“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:Future Imperfect (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 8) Riker Van WinkleRewatching ST:TNG…
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:Blue Feed, Red FeedFacebook is designed to keep your attent…CultureThat "Top 5" countdown…
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 October, 2002, I was blogging about stupid space explosions, the superiority complex, w…In October, 2002, 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:5 Ways to Avoid Being Rude (According to 100-Year-Old…
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:Okay yes, this…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:A Mind Forever Voyaging reviewWhen it comes to gameplay, A Mind Foreve…CybercultureThis Is Not a Book: Thomas Jefferson & Apple's App StoreHumanities professors from the Universit…AcademiaIn April 2000, I was blogging about HTML frames, the future of reading, grammar, Kairos, a…In…
"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:Commentary: The unbearable smugness of the pressMore on…
"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:‘Unexpected item’: how self-checkouts failed to live up to their promiseBusinesses still fret over these issues,…BusinessCelebration of Writing My freshman writing students…AcademiaParallel structure in writing: Use it!These comic panels cover…
"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:Battle of New Orleans Ended 200 Years Ago TodayThe Battle of New Orleans was a series o…CultureThe Incredible Shrinking Ad [The Future Web Is Mobile]Is higher education ready for the switch…AcademiaRoyalty: For the Irish, it’s like having a neighbour who’s really into clowns…
"[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:Washington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeFormer Washington Post cartoonist Ann Te…CulturePartisan Pa.…
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:ChoiceScript tutorial for making casual, phone-friendly, stats-driven storygames. Choice o… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…AcademiaAnd so it begins: the unmarked assignments counterThis little icon will control my life fo…AcademiaWhy I…
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:Computer grading will destroy our schools (says a humanist whose appeal to the humanities …Sadly, the people who are spending (and …AcademiaYork Corpus Christi Play Simulator Screencast (PSim 2.1; D.G.…
, creator of Pippi Longstocking, dies at 94. (Guardian) —Astrid Lindgren Similar:#PPTPlaytime Tartuffe @thepublicpgh (Looking forward to Part 2 of this live videoconferenc…Culture87,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus OutbreakSobering report from the New York Times,…Current_EventsWhat about Socialization?Sometimes, I worry that by homeschooling…Current_EventsAnthony Weiner, Reality Star of Sorts, Returns to the StumpBecause…
“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:The woman and the car: a chatty little handbook for all…
(CLA) is a fellowship of individuals who share experience, strength, and hope with each other that they may solve their common problem with clutter and help others recover. The only requirement for membership is a desire to eliminate clutter and bring order into our lives. (via Remarked Bookmarks) —Clutterers Anonymous Ironic: when I was an…