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:Should your grieving mum see your digital secrets?A US state has passed…
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:Phoenix journalist admits 'bad reporting' in claiming White House press censorshipNEWS FLASH: If your sources are an off-t…Current_EventsCode of Honor (ST:TNG Rewatch — Season 1, Episode 3) Rehashed Amok Time plot 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:Operation War DiaryOne hundred…
“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:The Trouble With Online EducationI’ve taught an online “Video Game Cultur…AcademiaIn March 2000, I was blogging about Palm…
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:xkcd: Pathogen ResistanceThis is just an excerpt. Read the whole …AmusingWhere is the comma in "God Rest…
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:Richard Halloran / Owns Home Computer.“Engineers now predict the day will come…AmusingLearning How to Love My Daughter Image description: A teen girl in a …CultureActors Fail to Distract…
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:Kittenwar”May the cutest kitten win…” –Kittenw…AestheticsHow do I…
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:What Jonson meant…
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…
September 11, 2001.It’s been six months since Similar:The lesson of Rolling Stone and UVA: protecting victims means checking their stories It is a depressing certainty that th…Current_EventsAnalysis | President Trump is losing his war with the mediaMy Media Aesthetics students are studyin…Current_EventsNASA has flown a drone on Mars. A tiny robot. A flying robot. On.…
If they throw this renegade hacker hero in jail, it’ll be the first time he’s had a steady place to stay in five years. —He Hacks by Day, Squats by Night (Wired) Similar:Journalism is doing just fine, thanks — it’s mass-media business models that are ailingHmm… I warn my freshmen not to use the…BusinessEmily Short's…
: "No more blog blog blog!" — line not quite spoken by Captain Kirk ("Miri," Star Trek). —William Shatner’s Weblog Similar:Pittsburgh in the Round review of The Outsiders”It’s due to a slew of rich, physically …BooksTheatre Crowd Mustn't Be Bitter The entertainment industry seem…CultureData's Day (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 11)Rewatching ST:TNG after a…
"Not telling someone where you got your information from is a kind of power stroke, effectively sealing your book off from any possible scrutiny, debate or challenge." Kathryn Hughes —The re-vision thing: Why are contemporary biographers and historians so afraid of footnotes? (Guardian) Similar:Pesky journalists, always showing up to document atrocities.No Democratic president should send…
In 1085, William the Conqueror commissioned the Domesday Book. In 1986, the BBC spent £2.5 million to create an electronic version. While William’s original is still in fine shape, there are no computers capable of reading the laser discs on which the BBC version was published. —Ancient Domesday Book Outlives Electronic Versionb> (Ananova) Similar:Down with…
(ZDNet) "The only way to explain Microsoft’s decisions over the past couple of years is to say that they know their packaged software business is doomed," says open-source advocate Eric Raymond. —Cheap PCs will doom Microsoft Similar:My mother-in-law invited me to try out the 60- year-old tape machine that belonged to my f…My mother-in-law invited…