Digital cameras are great, because you can preview the shots immediately, and delete the ones that aren’t any good. “But if a photographer is focused on getting three, four or five pictures to the news desk as quickly as possible, he is not just getting rid of the rubbish; he’s not entering the alternative viewpoint…
Like the dystopian autocracy depicted in George Orwell’s novel 1984, Microsoft has a policy of eliminating “offensive” words from its official dictionary. (A Slashdot poster asks, “Do we really want to trust Microsoft to make decisions on our behalf regarding our use of language?”) —Bowlderlized by Microsoft (NY Times — registration req’d) Similar:Why Marlon Brando’s…
Charging that Microsoft has started hijacking browser users who mistype an address (users are sent to a Microsoft page rather than shown a generic error message), Yahoo! has started doing some hijacking of its own. Microsoft has started excluding non-MS users from parts of its website (which, thanks in part to the hijacking described above,…
“Boilerplate was a mechanical man developed by Professor Archibald Campion during the 1880s and unveiled at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition.” A remarkably convincing fake website by Paul Guinan. —Boilerplate: Mechanical Marvel of the Nineteenth Century Similar:CNN sues President Trump and top White House aides for barring Jim Acosta CNN has filed a lawsuit against…
: 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:Congo nun overcomes blackouts with homemade hydroelectric plantSister Alphonsine Ciza spends most of he…Current_EventsWeaponizing Empathy:…
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 ‘Cancelling’ of Flannery O’Connor? It Never Should Have HappenedI regularly teach…
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:Thine Own Self (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 16) Data gets amnesia at a RenFe… Rewatching ST:TNG In the captain’…EmpathyChatGPT Is a Blurry JPEG of the Web Think of ChatGPT…
“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:The Trouble with Tribbles: A Television Adaptation by Richard GoreyShaenon K. Garrity – New Smithson!.AestheticsBoston Bombing Survivor Dances Onstage for First…
“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:Twelfth Night Cast Photo (Prime Stage, May…
“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:Had a great time with AmLit students at the August Wilson block party…
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:Forgotten closet box: powder blue summer suit with…
“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:Downloading Great ExpectationsA few weeks ago, I bought an audio recor…BooksEthics…
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:Post-publication review as an efficient alternative to pre-publication peer reviewAndrew Gelman of “Statistical Modeling, …AcademiaLet's…
“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:Scammer tricks YouTuber who exposes scams to delete…
(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:Google Autocomplete Still Makes Hateful Autocorrect SuggestionsThe top suggestion for a Holocaust searc…BusinessWeaving: Breathing: Thinking: The poetics of Emerson's NatureText derives from…
“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:New Data Shatters Video Game Player Stereotypes: Gamers Regularly Involved in…
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:Hemingway: The First Draft of Anything… Facebook.AmusingIn 2019, I have a college student who annotates readings like this!I asked students in my online “Dystopia …AcademiaHow Artists on Twitter Tricked Spammy T-Shirt…
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…