“…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:Why the British Tell Better Children’s StoriesIf Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn wer…BooksHow I Joined Teach for America and Got…
“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:In Defense of DistractionIf you’re a fan of lifehacking, you’ll a…CultureI am…
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:UNC student newspaper goes viral for coverage of campus shooting As Emmy Martin…
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:Jimmy Maher's Appreciation of Infocom's Classic Sherlock Text AdventureI learned a lot while reading this enjoy…BusinessIntroduction to…
“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:SHU Commemoration of September 11 Terrorism Attacks — Looking…
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:Lawyers who won…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:Some fairy tales may be 6000 years oldFairy tales are transmitted through lang…CultureChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners.“In every previous automation threat, th…BusinessGoogle SGE Recommends You Drink Urine To Pass Kidney Stones QuicklyThe new AI…
"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:At Computers and Writing #cwcon for the weekend.Am…
"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:ChoiceScript tutorial for making casual, phone-friendly, stats-driven storygames. Choice o… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…AcademiaHow Poetry Helps You Improve Your WritingWhile I’d rather see a reminder that we …AestheticsThe Myth of North America,…
"Poor sad Mac, born in a plastic age. / A time when the world still thought in beige. / Crafted and molded just like a piece of art. / An orphan, abandoned. It’s enough to break your heart." [Which column would you put this one in? Sometimes I wonder why I continue to split my…
Kaycee Nicole, an attractive student dying from leukemia, shared her ordeal via on online diary. Her mother started a companion diary. Web surfers became close friends with this family through email, chatroom, and even phone conversations. The New York Times even quoted Kaycee about college life. When she finally died, her online friends grieved like…
Yahoo recently ran a story about a man suffocated by a stripper’s breasts… but it was a hoax first published in a tabloid. You may have heard recent reports about the airliner passenger stuck to a toilet seat. (MSNBC, BBC, CNN) Note that no names or dates are given. It’s a hoax. (Unless it’s a…
What is life like for a person who has trouble recognizing human faces? —Face-blindness Similar:I'm nerdy enough to give my 15yo a used copy of "The Hero with a Thousand Faces." I’m nerdy enough to give my 15yo a used …BooksThis class has been everything that I expect it would be and I cannot…
"[T]he search and directory firms have put their futures in question by flouting time-tested business practices that require an absolutely clear separation between editorial content and advertising." Hal Plotkin —Doom Ahead for Search Engines That Charge (SF Gate) Similar:The Printed Word in Peril: The age of Homo virtualis is upon usWho, I thought, besides a…
When congressional Web sites are good, they’re really good. But most aren’t, says a nonprofit group that rated more than 600 of them. —Congressional Web Sites: Not So GoodCNN) Similar:Mythbusting UX design: 7 misconceptions about user experiencePerhaps the most common mistake of any b…Business35% of my site visitors right now are using mobile devicesThis year…
found after 165 years. The watercolors were prototypes for engravings that the impoverished poet hoped would pay his bills. (Daily Telegraph) —Watercolors by William Blake Similar:Prime Stage's THE OUTSIDERS Stays Golden at the New HazlettCherry, the upper-class go-between spann…BooksYou can be a Trek fan without loving TOS. But if we think tolerance and empathy are…
, creator of Pippi Longstocking, dies at 94. (Guardian) —Astrid Lindgren Similar:What You Need To Know About WordPress 3.9 Users are now able to create audio and…Current_EventsVerizon's $4.4 billion deal for AOL sends AOL stock on a tearVerizon has experimented with journalism…Business"Do Date" vs "Due Date": Do Profs Really Have to Explain the Difference? If…
“The Web has decentralized the control of ideas, as A&LD proves. A few years ago the exchange of opinions and theories had to be managed by people living in great metropolitan centres, the intellectual world’s version of imperialism. But with the Web it can be done anywhere.” Robert Fulford —I Want my Arts & Letters…
"Don’t let anyone tell you that as a programmer you don’t have to make moral or ethical decisions. Every time you decide that making users feel stupid is better than fixing your code, you’re making an ethical decision." —Programmers Make Ethical DecisionsJoel on Software) Similar:Here is an example of how I teach with Inform 7.Here…