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:SAT essay section: Problems with grading, instruction, and prompts.In my freshman writing courses I work ha…AcademiaThere’s No Longer Any Doubt That Hollywood Writing…
“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:Twittering The MachineI’ve never been a phone guy. My…
“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:All About Soap — Why Washing Your Hands Fights the CoronavirusPeople typically think of soap as gentle…CultureMedia Companies Are Getting Sick of FacebookAll of us with Facebook…
"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:Google worker says he was fired for blowing whistle on cultA former Google video producer…
“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:A Man Alone (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1,…
“…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:There Is A Difference Between Middle Grade and Young Adult Lit, and It Does Matter Adolescence took a long time to…
“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:Fanciful Fun in Theatre Factory’s “The Fantasticks”A great review from Pittsburgh in…
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:The GE Mascot That Proves They've Never Seen 'The Matrix'On a scale of…
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:In September, 2003, I was blogging about the emerging fad of internet plagiarism, ethnical…In September, 2003, I…
“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:Local TV News Stations Present Amazon PR Video as…
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:In September 1999…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:Can AI write good novels?I expect that this is probably the year …AcademiaIt's such a privilege to introduce these young people to Shakespeare's body of work.After starting my 200-level “Shakespeare…AcademiaIn 2019, I have a college student who annotates readings like this!I…
"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:How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s…
"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:The Measure of a Man (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 9)Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CultureIn April, 2002, I was blogging about an autistic person's guide to asking a…
"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:The Child (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 1)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…CultureDr. Bobby Teaches Ferris Bueller as RhetorMy former student, Bobby Kuechenmeister,…AcademiaAnother visit to downtown Pittsburgh with my history-loving son.CultureMy big acting moment in this scene is declining a…