The Like Virus

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:My Student Calls Out a Mental Health Stigma in a Biased Headline — But Here's Why We Shou…This morning a journalism student told m…CultureMicrosoft's Bing AI…

Bumper Bites

“[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:copyranter: New Milwaukee Public Library ads mock facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.      copyra…AmusingABC News…

The Internet Under Siege

“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:The Whole Internet Hates MeAmusingMy Ouya arrived.My Ouya arrived — a Kickstarter-funded …CybercultureGoogle responds to streaming report with…

Manos: The Hands of Fate

“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:YouTube distortion after the same clip is re-uploaded 1000 timesIn theory, technology lets people make a…AestheticsFire…

9/11: The Psychological Aftermath

“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:RUN.…

Puzzle World

“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:Interpretation and Intellectual Inquiry: A Charge To KeepI took a little break from evaluating a …ArtAdorable Dolphin encounter makes Texas sloth video go viralMy…

MacDonald's Soliloquy

(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:Journalist flexes in story about Trump Media accountant who has spelled his own name 14 di…Gotta love how…

The Tyranny of Nicespeak

“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:Things that have made me start singing "Tradition!" in my head so far todayAfter…

Florida Recounts Would Have Favored Bush

“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:Hemingway: The First Draft of Anything… Facebook.AmusingKate Upton and Ryan Gosling Explain the SequesterApparently these are two famous and phys…AestheticsTwo More Chances to See Prime Stage's…

Official Terry LePore Ballot Designer Fan Page

“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:Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering FreshmenScience writer Jon Horgan writes: We li…Academia‘People…

Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom

A lake. A salt mine. An oil drilling rig. A lack of communication. You figure it out. —Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom Similar:Wander (1974) — a lost mainframe game is found!Interesting news for historians of digit…Current_EventsThere, in my morning snapshot of the kids home-schooling in the kitchen, is the cable I sh…EducationCaptive Pursuit (#StarTrek…

A Brief History of Space Marketing

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:xkcd: Pathogen ResistanceThis is just an excerpt. Read the whole …AmusingDelightful interview with a former Setonian editor-in-chief who's now doing SEOAs…

And Now It's Dark: Three poets talk about poetry after September 11, 2001

“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:Introduction to The Cherry Orchardhttps://youtu.be/8o_4Bjcfl0Y  …

Language as Politics

“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…

Junk Mail Costs Lives

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:Heard any good stories lately?My daughter has a terrible time settling…BooksAging Gen-Xer…

Language: The Ultimate User Interface

“[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:‘Because’ has become a preposition, because grammarThe construction is more versatile than …AmusingNew Facebook Notifications Alert…

File Not Found!

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:Novel defined: a term used by some students to mean “any text we study in English class”AcademiaTimes photo staffer's invention: the streaming backpack “From a photographer’s perspective it…AestheticsInternet Explorer cheated its…

Wall Street Poet Takes Stock of Life

Eugene Schlanger is a corporate lawyer and a respected poet. “Poets today tend to write to audiences of other poets. It’s unfortunate. You have poets celebrating pure emotion, but it’s not grounded in anything.” —Wall Street Poet Takes Stock of LifeSunSpot.net) Similar:Touch Me Now: York Plays 2025A cast of hundreds participated in a pub…AcademiaHow 15…

When Malfunction and Error Meet: a Compendium of Disasters

“[M]ost tragedies are caused not by hate-filled maniacs, but by small, unnoticed failures in complex systems. A badly trained worker makes a tragic error; an oversight by an engineer produces a fatally flawed component.” (Review of Inviting Disaster.) —When Malfunction and Error Meet: a Compendium of Disasters (Boston Globe) Similar:Game Design Program for Education &…