
John Scalzi writes: So basically, my job: Demystify the journaling and blogging process for AOL members so they can jump in and start doing it. Encourage the writing, reading, and linking of blogs and journals on AOL and in the blogoverse. Write a kick-ass blog worth reading. Why me? Well, why not? —AOL Hires Blogger (Whatever)…
“Textual history teaches us that authors have been taking back their words for a long, long time (in the form of variants and revisions and new editions), and that ‘their’ words, as we read them on the page, might or might not originate with the person named on the title sheet. In other words (so…
“The Forever Flashlight uses no batteries or bulbs. Instead it uses Faraday’s Principle of Induction and a bright LED to produce light without batteries. The light is shaken for about 30 seconds to recharge a capacitor and it will then provide about 5 minutes of light. As the light is shaken, a magnet passes through…
I can’t remember if I cried When he cut me from his blogroll side But something touched me deep inside The day the blogging died —The Day the Blogging Died (Radio Free Blogistan) The thing about oral composition is that the oral performances aren’t archived, so people who repeat the performances for new audiences tend to…
“I still have strong reservations about removing entries but I’ve changed my mind about pretty much everything else. And while I can understand the impulse to encourage ‘accountability’, I find I’ve crossed over to Dave Winer’s side of the fence as regards ‘substantially editing (although not removing) content after having posted it to the web.’…
“I consider my using weblogs in class this summer to be, for the most part, a failure. I’m glad I tried it, but my students didn’t enjoy blogging. I even thought to myself, at some points in the semester, that maybe blogging is something someone should do because he or she wants to do it;…
“Academics are already seeking to study early games as the awakening of a potent new art form. Future developers will want to see how earlier designers approached play and mechanics — and solved complex problems using limited technology.” Suneel Ratan —Arcade Addicts Joust with Past (Wired) There was a time not too long ago when cinema…
“Rush is almost always armed for his shows with reams of data and analysis from a wide variety of news and information sources. His commentaries indicate that he has actually read his sources, thought about their meaning, and prepared his own in-depth analyses before trying to persuade audience members during his three on-air hours each…