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:No Money, No Time We tend to…
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:Split Infinitives in English: Not Actually Wrong, But UnwiseThe rule against split infinitives is a …CultureAI is better at writing poems than you’d expect. But that’s…
“[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:The crisis in local journalism has become a crisis of democracyThe paucity of reporters has…
“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:Sam Shepard Giggles, Doesn't GoogleI wrote my undergraduate honors thesis o…CybercultureOkay, a lot of the world is pretty…
“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:Beard Typeface GuideChristian Goldeman felt compelled to mat…AestheticsPerspective | Could ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ really be…
“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:Destiny…
“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:Pope calls Argentine kiosk owner to cancel paper deliveryThis is a very cute story, further illus…AmusingPress X to Teach Ready to mash up gaming…
(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:State officials: Bushy Run staff must consult with Native groups before staging reenactmen…When my kids were younger, trips…
“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:McCain's 2008 Concession Speech: Republicans interrupt their candidate's concession speech…That moment during McCain’s concession…
“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:Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly, who testified unmasked at a Senate hearing on Wednesday…Kelly testified at the hearing that he b…BusinessGoogle Trends: blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook…
“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:It's Science! Carolyn Uses Anastasia's Lip Balm KitMy friend Anastasia gave me a home-made…
A lake. A salt mine. An oil drilling rig. A lack of communication. You figure it out. —Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom Similar:Text Games in a New Era of StoriesClever NYT writer cleverly notices a gen…CultureSpit & Polish ''Pac Gentleman"Spit & Polish: When this game was f…AestheticsAI Agents Are Terrible Freelance WorkersAI is getting…
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:Pick Up Your Smartphone Less Often. You Might Think BetterResearch suggests we neeed to be bored s…CultureMask-wearing cuts Covid incidence by…
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:Le règne des robotsÉcrite en 1920…
“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:One of the Sadder Lost and Found Messages You'll Probably See TodayNot…
“[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:What is a CRT and Why Don't We Use Them Anymore?I remember when I started seeing…
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:Journalism students guiltily ignoring the "no electronic devices" note in the program duri…That moment when you see a dozen or more…AcademiaI just found an abandoned blog draft, dated 2011, on economics…