"…in the past three months, the pent-up thirst for knowledge and modern skills has transformed the capital. Dozens of storefront language and computer skills centers have sprung up, and last week several thousand young people showed up to take entrance exams at the newly revived university." —With War Over, Afghans Battle Ignorance (WashPost) Similar:Google engineer…
My student Matt Hoy sent me this link. Thanks, Matt! —Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Similar:Web Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers: Four MovesThe confirmation bias describes the very…AcademiaOnce again, The Onion gets it right: Clinton Not Expecting To Collect White House Security…Once again, The Onion gets it right. …AmusingAmong today’s major professional accomplishments: installing this hook. #springbreakMy…
(New Yorker) Manhattan treasure hunt: "Across the street, a writer for ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ and a crossword virtuoso named Ellen Ripstein are scrutinizing graffiti in a phone booth. Catercornered to them, the editor of the Wall Street Journal crossword is standing beside a professional palindromist who is riffling through a bin of…
"The history of teaching teems with machines that have jammed and stained. Who can forget that buried next to the ditto are the old-fashioned 8and 16-millimeter film projectors?" —Jamming Together: Remembering the Dittob> (Chronicle) Similar:Why Student Athletes Continue to FailWhen student athletes were asked how muc…AcademiaBuzz Aldrin: It’s Time to Put a Man on Mars…
No, he was not squashed by a falling safe or run over by an Acme Indestructo Steel Ball. Jones created the Road Runner and Coyote cartons. Rules from that series: “No dialogue ever, except ‘beep beep.” “No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products.”…
A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards and forwards: "Madam, I’m Adam." Nick Montfort & William Gillsepie have written a whole palindrome story. —2002: A Palindrome Story Similar:What's a Snollygoster? Even lexicographers are wrong sometimesThis is an amusing little story about ho…CultureUnearthing a Long Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds…
“The day I came home for Christmas vacation my parents and I were sitting in the kitchen, I looked at them and said, ‘I’m pregnant. Just kidding, I want to change my major.’” Jeanine Savageau —Changing Majors: Junior Realizes Journalism Isn’t for Her (UWEC Spectator; registration required) Similar:When Asking the Question is Part of the News…
“The year 2002. The 20th day of the 2nd month, 2002. And, on the 24-hour clock, at two minutes after 8 p.m., harmony. 2002.” —2002 2002 2002 (Toronto Star) Similar:How dual loyalties created an ethics problem for Chris Cuomo and CNN An editorial on on the firing of CNN’s…Current_EventsThe Abomination of Ebooks: They Price People Out…
"Traditional publishers… couldn’t understand his willingness to surrender his ‘authority’ over his own work by letting others participate. Nor could they understand his desire to ‘devalue’ his copyright by posting a whole book online." —A Footnote to E-book History (Wired) Similar:Eric Bentley, Critic Who Preferred Brecht to Broadway, Dies at 103One of the few harsh…
“Alongside the boom, however, there have recently been a few faint signs of backlash. As increasing hordes take on the task of trying to keep new sites looking nice, sounding original and free from banalities, more hordes just seem to fail.” —Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog (Wired) Similar:Captain, the Fake News Detectors are Offline! Slate…
“…I think the wonder of our aesthetic or religious sense, or musicality, is increased by the fact that it depends on three pounds of jelly in our head.” —Interview with Oliver Sacks (neurologist and novelist) Similar:Son took out trash w/o being asked; daughter wore papercraft tophat to grocery store. Life…I took my daughter to an…
“I was eight years old when my parents bought these for me, and I can still remember those chewy little peanut butter sticks more vividly than almost anything else from my childhood. I’ve wanted more of them for three decades!” —Space Food Sticks Similar:Star Trek The Original SeriesAmazing mural. Amazing. …AestheticsA WWII Propaganda Campaign…
Kathleen, I wanted to do this in this most potentially embarassing way possible, and I figured doing it here and now, in front of a quarter of a million strangers was as good a way as any. CmdrTaco —Geek in Love (Slashdot) Similar:Google worker says he was fired for blowing whistle on cultA former Google…
A short series of philosophical exercises, in a futuristic setting, which asks you to evaluate different definitions of personal identity. (Do you step into a spacecraft that has a 50% chance of killing you, or have your whole body scanned, destroyed, and re-constructed somewhere else three minutes later?) At the end, your choices are analyzed.…
“I have lost all touch with reality, and only live to comment on the comments that other bloggers have made in reference to my notes about their comments. Is anybody out there?” —Blog ad Nauseam (The Weekly Standard) Similar:Avoid static, wordy nominalization. Prefer compelling verbs.New graphic for a handout I first posted…EssaysI Never Would Have…
“It may sound far-fetched, but a U.S. federal court will hear preliminary arguments next week to determine if this most elemental of Internet activities is the business property of a lone company, protected in the form of a patent.” —British Company Claims Patent on Hyperlinks (Wired) Similar:'Fontgate': Microsoft, Wikipedia and the scandal threatening the Pakistani…
What’s it like interviewing college students at job fairs? "What a snooze. By the sixth interview of the day I vow that I’ll hire anyone who can make me remember their name, and I’ll sign over my 401(k) to any candidate who can make me laugh." Erin Cronin —Honesty, Shining Throughb> (WashPost) Similar:I Felt a…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:Text Wrangler Discontinued (Free Mac Text Editor)I still miss Notepad++, a Windows tool o…Current_EventsInterior Detail of Steampunk Convertible Gazebo Spent much of Tuesday wrestling with co…AestheticsStop sharing those unsourced memes about "be woke" and "God doesn't need soldiers" — here…Pope Leo…
"Calling the theological giant’s stranglehold on the religion industry ‘blatantly anti-competitive,’ a U.S. district judge ruled Monday that God is in violation of anti-monopoly laws and ordered Him to be broken up into several less powerful deities." —Judge Orders God to Break Up into Smaller Deitiesb> (TheOnion) Similar:Unity Normal Problems (Importing an object from Blender…
"Write simply. Keep headings, summaries, sentences, paragraphs and documents short. Get to the point. Then stop." Gerry McGovern —The Need for Simple English on the Web Similar:Bias is a noun. CultureThe secret life of a public library security guardThis made me think of a college friend w…CultureHumanities and STEM Can and Should Get Along BetterIn…