"Mr. Lomax was a musicologist, author, disc jockey, singer, photographer, talent scout, filmmaker, concert and recording producer and television host. He did whatever was necessary to preserve traditional music and take it to a wider audience." (Jon Pareles) —Folklorist Alan Lomax Dies (NY Times) Similar:Facebook paid Teen Vogue to run a fake article praising Facebook…
“Weblogs are growing up…. They’re not yet fully utilized in the news industry, but elsewhere weblogs are a common and widely used new piece in the Internet publishing puzzle.” Weblogs: Put Them to Work in Your Newsroom (Poynter Inst.) The social and literary importance of the weblog phenomenon extends far beyond commenting on the news,…
“Usability expertise is mainly an issue of talent and experience rather than theory. Much of usability work requires pattern matching, which is why it’s so dependent on brain power and past experience: Once you observe slight traces of a usability issue in users’ behavior, you must deduce the underlying implications for design.” Jakob Nielsen —Becoming…
Yahoo has admitted that it has been changing some of the words inside attachments accompanying messages sent to users of its web-based e-mail system. —Yahoo Admits Mangling E-MailBBC) Similar:She feels pretty at the dress rehearsal (opens Thursday)On the ride home, in the middle of a spi…AmusingNo, the AHCA Doesn't Make Rape a Preexisting ConditionA Republican…
"The Internet makes it ungodly easy now for people who wish to be lazy," says a librarian in this article about the pitfalls of relying on the Internet for research. —Point. Click. Think? (WashPost) You can often find good information online, but novices should know how to recognize a peer-reviewed journal. Similar:Canada's Globe and Mail…
"In an age of big-budget titles and state-of-the-art technology, Skotos wants to revive the old text genre." Brad King [See also the sidebar: "Games Started Off Without a Bang."] —No Bells, No Whistles: Just Games (Wired) Similar:Frisbee is a brand name, but how newsworthy is that?What would you do? Today I wrote 192 …AcademiaOn the…
"In an amazingly short time, software has become critical to almost every aspect of modern life… Yet much software simply doesn’t work reliably." Charles C. Mann —Why is Software So Bad? (MIT Tech Review) Similar:The chief engineer does not know where the floating lamps are coming from, but he looks gr…AestheticsFacebook "Grid View." Is this…
"Seniors in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease, with mild to moderate memory loss, are writing Web logs to help them make sense of their daily lives. And the activity, they say, is slowing the onset of their symptoms." Mark Baard —Blog to Cope With Alzheimer’s Fog (Wired) Similar:Internet Explorer and Murder Rates: More Fun…
“Design matters, but which design is preferable depends upon the occasion, the context, and above all, upon my mood… Why do I own several teapots? Because I like them.” Don Norman —Emotion and Design: Attractive Things Work Better (jnd.org) Similar:Prototypes in Technical Writing: What are They?Many a high school student has muddled t…AcademiaAI is better…
"The phrase ‘Half the world has never made a phone call’ or some variation thereof has become an urban legend, a widely believed but unsubstantiated story about the nature of the world." Clay Shirky —Half the World shirky.com) Similar:Let’s Make the Academic Job Market More HumaneIt’s been decades since I’ve had the “I’…AcademiaWhat Happens When…
"This site is a repository for pictures of do not enter signs. Since this is one of many international roadsigns the collection is diverse in geographical context." James Canavan —Do Not Enter!donotenter.com) Similar:Karate, Wonton, Chow Fun: The end of 'chop suey' fonts Close your eyes and imagine the font y…AestheticsCarolyn will portray Cosette Saturday at…
(The Economist) “…goes roughly as follows. The QWERTY design (patented by Christopher Sholes in 1868 and sold to Remington in 1873) aimed to solve a mechanical problem of early typewriters. When certain combinations of keys were struck quickly, the type bars often jammed.” But the real problem is that “economists seem to adopt bogus anecdotal…
"n d beginning God creatD d heaven & d earth. & d earth wz w/o form, & void; & darkness wz upon d face of d deep. & d Spirit of God moved upon d face of d H2Oz. & God z, Let der b light: & der wz light." [See Wired article on the…
"[T]hey ship 45,000 copies, and only 15,000 of the games allow you to proceed past the beach. That’s it. No refunds, either. You get off the landing craft; your screen goes black; your computer seizes up and cannot be rebooted. Game over, man." James Lileks —Good Definition of a “Realistic” War Game (The Bleat) Similar:Journalism…
Richard S. Wallace has created Alice, an artificial life form that gets along with people better than he does. —Approximating Life (NY Times — registration req’d) Similar:Tom Wayman's FAQ on "Did I Miss Anything?"I’ve long been a fan of Tom Wayman’s poe…AcademiaRequiem for the NewsroomWhen I worked at a radio news station in…CultureInternet Explorer cheated…
"[U]sers—confounded by too many choices—fail to take advantage of their office equipment’s power-saving features." —One researcher’s unlikely crusade: to overthrow the on/off button. (Technology Review) Similar:The Staying Power of "A Christmas Carol" — Dennis Jerz, for WAOB Audio Theatrehttps://youtu.be/_US-PnhJ5FU What mak…Books31 Undeniable Truths That Journalism Majors Can All Agree OnBecause you know you have the…
The Method of Lies vs. the Method of Truth: “The sincerity of the propagandist is no protection; some of the worst excesses in history were engineered by persons motivated by zealous belief.” Julian Simon Note particularly the (unsourced) quotation from Stephen Schneider, describing how environmental scientists manipulate the media in order to get attention: “[W]e…
“It’s very enjoyable to visit a website that works, where everything just clicks for you. In contrast, a user interface that doesn’t do things the way you want feels sluggish, unpleasant, and possibly even hostile, despite the designer’s no doubt sincere attempt to invoke positive emotions.” Jakob Nielsen —User Empowerment and the Fun Factor (Alertbox) Similar:A…
“Despite the best efforts of poets, emotions are largely beyond words, and this is another reason why, in Kagan’s view, psychology and psychiatry have stalled.” Peter Watson —Why Psychology has FailedNew Statesman) Similar:Notes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh CycleI first taught Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle…AcademiaThrough the Looking Glass #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 3, Episode 19) Sisko…
“When Socrates was asked where he came from, he did not say, ‘From Athens’, but ‘From the world’, an attitude that our own reading and travels may encourage.” Alain de Botton —A Journey and a Book are Perfect Companions (Times Online) Similar:This Is Your Brain on WritingWhen I teach creative writing, I notice …HealthReading-Is-Fundamentalists Slaughter…