"…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:Prepare for…
My student Matt Hoy sent me this link. Thanks, Matt! —Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Similar:MLA Citations: Citation generators make mistakes. Here’s how to spot 5 errors they often m…Overview Animated GIFIndividual SlidesC…AcademiaNew data on the first three jobs held by graduates of six popular majors“There is an enormous part of the econom…AcademiaLawsuit Against Warner/Chappell Music…
(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:More Evidence that Choosing a Typeface Is ImportantAestheticsProgress over 11 years of Blender3D practiceOver the past few years I have created…
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:Set design for Acts II and III of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) #blender3dDesignHumanities research is groundbreaking, life-changing… and ignored Most arguments for “saving”…
“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:Kairos: Open Since 1996As a plucky new faculty member…
“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:Facebook’s Instant Articles restore subscription options they previously strippedThe ability to serve content faster than…BusinessInteractive Adventure SongIt seems YouTube will soon discontinue t…Amusing"Cool" Rosetta Mission Scientist Matt…
"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:Nellie Bly statue to be unveiled at Pittsburgh airport ThursdayIn 1889, Bly became famous for…
“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:Facebook is predicting the end of the written…
“…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:Your Brain Does Not Work Like a ComputerThe brain-as-computer is a powerful meme…HealthSlash: Not Just a Punctuation Mark AnymoreI will…
“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:My Review of the Charlottesville Tryout of "A Few Good Men" 30…
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:A.I. Is Getting More Powerful, but Its Hallucinations Are Getting Worse The newest…
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:York Corpus Christi Play Simulator Screencast (PSim 2.1; D.G. Jerz)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwNv1lx3…AcademiaHaving a rough day. But in a span…
“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:Chain of Command, Parts 1 & 2 (#StarTrek #TNG…
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:Bother (a minor…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:Parallel structure in writing: Use it!These comic panels cover the issue well….HumanitiesLiking Everything He Saw on Facebook for 24 Hours Turned Him Into a Marketing MachineI like everything. Or at least I did, fo…BusinessUsing "Strive" as a NounObviously I know what…
"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:Media Companies Are Getting Sick of FacebookAll of…
"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:Proofreading matters. (For the record, Blanche actually said, "We most certainly enter a p…I make mistakes on my blog all the time….Current_EventsSocrates envisaged a time when we would forget…