“Merely the fact that the dirty piece of paper that wrapped the old man’s parcel was covered with Arabic writing was enough to give Mr. Sladden the ideas of romance, and he followed until the little crowd fell off and the stranger stopped by the kerb and unwrapped his parcel and prepared to sell the…
“The Java Morse code translator translates to and from Morse code and can play the Morse to you as sound. It runs on your computer and therefore is very quick.” Stephen Phillips —Java Morse Code TranslatorStephen’s Home Page) My father was a radio operator when he was in the army. He described trying to send…
I AM THE WIDOW OF THE LATE SANI ABACHA OR HEAD OF THE PAN-AFRICA BANK IN LAGOS OR EXECUTOR OF THE WILL OF THE LATE SIR WALDO POPPYSOCKS.|I AM IN THE UNFORTUNATE POSITION OF NEEDING TO MOVE $315 MILLION OF SOMEONE ELSE?S MONEY OUT OF MY COUNTRY. AS THIS IS HUGELY ILLEGAL I NEED THE…
“With millions of résumés now online, identity thieves and marketers are turning to online résumé databases to poach data such as e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other personal information.|Identity thieves have also been known to post fake job listings, then require that applicants submit additional personal data, such as social security numbers, credit card numbers…
“Despite one website creator’s plea to stay away from his site, people just can’t stand not clicking on the Don’t Go There button. The site, programmed to go dark after 100 visitors, stayed live just shy of one hour.” Michelle Delio —Keep Out Sign Irresistible OnlineWired) Similar:Colorful variations of an upholstered desk chair for my…
“On the Battersea Reach of the Thames, a mixed bag of eccentrics live in houseboats. Belonging to neither land nor sea, they belong to one another. There is Maurice, a homosexual prostitute; Richard, a buttoned-up ex-navy man; but most of all there’s Nenna, the struggling mother of two wild little girls. How each of their…
“The Lunatics, as they occasionally dubbed themselves, lived in an age when the magic of science gripped the popular imagination. Crowds flocked to demonstrations of newly discovered forces like “ELECTRICITY”?in the words of one advertisement, “that branch of Philosophy which engrosses so much Conversation everywhere.” Using strange-looking contraptions, showmen conjured “lightning” inside huge glass globes,…
“Attendance is up. Detentions are down. Just six months after Maine began a controversial program to provide laptop computers to every seventh grader in the state, educators are impressed by how quickly students and teachers have adapted to laptop technology.” Sarah Mahoney —Laptops Win Over the Skeptics, Even in MaineNY Times) According to the article,…
“We struggle with what we own today. Our fingers are already too thick and clumsy to stab the buttons on our gadgets, and, as our eyes age, we squint even harder to see the shrinking screens on our stuff.” Jefferson Graham —Hello, Tech Designers? This Stuff is Too Small.USA Today) Maybe by the time today’s…
“In much of the world, after all, the popular conception of DDT is of a dangerous and toxic chemical that pollutes water and poisons the food chain; in the United States, DDT is remembered as the pesticide that helped put bald eagles on the endangered species list. But a growing body of scientific evidence suggests…
Worth a thousand words:Bob Gillis —Starting Fire With an Ice Lens (Primitive Ways) Similar:'Facebook is simply not cool anymore' to teens, study findsTeens also don’t seem to care that Faceb…BusinessThe Trouble with Tribbles: A Television Adaptation by Richard GoreyShaenon K. Garrity – New Smithson!.AestheticsIs it okay to say clanker?Clanker is a derogatory term used to ins…CybercultureHow…
“Most writing-oriented sites are focused on one area — genre fiction, magazine writing, book publishing, newspaper journalism, etc. — ignoring the basic fact that many full-time freelancers need to multitask to earn a liveable income.” Mike Arnzen —Handy [Writing] Job HunterGorelets) Similar:Facebook's director of media tries to appease news industryFacebook’s Patrick Walker assured a room…BusinessWhen…
“Why aren’t American scientists barking? Why do they remain mute?|First, most scientists feel more comfortable in labs and classrooms than on op-ed pages and TV studios — and they have no real clue about how to go about challenging what they read and see. Second, in virtually 100 percent of cases where scientists have stepped…
“There is, alas, no scientific claim so preposterous that a scientist cannot be found to vouch for it. And many such claims end up in a court of law after they have cost some gullible person or corporation a lot of money. How are juries to evaluate them?” Here are Park’s warning signs: The discoverer…
“Richard Fletcher’s fine, concise history of early Muslim-Christian relations…. calmly and effectively disposes of the popular myth that Islam is an inherently violent and intolerant faith, while at the same time showing that Christians could not be expected to see it in any other way. He shows clearly that far from forcing their subjects to…
“This project, the Memex Simulator, examines the ideas of the Memex and implements them as faithfully to Doctor Bush’s original specifications as is possible given the small amount of information available on the as-of-yet unrealized physical design. Because of the prohibitive complexity and cost of film and hardware for a device such as the Memex,…
“Persuasion in itself is obviously not new. From Cicero’s oratory to modern TV commercials, communicators have tried to persuade audiences. What’s different is that websites and other computerized designs are going beyond one-way rhetoric and becoming interactive. For most people, doing something is much more engaging and thus potentially more compelling and persuasive than passively…
“Such manuals are written at a tenth-grade reading level on average, according to a new study, while data suggest that nearly a quarter of U.S. adults read at or below a fifth-grade level, and at least 25 percent read at about an eighth-grade level.” —Car Seat Instructions too ComplexMSNBC) Thanks for the link Mark. Similar:Richard…
“A smart shopper can buy a 5-pound bag of Gold Medal flour for 69 cents. That’s enough to feed three people for a day – 7,500 easy-to-digest, relatively nutritious, and potentially tasty calories. All for less than 0.7 percent of an average American’s income.|Compare this American to one of our ancestors half a millennium ago,…
“My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 : kids FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.”|[T]he 13-year-old’s teacher could not decipher what the youngster had written. “I could not believe what I was seeing. The page was riddled with hieroglyphics, many of which I simply…