“The move underlines how desperate the music industry has become to staunch the flow of illegal downloads, which are beginning to devastate compact disc sales. In 2000, the 10 top-selling albums in the US sold a total of 60m copies. In 2001 that dropped to 40m, and last year it was 34m.” David Teather —US…
“Omigod, Earth’s core is about to explode, destroying the planet and everything on it! That is, unless a gigantic asteroid strikes first. Or an advanced physics experiment goes haywire, negating space-time in a runaway chain reaction. Or the sun’s distant companion star, Nemesis, sends an untimely barrage of comets our way. Or … ” Gregg…
“The world in which clothing, paint, lighting, rugs, and curtains all change colors to match (or influence) our mood is coming, but it’s some time away — a lot of technology has to be made affordable and durable before then. In the meantime, IFM and other companies are working on ways to weave touch sensors…
“Lying in the service of power, money and advancement — or simply to avoid embarrassment — is nothing new. Bill Clinton lied about having sex ‘with that woman’; Richard Nixon lied about his abuse of power during the Watergate scandal. Lyndon Johnson lied about American destroyers being attacked by the North Vietnamese in the Gulf…
“I am having trouble remembering the last time I was bored. You must realize that I’m alone with myself which is endlessly fascinating!” William Shatner —Quotable Quotes (WilliamShatner.com) Thanks for the link, Rosemary. And, while I have the attention of the Trek Classic fans, here’s James Lileks’s Best 404 Message Ever (It’s a reference to the…
“I will be teaching a Freshman English class at a medium sized public university, in a computer classroom for next semester. Every student has their own machine with an internet connection. I am thinking about using a weblog for them to post their work and critique each other. Do you guys have any other cool…
“Build great, innovative software, sell it to the users at a reasonable price, make millions of dollars, benefit humanity, retire young. And if you mistreat your users, you’ll loose them, because you have a hundred competitors. The old Silicon Valley was built on this dream, and it worked for two decades.|But this dream is nearly…
Pale Fire: Bloggers are both Kinbote and Shade (Literacy Weblog) “Jerz’s Literacy Weblog” has been classified as a “research blog,” even though I think of it as a teaching tool and memory aid. My blogging sometimes reminds me of the obsessive behavior of Professor Charles Kinbote, the protagonist in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pale Fire. Kinbote compulsively catalogues…
“Emerson was himself a sort of group blogger in The Dial, a magazine he founded with Margaret Fuller in 1840. He designed it as a compendium of the ‘good fanatics,’ like Thoreau, Alcott and Channing in his Concord circle. ‘I would not have it too purely literary,’ he wrote to Fuller, venting a blogger’s ambition.…
“It’s not every day you see your teacher naked in the technology room or posing with a cello.” — Charlotte, British schoolgirl who helped organize teacher pinup calendar for charity. —Teachers Strip off for Calendar (BBC) Uh, I should hope not, Charlotte. The pictures really aren’t that revealing, but this is still just too weird. The…
“People often throw around the terms “objective” and “subjective” when talking about the results of a usability test. These terms are frequently equated with the statistical terms “quantitative” and “qualitative”. The analogy is false, and this misunderstanding can have consequences for the interpretations and conclusions of usability tests.” Philip Hodgson —Usability Test Data (User Focus) Similar:Microsoft…
“This special language had its origins in business-speak, and began to spread when Margaret Thatcher insisted that universities should see themselves as businesses, involving ‘processes’ and ‘products’. Such language is fine for the business world, which deals with the definable and quantifiable. As long as the ‘product’ works and sells, they can use whatever language…
“This past year has seen the world of Weblogs, aka the blogosphere, grow in power and stature, if not to the general public, then to the other media. So we’ve created a graphical depiction of what I believe to be the most influential blogs, pushing the direction of media coverage and perhaps even public policy.…
“Take the Quiz now and find out where you fit on the political map!” —World’s Smallest Political Quiz (Advocates for Self-Government) I enjoyed taking this little quiz, then I played with it a little to see how it works. My own score was centrist with libertarian leanings, but I can see too many weaknesses in the…
“WatchBlog is a multiple-editor weblog broken up into three major political affiliations, each with its own blog: the Democrats, the Republicans and the Third Party (covering everything outside the two major parties).” —WatchBlog: 2004 Election News, Opinion and Commentary (WatchBlog) This looks interesting — a three-column blog — Democrat on the left side, Republican on the…
“TV3 has apologised after a graphic labelling US President George W. Bush a ‘professional fascist’ flashed up during its primetime news. | The baseline graphic, which was supposed to have promoted an upcoming weather bulletin, was aired to 360,000 viewers halfway through Wednesday night’s news.” —New Zealand Newscast Accidentally Labels Bush ‘Professional Fascist’ (NZ Herald) Similar:Russian…
“When I was studying at York, reading the plays was part of the curriculum, and then, in the summer, there were a selection of the plays performed in the street (perhaps 15?), conveniently available to watch. Now that I am at Toronto, there are still medieval play recreations regularly available to watch, since the PLS…
“In fact, our language is littered with words that once used to be brands. Escalator, pogo, gunk and heroin are all examples, as is tabloid, which was originally registered by a drugs company in 1884 and came to mean ‘small tablet’.” —Google Calls in the ‘Language Police’ (BBC) This is a light-weight riff on the observation…
The ancient ossuary (“bone box”) marked with an inscription identifying the occupant as “James, brother of Jesus” has been officially declared a fake: “The varnish covered large areas of the ossuary surface and the patina had burst through the varnish in many places. Both varnish and patina coated a rosette inscribed on the other side…
“To some, a blog is the software and the user’s experience with the software, and because of that they focus on the technology that makes blogs possible. | To others, blogs are experiential in terms of an individual’s relationship to a blog as relationship, whether as an individual or one of a community.” —Talk about…