“‘Frog sex malformities linked to weedkiller, study says’ was a popular media story last week. University of California junk scientist Tyrone Hayes once again tried to link the widely used herbicide atrazine with deformed frog sex organs and allegedly declining frog populations. Hayes’ one-page write-up of his latest scary ‘research’ appeared in the Halloween issue…
“CNN sucks. It’s not even news anymore; it’s entertainment. I was trying to watch the news the other day when I decided to turn on CNN and 45 minutes later I came away with the following facts: Actress Winona Ryder has been charged with shop lifting. It’s shark week on the Discovery Channel. The world…
“If you work in an office with lots of people, chances are that you work with a person who hangs pictures up that their kids have drawn. The pictures are always of some stupid flower or a tree with wheels. These pictures suck; I could draw pictures much better. In fact, I can spell, do…
—How Catholics Know They’re Driving Too Fast (Peugot?) Sent by Rosemary Frezza. Thanks for the laugh! Similar:Writing Computer Games with InklewriterIf brass lanterns or slathering-fanged g…Cyberculture'Fontgate': Microsoft, Wikipedia and the scandal threatening the Pakistani PMI would call this “typefacegate,” but th…CultureAnother visit to downtown Pittsburgh with my history-loving son.CultureStudents say they prefer lectures, but "active…
A recent marketing research poll suggests that marketing research polls are a waste of time, since “people don’t know and can’t know how and why they do things.” —Marketing Polls a Waste of Time?Marketing Research News) Note: There’s a huge difference between a poll (in which you simply ask people’s opinions) and usability testing (in…
“Postmodern Pooh is intended to satirise not just a few celebrity critics, but the kind of critical writing that academics and students generally tend to come up with today – evasive, incomprehensible, and making enormous, unjustified claims for the power of texts and language. ” Sandy Starr reviews Frederick Crews’s Postmodern Pooh —Pooh-Poohing PostmodernismSpiked) I…
Watch a family change over 27 years: “On June 17th, every year, the family goes through a private ritual: we photograph ourselves to stop a fleeting moment, the arrow of time passing by.” Diego Golberg —Diego TimeZone Zero) Similar:Theatre Crowd Mustn't Be Bitter The entertainment industry seem…CultureFour Academic Plagiarists You've Never Heard Of: How Many…
“[A]udience members exposed to slow-downloading pages and then given the opportunity to freely browse the Web were more active in their investigations. They tried more hyperlinks and visited more sites than audience members who viewed pages with faster initial download speeds. In the past, such behavioral and physiological impacts were understood only as a result…
“Herschel, the article declared, had established a ‘new theory of cometary phenomena’; he had discovered planets in other solar systems; and he had ‘solved or corrected nearly every leading problem of mathematical astronomy.’ Then, almost as if it were an afterthought, the article revealed Herschel’s final, stunning achievement. He had discovered life on the moon.”…
“Flags that ripple on the airless Moon, discrepancies in the part numbers of lunar lander components, shadows that point in the wrong direction, the lack of stars seen in the sky – these are all ‘facts’ that have fuelled the conspiracy theory.” —NASA Challenges Moon Hoax ClaimsBBC) My grandfather was convinced that the moon landings…
Since its invention in 1985, the best-selling computer game has robbed numerous addicts of sleep as they race to fit falling blocks together. Now reformed player Erik Demaine and his colleagues at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston have proven how thorny the puzzle really is. —Maths Prove Tetris is HardNature) Similar:Candyland is a masterpiece…
“Everyone admits that polygraphs are unreliable. So why are government employees subjected to tests that can ruin their careers?” Brendan I. Koerner —Lie Dectector RouletteMother Jones) Similar:Reflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an “In…CultureHow to DisagreeIf we’re all going to be disagreeing mor…EssaysWe don’t need more STEM majors. We need…
From reason 5:”I’ve heard of teams using all their planning time doing research (typically resulting in a panic attack when specs are due), when instead they should be using at least half of their planning time generating ideas and prototypes and applying the research to actual new decisions.” From reason 13: “There is a difference…
“Many people believe that the general use of the term ‘man’ is offensive, or at least inaccurate. Phrases like ‘no man is an island’ or ‘every man for himself’ seem to exclude women. Unless your goal is to offend or annoy your audience, you should follow the conventions they expect.” D.G. Jerz —Gender-neutral LanguageUWEC) While…
“Last year, I decided to dive headfirst into the realm of the unwashed masses by attending a professional football game. What better way to experience the hive mind than by communing with 70,000 drunken, frostbitten Americans who are only too happy to blow their meager wages cheering on their date-raping, steroid-enhanced gridiron heroes?” —I’ll Try…
“The Media Lab’s main goal, obviously, is to create a working environment that early-’90s corporate guru Tom Peters called ‘WOW!’ Both the lab’s aesthetics (rooms full of Legos!) and its guiding principle (have fun!) reminded me of a fantastic dot-com during the boom years, albeit without the free food and soda.” Annalee Newitz —Techsploitation: The…
Publish as fact only that which you believe to be true. If material exists online, link to it when you reference it. Publicly correct any misinformation. Write each entry as if it could not be changed; add to, but do not rewrite or delete, any entry. Disclose any conflict of interest. Note questionable and biased…
“Often, sites present what appears to be objective information, but they actually have a commercial motive. Researchers cited the example of a life insurance site that purports to offer objective rate comparisons, but instead only functions as a referral site for agents of the company that operates it.” —Study: Net Credulity Gap GapesWired) See the…
“Jonathan Harris, the flamboyantly fussy actor who portrayed the dastardly, cowardly antagonist Dr. Zachary Smith on the 1960’s sci-fi show ‘Lost in Space,’ has died. He was 87.” —Danger Will Robinson! Jonathan Harris Dies!CNN) Similar:Good example of ‘do NOT remove things from photos.’Hat tip to my former student Kiley Fisch…BusinessNew Data Shatters Video Game Player…
“Fifty to ninety percent of the world’s languages are predicted to disappear in the next century, according to the The Rosetta Project, a collaborative, open-source endeavor by language specialists and native speakers around the world who are creating a ‘near permanent’ archive of the world’s languages. ” Kendra Mayfield —Word Up: Keeping Languages AliveWired) Similar:Technology's…