“Standing on the Earth at the base of this ‘beanstalk’ it would look unusual but simple, a cable attached to the ground and going straight up out of sight. Now even the youngest of you reading this manuscript will know that a rope can not simply hang in mid-air, it will fall. This is true…
NASA’s description of the stunning video is hardly enticing. “For the first time, a camera mounted to the space shuttle’s External Tank offered a view of the ride to orbit. In this video, the first two minutes of ascent show Space Shuttle Atlantis’ nose and belly, with one Solid Rocket Booster on the extreme left…
“For decades, responsible journalists refused even to cover public-opinion polls. Then, in a turnaround, they began to conduct them and treat their findings as hard news. Now the process has come full circle: Journalists appear to be using polls to generate the conclusions they want and to validate their own pre-existing theses and hypotheses.” Dick…
“Astronomers announced today the discovery of the largest object in the solar system since Pluto was named the ninth planet in 1930. The object is half the size of Pluto, composed primarily of rock and ice, and circles the sun once every 288 years. ” —800-Mile-Wide “Object” Found in Solar SystemNat’l Geo) Similar:Understanding Poetry INCIDENTAL…
“Last year Wooten founded The Disciples of Bob Barker in an effort to spread the joy of the beloved game show ‘The Price is Right.’ Since then, the club has gained official status [at U.Va.]. ‘I can’t believe it either,’ Club President Wooten remarked… ‘and you can quote me on that.’” —All About Bob [Barker]Cavalier…
“The magazine Lingua Franca and its parent company University Business LLC filed for bankruptcy earlier this year…. We understand that the assets of University Business, including this Website, are to be auctioned in New York City on October 24, 2002. For further information, we suggest contacting the Trustee.” —RIP Arts & Letters DailyA & L…
“America’s Army and Delta Force: Black Hawk Down are the ‘Why We Fight‘ for the digital generation. Though not explicitly doctrinaire in an ideological sense, by showing the very young how we fight, applying the moral application of lethal force on behalf of liberal values, these games create the wartime culture that is so desperately…
My freshman, or perhaps junior high, English teacher made us read [The Outsiders] for class. She evidently thought this was a ‘hip’ book to read because she could then show us the movie afterwards. Guess what book she chose not to require us to read. Catcher in the Rye, which of course we would have…
“With so many ‘real’ languages in the world, why would anybody make up another one? …Many authors create a language, or part of one at least, to flesh out their books and make them more realistic… The Star Trek series alone has spawned at least six languages: An’Dorian, Borg, Darmok, Ferengi, Vulcan (more Vulcan here),…
Among the excesses of the French Revolution: “Churches were re-consecrated as ‘Temples of Reason’, and so-called ‘revolutionary marriages’ were presided over, where priests and nuns were tied together naked, and drowned. Few of these allegedly egalitarian initiatives lasted far into the nineteenth century. By a long chalk the most durable among them was the creation…
“Just what do you do with [a] huge mass of reject Flubber??? The obvious answer was to send it to the local dump to be incinerated. This sounded like a good idea until Hasbro President Merrill Hassenfeld received a call the very next day after they hauled it away. The call was from the mayor…
Asphalt… lipstick… licorice… new car smell… Silly Putty. Where do they come from? —What’s That Stuff?Chem & Eng News) Similar:I was briefly excited that Turnitin.com's new app works in a park with no WiFiThen I realized… I’m a guy who gets ex…AcademiaLego faces are getting angrier, study findsThe headline is hype. How about “Lego fa…AestheticsMultiple…
“Some forms of money are completely unfamiliar. They may look weird and wonderful to our eyes. Or, like the axe, they might look quite familiar, but it simply would not occur to us that they could have been used as money. ” —What Is Money?British Museum) Similar:#MyNYPD Hashtag Promptly HijackedSomeone is regretting this PR move.…
“[T]he current epidemic of obesity and Type 2 diabetes is very likely the result of low fat/high carbohydrate diets vigorously promoted by governmental health authorities over the past few decades. Under any circumstances it is abundantly clear that existing dietary recommendations have failed miserably and should be carefully reexamined in the light of these developments,…
“‘Monty Python’ was full of smart and funny bits, and ‘Life of Brian’ is no exception. But the film’s core assumption is that Christianity is a vast joke conceived and fostered by muddling dupes–a notion entirely at one with the group’s bemusedly contemptuous view of human life. The Pythons were cynics, not satirists, a band…
“In a move that has millions across the Internet community frowning, Despair, Inc. today announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) had awarded them a registered trademark for the ‘frowny’ emoticon which serves as their logo. ” —Despair, Inc. Secures Official Trademark Registration for “:-(“Despair, Inc.) A good joke from 2001. They’re apparently…
“But despite the universality of URLs, we often forget that they’re not just a handy way to address network resources. They’re also valuable communication tools. They help orient users in your architecture, and can suggest whether other options are available.” Jesse James Garrett —User-Centered URL DesignAdaptivePath.com) Ironic… the URL of this article is needlessly long:…
“An Australian study on bellybutton lint, a dog-to-person translation device and an inquiry into what arouses ostriches have been recognised with Ig Nobel prizes for dubious contributions to science. The Ig Nobels, awarded annually at Harvard University as a spoof of the Nobels, recognise achievements that ‘cannot or should not be reproduced’.” Jay Lindsay —Navel…
“Better-written technical documents enable people to work with greater speed, recall, accuracy, and comfort. These qualities, when taken together, make up the usability factor. Caution: simply gathering opinions is not usability testing — you must arrange an experiment that measures a subject’s ability to use your document.” Dennis G. Jerz —Usability Testing: What is It?UWEC)…
“On the past June 15th, 2002, the US Congress officially recognized that the italian inventor Antonio Meucci is to be credited for the invention of the telephone, and not Alexander G. Bell, as so far claimed…. a poor italian immigrant in New York sold the prototypes of his invention to a Telegraph company, that later…