“Just 11 years after it was born and about 6 years after it became popular, the Web has lost its luster. Many who once raved about surfing from address to address on the Web now lump site-seeing with other online chores, like checking the In box.” —As the Web Matures, Fun is Hard to Find…
“The instructions in this manual explain more about how to get fired than about how to succeed at work…. For instance, employees are asked to follow ‘rules’ that include stealing, disobedience, and excessive absenteeism (or should they have been termed ‘actions that may result in termination’?).” (Suggested by Jason Amdor.) —Worst Manual Contest (Technical Standards,…
(NPR) —100 Best Fictional Characters since 1900 Similar:Battle of New Orleans Ended 200 Years Ago TodayThe Battle of New Orleans was a series o…CultureThesis Critique Activity: Another Use of a Class-edited Google DocA few weeks ago, I had students in my up…AcademiaMy Cow Game Extracted Your Facebook DataThe Cambridge Analytica scandal is drawi…AmusingTrump administration gave Courage Award…
"Whether made by the Gap or American Eagle, a pair of khakis with a 32-inch inseam and a 34-inch waist will fit you just about the same. A Panasonic phone will plug into the jacks in your home as easily as a phone from AT&T…. Today, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology,…
2-year-old Morgan was broad-sided by a man who admitted he was distracted by his cell phone. Morgan was killed; the guy on the phone got a $50 fine and 2 tickets. —Don’t talk on the phone while driving. Similar:Details from the author's life are not the magic ticket to "correct" interpretations in li…Students who are…
(PBS) A report on the creators and marketers of popular culture for teenagers (teens talk back). —Merchants of Cool Similar:Lego goes steampunkBe still, my nerdy heart. Steampunk —…AestheticsAugust Wilson House officially opens in Pittsburgh's Hill DistrictThe August Wilson House officially opene…CultureMy #AugustWilson #Steampunk NightmareToday is my last official day teaching a…AcademiaIf you think I'm wrong…
There has always been a gap between those people and communities who can make effective use of information technology and those who cannot. Now, more than ever, unequal adoption of technology excludes many from reaping the fruits of the economy. —Digital Divide Basics Similar:Media Bias Chart (liberal, moderate, conservative; news, analysis, slanted but responsible… Ad…
It may turn out that the “digital divide”—one of the most fashionable political slogans of recent years—is largely fiction. —Debunking the Digital Divide Similar:How to fix the internet:Â If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond th… A teenager in Indonesia may not see …CyberculturePhoto of William Crowther, 2012I just noticed that…
"After one too many bad presentations, I decided to see if I could do something about it. Back in my hotel room I decided to show what Abe Lincoln might have done if he had used PowerPoint rather than the power of oratory at Gettysburg." Peter Norvig —Gettysburg Address on PowerPoint Similar:An afternoon with Ben…
“Computer technology was supposed to replace paper. But that hasn’t happened. Every country in the Western world uses more paper today, on a per-capita basis, than it did ten years ago.” —The Social Life of PaperNew Yorker) Similar:My Freshman Comp Student Didn’t Recognize the Term ‘Word Processor’Most of my students use MS-Word, but may…AcademiaText Messaging…
I have a small collection of text-based computer games that you can play via a web browser. These online versions won’t let you save and restore games, but they ought to get you started. —Interactive Fiction Online Gallery Similar:C.S. Lewis: "On the Reading of Old Books"Gearing up for teaching a new “American …Books"The Machine Stops"…
The first space colonists will probably take their faiths to the stars. The reference to “Star Trek” in the title of the article is cute, but Star Trek: The Next Generation was almost universally hostile to religious concepts (except when aliens presented them, that is). The more recent TV show Bablylon 5, although created by…
A progressive critique of Bush’s response to the 9-11 attacks, interpreting Bush in terms of George Orwell’s bleak totalitarian novel 1984: "1984 has arrived. In his address to Congress Thursday, George Bush effectively declared permanent war — war without temporal or geographic limits; war without clear goals; war against a vaguely defined and constantly shifting…
“‘Nigerian Money Offers’ zoomed from the seventh to the third most common type of online fraud last year, and the reason is obvious. In days gone by, the scammers had to canvass potential victims one at a time by fax and snail mail; now they have the speed, cost-effectiveness and anonymity of the Internet at…
"Asked by the firing squad commander if he had a last request, James Roges said, ‘Why yes. A bullet-proof vest!‘" Christopher Orlet —The Last Words (Vocabula Review) Similar:Magnetic Scrolls Original Games Source Code Recovered!Here we have possibly the only surviving…CybercultureMentoring skills, communication/listening, empathy, critical thinking define successful em…A Google self-study found that its own m…BusinessNational…
The survey, published by an organization promoting "World Book Day," probably does not count time spent in chat rooms, reading web pages as "reading", but the news item does not raise that issue. Related question: has feminism harmed boys? —Girls Read Twice as Much as Boys (BBC) Similar:"You work for the @CollegeBoard?" the bright-eyed teen…
A "collaborative hyperdrama" purports to be the archives of a young psychiatrist offering his services to the employees of a dot-com. "Through transcripts of therapy sessions, patient diaries and logs, doodles, personnel records, telephone conversations, and other written and graphical materials, the Company Therapist is designed to allow a deep exploration of its characters and…
Fine-Tuned is a free, text-based game, playable in many formats. From a review by Adam Cadre: “Not only has the author created an absolutely wonderful world, full of ‘anti-autoists,’ roving herds of goats, and fist-shaking train engineers, but it dares — and manages to pull off — a number of pieces of participatory comedy, which…
"In 1044, a Chinese manual on producing gunpowder-based weapons included cannons, bombs for lobbing at invaders, two-stage rockets, and land mines." Chinese researchers stumbled across the formula for gunpowder while researching what they called the "immortality pill". What forces control the way inventions end up being used? Mark Robinson —Accidental Geniusb> (Wired) Similar:Open Letter from…
The genius of Web sites for accommodating multiple points of view is nowhere better illustrated than in the recent on-line craze for public diaries, or “blogs.” The term is a shortening of Weblog – and also the name of the easy-to-use technology available at www.blogger.com: “Push-Button Publishing for the People.” Jeff Warren —Point and Think…