An informal 1998 survey by John Rhodes yielded the following advice: create your content first, then design your website; keep your design simple; use proper grammar. —How to Gain the Trust of Your UsersWebWord) Similar:Time article with clickbaity headline: Web users annoyed by marketing tricksThis Time magazine article is a good one…CybercultureThe Strangest, Most Spectacular…
“For a game that is so unfair, stylistically inconsistent, and frustrating, it has been tremendously influential. This was the first of its kind — using words to create a rich simulated world. Nobody had seen anything like it; it spread quickly across the Internet.” Dennis G. Jerz [Recently updated.] —Colossal Cave Adventure Similar:The Cabinet of…
—All Your Usenet Are Belong to Wesley Crusher Similar:Senior Tech #1: How To Master TextingIt’s funny because it’s true. http://…AmusingRocky Horror Show Live 2012 — Stage Right GreensburgThrow toast at the actors and get spaced…AmusingAfter Hours – Why The Star Trek Universe is Secretly HorrifyingAfter Hours – Why The Star Trek Universe…AmusingJon Bentley | My…
Google has extended its history of newsgroup postings all the way back to 1981. “Most who posted to Usenet back in its glory days were probably unaware that they were creating an archive documenting the most significant moments of the late 20th century.” —Google’s Gaggle of Discussions (Wired) Similar:The Period, Our Simplest Punctuation Mark, Has…
How many Internet memes can you cram into one weblog posting? —All Your Wesley Crusher Are Belong to Taliban Similar:The Storyteller (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 14) A Bajoran village mystic na…Rewatching ST:DS9 O’Brien tries to we…BusinessA shooting, the president snatched away – this episode of 'The Trump Show' was surreal eve…Good news writing,…
“If the poet’s own performance is too perfect—if she seems to get every bit of substance out of the poem—then maybe she didn’t put enough in to begin with.” Adam Hirsch —Hearing Aid : Sometimes poetry should be seen but not heard (Slate) Similar:Is AI making us less intelligent?This morning, after students submitted a…CybercultureThe elements,…
“The World Trade Center attack inspired a lot of Web-publishing of independent, personal accounts.” What can weblogs and online diaries teach us about online journalism? —What does Sept 11 teach us about online journalism? (TheMorningNews.org) Similar:Seton Hill Virtual Commencement Fall 2020 AcademiaThe Sacramentality of Teaching and LearningFor the one-credit journalism class that…AcademiaDetails on the disappearance…
Uh… no. That already is college.com. —“This will be college.com. Contact us.” Similar:Nested (procedurally generated game of expanding drop-down lists)A text game that you play by opening fol…AwesomeThe science of fake news: Addressing fake news requires a multidisciplinary effortThe rise of fake news highlights the ero…AcademiaThe Case for Slow Journalism: When to Unplug from the…
A medical student was scanning the dense prose on the copyright page of his textbook, when he read the word, “congratulations”. He now owns a ’65 Thunderbird. —Read Your Textbooks! (Boston Globe) Similar:All the 'Happy Birthday' song copyright claims are invalid, federal judge rules In a stunning reversal of decades of c…BusinessMe (glares in iambic…
“Why bother to code a clever and long-lived virus when a stupid one that spreads for an hour or two gets just as much attention from antiviral experts and the media?” (Uh-oh! An anti-virus company’s marketing flack warns that Goner is coming back! Better pay big bucks to the anti-virus companies, to protect you from clicking…
“Sitting by the window of his study on a summer day in the early 1930s, a thin-faced Oxford professor let his mind wander from correcting papers and into a world that would become Middle-earth.” Pamela S. Turner —Visit the Birthplace of Middle-Earth (CSM) Similar:Blender 3D Flyover of Fantasy Steampunk Spacecraft When my kids were small,…
A flashback to the Silicon Valley excesses of 1998, before the bubble burst: “There are headhunters who handle only Cobol programmers from Singapore, and headhunters who specialize in luring toy-company executives, and, I’ve recently learned, a headhunting firm that helps other headhunting firms hunt for headhunters.” Po Bronson —Is the Revolution Over?Wired) Similar:Updated a handout…
Wil Wheaton, the actor whose Star Trek character inspired the newsgroup alt.ensign.wesley.die.die.die, has long been geekdom’s favorite whipping boy. “But now, thanks to a self-coded, shamelessly dorky website, many of the same folks who loathed Wheaton on the show are finding out he’s a whole lot like them in real life.” —Wheaton’s Trek to Respectability…
Wild America – a short story by Jayne Loader. Welcome to Wild America! Do you need instructions? YES You are living in the richest kingdom in the world, where others have found fame and fortune, though it is rumored that some who enter here are never heard from again. Where would you like to begin…
(short story by E.M. Forster, 1909) I want to see you not through the Machine,” said Kuno. “I want to speak to you not through the wearisome Machine.” “Oh, hush!” said his mother, vaguely shocked. “You mustn’t say anything against the Machine.” “Why not?” “One mustn’t.” —The Machine Stops Similar:Sherlock Holmes…
“In a study of readers who read either a simulated literary hypertext or the same text in linear form, we found a range of significant differences: these suggest that hypertext discourages the absorbed and reflective mode that characterizes literary reading.” (Miall and Dobson) —Reading Hypertext and the Experience of Literature (Journal of Digital Information) Similar:Apology…
English studies after Sept 11: What’s the point? “The theoretical models that have dominated English and the related disciplines in the last two decades are especially effective tools (along with the institutional factors that have always existed) for creating demoralization.” Lisa Ruddick —The Near Enemy of the Humanities is Professionalism (Chronicle) Similar:Meet the guys who…
What if David Mamet rewrote 2001: A Space Oddysey? (Warning: offensive language.) Bowman: It’s just… how do I say this. These dead crewmembers. Hal: I don’t follow you. Bowman: These crewmembers here that were in cryogenic suspension. That are now dead. Hal: Oh yes. That was self-defense. Bowman: Hal, look at me. What am I,…
You may have heard news stories trumpeting a great scientific breakthrough in the controversial practice of cloning human beings. Some critics claim that reporters, looking for easy stories to publish after a holiday weekend, put too much faith in a company’s press release. —Experts Rip Cloning ‘Story’ (Wired) Similar:Apple's iPad turns 5: Has it lived…
Everyone’s, like, using it all the time, but David Grambs is all, like, “What price is literate, listenable English paying for its increasing currency?” —The Like Virus (Vocabula Review) Similar:In April 2000, I was blogging about HTML frames, the future of reading, grammar, Kairos, a…In April 2000, I was blogging about… …BooksBack in the MLAAs…