(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:Twine: the…
“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:Creating…
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:The poetry of deafnessMy…
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:Actually, this post really *is* about ethics…
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:An unreal Mars skylineThat awesome image showing Earth, Venus …AestheticsNever trust a corporation to do a library’s jobThe Internet Archive is mostly known for…BooksIn April, 2002, I was…
“[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:Okay yes, this affirmation does matter to me and it will go into my annual…
“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:Students don't know what's best for their own learningMany educators worry that students are m…AcademiaFake News Can Be…
“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:The secret life of a public library security guardThis made me think of a college friend…
“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:An…
“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:My Ouya arrived.My Ouya arrived — a Kickstarter-funded …CybercultureR.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) Artistic Prosperity TrailerWe rehearsed and recorded a Zoom recordi…ArtKickball Ice Cream Maker…
(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:You can be a Trek fan without loving TOS. But if we think tolerance and empathy are good…
“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:How I Joined Teach for America and Got Sued for $20 Million”By the time…
“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:Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? Universities Aren’t Ready for the Answer | The WalrusI’m still grappling with exactly how the…AcademiaProud of My JournosI saw several…
“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:"If It's Not Baroque, Don't Fix It" Cogsworth Broadway Supercuthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx6t-pef…AmusingHappy Winnie the Pooh Public…
A lake. A salt mine. An oil drilling rig. A lack of communication. You figure it out. —Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom Similar:Intagrate Lite Plugin ProblemsI’ve been using the Intagrate Lite Wordp…TechnologyShort Reports: How To Write Routine Technical DocumentsI don’t get to teach technical writing m…BusinessMedia Companies Are Getting Sick of FacebookAll of us…
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:You didn’t make the Harlem Shake go viral—corporations didI never found “Harlem Shake” videos to b…BusinessPagers, Pay Phones, and Dialup: How…
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:BBC News – TS Eliot's widow…
“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…