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:ChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk…
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:Heard any good stories lately?My daughter has a terrible time settling…BooksI'm just getting around to watching this speech from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Impressive!I really never paid much…
“[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:Don't Give Apple Too Much Credit for Bowing to Taylor SwiftApple is skilled at attracting…
“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:Imaginary vs Real Office SpaceHere’s a fantasy workspace, that I built…AcademiaThis morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage…
“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:Behold this stack of August Wilson library booksYay, libraries. I’m delighted that my co…AcademiaTo Learn More,…
“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:Not…
“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:Great moments from Pride and PrejudiceI haven’t read Pride and Prejudice in ab…BooksJournalists prefer plain language.AestheticsThe Trouble with Tribbles: A Television Adaptation by Richard…
(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:Parents Dedicate New College Safe Space In Honor Of Daughter Who Felt Weird In Class Once“When our Alexis…
“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:Italian journalist to be beatified for helping Jews escape persecutionJournalist who helped saved Jews…
“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:The overlooked masterpieces of 1922In literature the response to the challe…BooksWriting Effective E-MailTop 10 Tips:Â Write a meaningful subject…BusinessThe Curtains Were Blue: In Which I Fix…
“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:Fact check: DeVos never said 'only' 0.02% of children will die if schools reopen…
A lake. A salt mine. An oil drilling rig. A lack of communication. You figure it out. —Peaceful Lake Peigneur Turned into Maelstrom Similar:Everybody Dies (Shakespearean Tragedy Infographic) The image (by Magee and Griffin) is an…AestheticsAll the world’s an appA review of three books — The App Gener…CultureWhy is Elon Musk attacking Wikipedia? Because its…
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:More #Blender3D practice. Additional details for a steampunk control panel. Just because.AestheticsThe Harry Potter Decision, as text – UpdatedGroklaw has a…
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 Day in the Theatre for…
“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:Let He Who Is Without Sin #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode…
“[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:To meme, or not to meme.AestheticsThe school mocked. I turtled.Draft: “As my classmates tormented, I sh…AcademiaDigital…
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:The 1982 Tron Holiday SpecialSides: split. Gut: busted. Milk droplets…AmusingPaleo-Future: robotsThis is from the robots category of Pale…AestheticsNASA Just Found a Lost SpacecraftIf movies about space have taught us any…Current_EventsThoreau's Cellphone…
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:The false link between Amy Coney Barrett and The Handmaid’s Tale, explainedOne of the…