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:Meet the guys who tape Trump's papers…
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:The Penance of Eleanor, Duchess of Gloucester, by Edwin Austin Abbey.This painting was inspired by the scene …Aesthetics12 Mistakes Nearly Everyone Who Writes About Grammar Mistakes…
“[S]hort and pithy, bumper stickers are a literary genre ideally suited to hurried Americans who may nevertheless feel morally obligated to express opinions… They allow us to state the thesis without the supporting paragraphs…” Tina Bennett-Kastor —Bumper Bites (Vocabula Review) Similar:Dan Rather reflects critically on the so-called "Heroic Age" of TV newsCBS’s Dan Rather infamously…
“Under the guise of protecting private property, a series of new laws and regulations are dismantling the very architecture that made the Internet a framework for global innovation.” Lawrence Lessig —The Internet Under Siege (Foreign Policy Magazine) Similar:Top Russian News Site Calls Out Putin's 'Paranoiac' War Journalists at a Kremlin-controlled …Current_Events"Cool" Rosetta Mission Scientist Matt…
“Seldom mentioned, hardly ever seen, exactly the kind of movie that, yes, a fertilizer salesman named Hal P. Warren would decide to make, one fine summer in 1966.” (Manos available on DVD!) —Manos: The Hands of FateReviewed by Mimosa) Similar:Students Are Using ChatGPT to Write Their Personal Essays Now: AI can replicate the shape …Students…
“Before the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, anxiety-related disorders cost the U.S. $42 billion a year in medical and work-related losses. Now mental health professionals can only make educated estimates of how many more of us will be affected in the near future…” —9/11: The Psychological Aftermath (Scientific American) Similar:Walking…
“Most of the puzzles in Puzzle World fall into the Put-Together, Take-apart, Interlocking or Impossible Object categories because this is where most of the high-quality handcrafting takes place.” —Puzzle WorldJohn Rausch) Similar:Mixed ReceptionThis activity is set in a research group…AcademiaComfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. –Mr Dooley on the function of journali…“Comfort the afflicted…
(rec.humor.funny) [random joke] “Is this a burger which I see before me, The soft bun in my hand? Come, let me clutch thee. I eat thee not, and yet I want thee still.” Gregory Lam —MacDonald’s Soliloquy Similar:Did you put enough donuts in the elevator shaft of your #steampunk #neovictorian cruiser t…https://youtu.be/lSgv5L0sXtc &nbs…AestheticsCommonly Misused Words:…
“The likes of my colleagues no longer thought of this new tongue as an alien one, into which they translated thoughts originally composed in a more familiar idiom. They had become native speakers.” Deborah Cameron —The Tyranny of Nicespeak (New Statesman) Similar:My Shakespeare students are off peer reviewing their term paper rough drafts. I’m official…AcademiaJournalists…
“Under every scenario used in the study, the winning margin remains less than 500 votes out of almost 6 million cast.” —Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush (Washington Post) Similar:Emily Dickinson Fun Page #literature #amusing #dashes Emily Dickinson Fun Page #literatu…AmusingHarvard revokes admission of several students for posting "offensive" memesThe First Amendment of the constitution…
“So who is this mysterious kingmaker who changed the world from her shadowy government bureaucracy? Has she seen any good movies lately? Is her marriage happy? America wants to know. America needs to know!” —Official Terry LePore Ballot Designer Fan Page Similar:Fair use prevails as Supreme Court rejects Google Books copyright caseFair use is a…
A lake. A salt mine. An oil drilling rig. A lack of communication. You figure it out. —Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom Similar:Effects of Internet use on the adolescent brain: despite popular claims, experimental evid…Big difference between the clickbaity ve…CybercultureSteampunk officer uniforms — test #Blender3D #Unity3Dhttps://youtu.be/SDh4TW8ujNg The vide…AestheticsOrson Scott Card Builds an EmpireVideo games…
Coca-Cola spent $750,000 to develop a procedure to serve carbonated beverages in space. Pepsi filmed a $5 million commercial aboard Mir. And then there’s “Final Frontier Beef Jerky.” —A Brief History of Space MarketingSpace.com) Similar:If You Ever Find a Link to ThoughtCatalog, I'm Begging You Not to Click It Here’s a thought… nothing you can…
Hmm. Jakob Nielsen writes a column with a headline that implies you are being inhumane if you don’t make your web pages accessible to the disabled. Jakob Nielsen‘s company is selling a 148-page report on making web pages accessible to the disabled. Coincidence? (Nielsen is smart. He’s doing good deeds. He’s giving away lots of…
“Everything, everything, everything boils down to the heart, and poetry is a vehicle of clarity, an articulate and strong voice screaming through the static and white noise.” -Frank Matagrano, a poet featured on Jan Carroll’s poetry weblog. —And Now It’s Dark: Three poets talk about poetry after September 11, 2001 Similar:First time visiting the Point. Listening…
“Corporate English obscures reality by excluding people.” While this article is marked as “commentary,” I find it ethically unsound for its author to suggest that magazine writers should intentionally insert biased language that promotes a pro-union / anti-business point of view, on the grounds that “corporate English commonly portrays economic processes as if they just…
Novell releases a survey showing that British companies lose billions annually due to spam. Guess who sells a product that helps companies filter out spam? “Surveys are a time-honoured PR tactic for getting coverage in hard-to-reach publications.” —Junk Mail Costs Lives (The Register) Similar:Most Christians don’t actually care about Starbucks cups. Here’s what we do…
“[L]anguage is often under-estimated, under-valued, and under-funded. How many times have we seen companies import bland, cheap information instead of hiring talented, knowledgeable writers to write fresh, original, interesting content?” Julia Hayden —Language: The Ultimate User InterfaceA List Apart) Similar:That's it my boy, throw the clickbait into the water, cast it wide.AmusingMore than a million…
Ever been frustrated by a “404: File Not Found” message? Did you ever stop to wonder how the web server feels? —File Not Found! Similar:An Hour of Monastic Silence in Media Studies Class (plus an awesome drum solo)I announced that my 300-level Media and …AcademiaPracticing my Unity3D design skills. Forgot to turn on gravity.https://youtu.be/PkxxiPAmTFg I’m…