: 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:Among today’s major professional accomplishments: installing this hook. #springbreakMy office door feels more complete now.…
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:Reflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an…
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:My Freshman Comp Student Didn’t Recognize the Term ‘Word Processor’Most of my students use MS-Word, but may…AcademiaMy mother-in-law invited me to try out the 60- year-old tape machine that belonged to…
“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:xkcd: Types of Editorsxkcd: Types of Editors.AmusingPlans for the Little Known Confederate HelicopterThe possibilities of combining Civil War…DesignPagers, Pay Phones, and…
“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:Short Stories: Developing Ideas for Short FictionI…
“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:In MLA Style, use the ellipsis only to mark an omission from the…
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 Distracted Classroom: Transparency, Autonomy, and PedagogyI don’t…
“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:‘This is no longer a debate’: Florida sheriff bans deputies, visitors…
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:So long, Newsweek Reaction to the cover: – Newsweek’s …BusinessHere’s How the Pandemic Finally EndsThis…
“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:Have you been "workslopped" by a bot?If you…
(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:Selling Point (Audio Drama) I had fun recording this in the stud…AmusingMisSpelled: Premiering Oct 1In this podcast series, I voice a mage…
“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:Google 1407Philipp Lenssen and I had a bit of fun i…AestheticsJournalists…
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: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…CultureRanked First out of 2 Billion Google Hits…
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:Christmas…
“[T]he Internet story has come to an end.” Reuters —Silicon Alley Reporter Magazine Closes (Wired) Similar:My 13yo homeschooler had no idea how to open a little milk carton. I had to show her.CultureA computer scientist urges more support for the humanities (opinion)”Lior Shamir, a computer scientist who’s…AcademiaThe Google Classroom TeaseJoshua Kim, Inside Higher Ed: “Google…
“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:Déjà Q (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 13) Amusing, insightful study of hum…(Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break…AmusingHow Facebook is killing comedy (and other indie content creators)Facebook has…
“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:In "World Drama" I'm adding the absurd, optimistic "The Skin of Our Teeth" (dropping bleak… In light of…