(book review) : “…the activity stilled, the cars, houses and workplaces buried beneath layers of volcanic ash, the artefacts of a single moment preserved. What could we learn…?” —Imagine Silicon Valley Buried Like Pompeii Similar:The battle against airborne COVID has shifted. Why your mask is the last layer of defence There has been a paradigm…
“Much web design has suffered from an over reliance on graphic design principles. Too many graphic designers have tried to force the Web to be what it is not…” —Information Architecture vs. Graphic Design (New Thinking) Similar:Nellie Bly: A Race Against Time | Heinz History CenterOn Nov. 14, 1889, Bly waved goodbye to f…BooksDarkest Hour…
“My cookies, cakes, and brownies are always the highlight of our church bake sales, and everyone says so,” said parishioner Connie Barrett, 49, openly committing the sin of pride. —All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake SaleSatire from The Onion) Similar:Former student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …AÂ third…
“From Oklahoma City to New York, we’ve turned violent human loss into epic narratives of suffering and patriotism. Does this help people heal or hurt them?” —Trauma Culture (Salon) Similar:Practicing Intellectual, Evidence-based DisagreementThis is what a busy literature seminar o…AcademiaI'm really enjoying seeing how my students are responding to Hamlet.As part of a class assignment,…
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:TSA Agent ConfessionIt was May 2007. I was living with a boh…CultureSights, Sounds, and Smells of Elizabethan TheaterSomewhere during my education…
“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:Free Game Friday:…
—All Your Usenet Are Belong to Wesley Crusher Similar:Google engineer put on leave after saying AI chatbot has become sentientWe’ve all encountered this scene in all …CybercultureAn English professor tries to help ChatGPT write and revise a sonnetShortly after my online AmLit survey beg…AcademiaPrepare to lower the personnel deployment gondola from the forward eployment bay,…
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:Bias Check! Consult different sources for a…
How many Internet memes can you cram into one weblog posting? —All Your Wesley Crusher Are Belong to Taliban Similar:More #blender3d #steampunk goodness. #design #aesthetics #blender3dart AestheticsAdorable Dolphin encounter makes Texas sloth video go viralMy social media feed just featured adora…AmusingRare find discovered amid town's Old West kitschInstead of dispensing a card like Zoltar…AestheticsFinished Reading…
“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:The overlooked masterpieces of 1922In literature the response to the challe…BooksSurprise: Humanities…
“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:Interior Detail of Steampunk Convertible Gazebo Spent much of Tuesday wrestling with co…AestheticsA WELL HOUSE FOR A LARGE SPRINGI was…
Uh… no. That already is college.com. —“This will be college.com. Contact us.” Similar:What Grammar and Style Checkers MissTeaching students to write does not mean…AcademiaDon't hide your online self when applying for college or careerGreat advice. [I]t is common to hear st…AcademiaDeus Ex MemoriesI’ve just finished my final training run…CybercultureTolkien v. Orwell: Who understood modern surveillance…
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:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – About the game30th anniversary refit of the cruel, cru…Amusing"What Teachers Make" Sequence of AssignmentsEvery year I…
“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:Peter's Evil Overlord ListPeter Anspach posted this list. Here are…AmusingRemember Me (#StarTrek…
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:The Big Boy…
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:Desiderata (Nerdy…
“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:Enjoyed…