: I have no idea how useful this article really is — it’s a classic case of “I found it on the Internet.” (A few posters have evaluated this article on MetaFilter.) —“Real” Deal about Nuclear, Bio, and Chem Attacks Similar:Loved part 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest (live videoconference play from @ThePublic…AmusingMentoring skills,…
What’s up with public high school students? “They’ve had careful self-esteem training since they were 2. They’re told exactly what to feel about everything and they have to be happy all the time,” says researcher Elinor Burkett. —School Daze in America (Wash Times) Similar:The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and waveThere’s…
The Disney Channel airs a cartoon that comments on file-swapping software. An insightful real-world teenage morality tale, or corporate brainwashing? —Disney’s Peer-to-Peer Pressure (Wired) Similar:Opinion | Fake News Comes to AcademiaThe three academics call themselves “lef…AcademiaFirst Stanford code poetry slam reveals the literary side of computer codeLeslie Wu, a doctoral student in compute…AestheticsConfronting the Myth…
“Who says we aren’t a nation of readers? Shucks. Before you can use a new electric skillet, you’re supposed to read its 12-page manual.” Marti Attoun —My On-and-off Struggle with Instruction Manuals (CS Monitor) Similar:I’m thinking this is a still from the cringey Season 1 episode of TNG where the natives bu…AcademiaHow the Ballpoint Pen…
“MS Word has no right to be a standard for document preparation, since it’s clearly less efficient (for most purposes) than readily available alternatives,” fumes Allin Cottrell. —Word Processors: Stupid and Inefficient If the alternative involves typing commands like “c:\gs\gsview\epstool -b -c -o%1.tmp.eps %1.eps”, is it easier to sell your soul to Microsoft? (See: “Using…
Many of the links on this site are broken, but the message pretty much keeps me going. Comments? “Students need the wonder, awe, and delight which comes from the adventure of confronting the unknown, unfettered by knowledge and common sense. Then learning is wonderful, awesome, and, delightful.” —Nothing Matters Similar:A masked, socially distant museum visit. So…
“It’s like these sci-fi nerds can’t handle the real world, so they hide in a fake one,” says sports fanatic Scott Moreland, whose online fantasy-football team, DaJerseyJintz, was 4-1 at press time. —Walking Sports Database Scorns Walking Sci-Fi Databasesatire from The Onion) Similar:Allegiance (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 18) Picard plays 'Escape the Roo…Rewatching…
E-mail messages, voice-mail recordings and other electronic traces of people were routinely preserved by computer networks or telephone companies… These e-relics often captured a moment in time that is both beautiful and chilling to the people who discovered them. Ariana Eunjung Cha —Salvaging Electronic Last Words (WashPost) Similar:The Horror… The Horror! How Music in Horror…
“New research reveals that 40 percent of Web surfers will visit a news or information site more often if its pages load faster.” Excuse me, but… duh! I guess you should ignore the August 2000 press release in which Jupiter advocated these “expensive enhancements.” —Fast And Efficient Web Sites Will Drive Greater Customer Retention Than…
Microsoft a monopoly? Pshaw. “Microsoft sees themselves as a small fish in a big pond. The pond is all information that could potentially be digitized in the universe. Just some insight into where they’re coming from.” Zimran Ahmed —Belly of the Beast Revisited (winterspeak.com) Similar:Code? Not So MuchI teach my journalism students to write …ArtBad…
The anthrax scare will likely encourage greater use of e-mail. “If you’re connected to the Internet—and, duh, you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t—probably your e-mail-to-snail-mail ratio overwhelmingly favors the former.” Steven Levy —The End of Snail Mail? (MSNBC.com) Similar:That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest TicketWhat kind of boss hires a…
“Traditionally, each company has had to design and implement all of the services it wanted to offer its website users. This approach leads to incredible waste, unprofitable websites, and lowered usability…” [Jakob Nielsen is talking about e-commerce, not personal home pages.] —The End of Homemade Websites (UseIT.com) Similar:Overheard at Quora: "Why after all these years…
(satire from The Onion) “Have a long history of experience in the field you’re applying for and glowing recommendations. Either that, or print your résumé on really nice, heavyweight ivory paper.” —Job-Hunting Tips Similar:Harvard Science Historian Publishes Results of Unprecedented 30-Year Census of Copernican …”Catholic church authorities were disple…HistoryWhy the British Tell Better Children’s StoriesIf…
“The Apostrophe Protection Society was started in 2001 by John Richards, now its Chairman, with the specific aim of preserving the correct use of this currently much abused punctuation mark in all forms of text written in the English language.” —The Apostrophe Protection Society Similar:Idlewild's Story Book Forest Improves Its SignageIn the past, I have…
There’s way too much information online. What really matters to readers is quality, not quantity. Gerry McGovern —The Need for Editors on the Web Similar:Former Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed [a Certain Political Slant] NewsOne day when I was an undergraduate work…BusinessSeton Hill's #CIO @PhilKomarny is moving on to @robotsNpencilsSeton Hill’s #CIO @PhilKomarny (who insp…AcademiaHere…
Metadata “collects critical information such as heading, summary, author name, date of publication, classification, keywords, etc…. Without metadata a document is left floating in a cyberspace filled with 550 billion other documents. The chances of it being found by the right person at the right time are greatly diminished.” Gerry McGovern —Why Metadata is Important…
“Coming very near the bottom of an official list of religions put out by the [U.K.] Statistics Office, Jedi Knight is known by the code 896. Heathen comes in at 897. Followed by Atheist at 898 and lastly None with 899.” Kieren McCarthy —Jedi Knights Achieve [Sort of] Official Recognition as Religion (The Register) Similar:As…
“[T]he Internet story has come to an end.” Reuters —Silicon Alley Reporter Magazine Closes (Wired) Similar:Why did I only blog 3 times in June 2001?What was I doing during the summer of Ju…CybercultureLego TimelineThe Lego brick system was patented 50 ye…AestheticsMedia Bias Chart version 10 — Left / Center / Right; Fact vs Fabrication; (Ad…
“a cybernetic process whereby people in power deepen their dominance by using online communication to negotiate for the consent of the subjugated.” Mike Dorsher —Hegemony Online (UWEC) Similar:Rhinoceros in Love (World Drama — China, 1999)The blurb for a 2011 English version of …AcademiaIn May, 2002, I was blogging about… typefaces in period movies; poets Paul…
“The Argument: A dying human being is like an automated spacecraft leaving the Solar System and entering interstellar space. Do we leave this world and arrive at another world?” Poetry by Jonathon Vos Post —Valedictory on Software Similar:“The author talks about [topic]” is filler. Your professors want your college-level ideas.AcademiaIN-ZOOM (A world-premiere 10-minute play)A very…