“Trying to compare the blurbs on a book of poetry to the contents is like trying to compare a description of angel wings to actual angel wings. The blurbs employ extravagantly unverifiable descriptions of the contents (what is ?intensely somatic?? a ?one-hundred ring verbal circus?? who says it‘s?brilliant? and why?) to contents that are themselves…
“This time around, many observers predict that the U.S. will also deploy viruses, government-trained hackers, and special electromagnetic pulse bombs to knock out Iraq’s computers and other sensitive electronic equipment. But if the U.S. wants to cut off Iraq’s access to the Internet, it need only give a nod to operators of a satellite farm…
“The great majority of the readers who adore the warm and relaxing bath of their accustomed New Yorker were very upset by the ‘shock treatment’ of my covers. Those readers will feel more at ease with the calm and submissive New Yorker of the tradition which, since the 1920s, mixed intelligence, sophistication, snobbery, and complaisance…
“The mood at the Game Designers Conference this year was, fundamentally, one of despair. To even the blindest apologist for the silly, if monstrous, construct the game industry has become, the handwriting on the wall was clear. Ten years ago, you could find a dozen publishers to pitch to; today, perhaps five. And of the…
“dad@hvn,ur spshl.we want wot u want&urth2b like hvn.giv us food&4giv r sins lyk we 4giv uvaz.don’t test us!save us!bcos we kno ur boss,ur tuf&ur cool 4 eva!ok?” Matthew Campbell —RFather: The Lord’s Prayer as a Text MessageShip of Fools) Similar:Twitter changes strategy in battle against internet 'trolls'Reducing the reach of abusive tweets is …BusinessIf You’re…
“The Ark – setting virtual sail on Easter Sunday – is billed as 40 days and 40 nights of games, challenges, topical discussions and arguments about mucking out the gorillas: “Theology meets showbiz meets cowpats – and there are no lifeboats”….Dallying with kitsch low culture – far from debasing the Church – could be the…
Granddaddy blogger Dave Winer has moved from Silicon Valley to Harvard, where he will head up a major initiative to use blogs in an academic setting. The Harvard Crimson has a small article; see also CNET and Business Today. I haven’t blogged this for some time becuase I was looking for a really good article…
“Spam is the best kind of email to get, because you look at it quickly, see that it’s spam, and delete it. Then you get back to work. Personal email is the second best kind of email to get, because you either respond quickly (“Hi Jane, great hearing from you. See you at the club…
“The unread American books in our collection, along with those from Germany and France and Italy and Mexico, still look brand-new. But even a 4-year-old English hardback has warped covers, a binding that snaps like a saltine when you open it, and pages so brittle and brown that the act of pulling it from the…
“Nobody expects Google, or any index, to be perfect, since the Web is growing and changing so fast and many parts of it are generated from databases and therefore essentially impossible for a search engine to find or classify. | However, researchers at the highly-respected Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University have…
“A secretive team of AOL Time Warner executives has begun talking with other major cable operators and media companies about speeding up and co-opting the potential revolution that TiVo kicked off. The company’s system, called Mystro TV, is AOL Time Warner’s gambit in an imminent battle over the future of the television business….While a program…
“The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views. Much of the US media’s reaction to France and Germany’s intransigence on the Iraqi war issue has verged on the xenophobic, even in the so-called ‘respectable’ press. Some reporting has verged on…
“[H]abitual early exposure to TV violence is more strongly linked with aggression later in life than other factors often cited as leading causes, such as IQ, social-economic status and parental TV viewing.” Peter Calamai —New warning on TV violence: Early viewing, adult aggression linked; Study criticizes entertainment industryThe Star) Here’s a nice touch, that you…
NASA has released an orbital image from an impact crater on the Yucatan Peninsula, reportedly from the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs: “The existence of the impact crater, Chicxulub, was first proposed in 1980. In the 1990s, satellite data and ground studies allowed it to gain prominence among most scientists as the long sought-after “smoking…
“Phrases like the population bomb and the population explosion breed racism. Few Americans know that, on average, woman round the world have less than three children each. They don’t breed like rabbits. And by 2050 a majority of the world’s population will be likely to live in countries with fertility levels below what demographers regard…
“Searls and Weinberger are hippies, and they see a Free and Open Internet as a key building block of a free and open world, in much the way that Timothy Leary saw LSD in a previous generation. They’re concerned that commercial interests will spoil their metaphor through misunderstanding, and somehow pervert it into a tool…
“The president of a California college is sending a letter to President Bush apologizing for an instructor who gave students extra credit for writing anti-war missives to the White House. | ‘Students were clear in their understanding that they would only receive credit if they wrote ‘protest’ letters…’ ” Lou Marano —College to Apologize to…
“In the fall of 1958 Theodore Kaczynski, a brilliant but vulnerable boy of sixteen, entered Harvard College. There he encountered a prevailing intellectual atmosphere of anti-technological despair. There, also, he was deceived into subjecting himself to a series of purposely brutalizing psychological experiments — experiments that may have confirmed his still-forming belief in the evil…
“Twenty Broadway theaters fell dark tonight, as more than 1,000 musicians and actors took up picket signs and went on strike to protest producers’ attempts to reduce the minimum number of orchestra players at each musical.|From “Rent” to “The Producers” to “Chicago” to “Hairspray,” the biggest moneymakers on Broadway closed down.” Michael Powell and Christine…
“Yesterday I had midterm grading conferences with my journalists. (Just for the record, I abhor grades, for a list of reasons too long to post here.) It was interesting to me how Web logs have changed the whole process, and it has me thinking more seriously about the assessment issues that come along with this…