“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:Pac-Man”The…
“[T]he Internet story has come to an end.” Reuters —Silicon Alley Reporter Magazine Closes (Wired) Similar:Google Trends: blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook (2004-2012)I rather expected this — popularity of …Current_EventsIndustriousness. Self-improvement. Thrift. And orange slime. The girl amusing herself on our 70m …Aesthetics'Atari Dump' Will Be Excavated, After Nearly 30 YearsThe New Mexico landfill or “Atari…
“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:LLM error rates I worked on LLMs, and now I go…AcademiaAn overnight traffic spike on an older online handout prompted me to touch it up. #techwri… Those are…
“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:‘Hunger Games’ to digitally recreate Hoffman filmmakers behind the “Hunger Games” mo…CybercultureThe woman and the car: a chatty…
MIT will offer its courses online for free: “This ‘OpenCourseWare’ initiative represents a radically different approach to digitizing, marketing and globalizing education.” —Brave New World for Higher EducationTechnology Review) Similar:A.I. 'Completes' Keith Haring's Intentionally Unfinished Painting After learning of his AIDS diagnosis…AestheticsTwitter was locked in a chaotic doom loop. Now it’s on the verge of…
(CNet) :”Sometimes they were raw, sometimes they were pretentious and sometimes they were flat-out wrong–I’d dare say that many times it was all three combined!–but the information was fresh and real and unmediated by any intervening institutions.” Charles Cooper —When Blogging Came of Age Similar:#PPTPlaytime adaptation of The Merchant of Venice.Top — nonverbal addition with…
(SiliconValley.com) “Via e-mails, mailing lists, chat groups, personal Web journals and non-standard news sources, they received valuable context that the major American media couldn’t, or wouldn’t, provide.” Dan Gillmor —Webloggers Offer View Media Can’t Similar:Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?A good feature from the New York Times: …Books#PPTPlaytime Tartuffe @thepublicpgh (Looking forward to Part…
Of course, you can’t trust everything that you find on the Internet…. weblogs and e-mail chains are also responsible for spreading hoaxes: “Is it true, for instance, that Osama bin Laden profits directly from sales of gum arabic, a food additive? Or that radio DJs are forbidden to play more than 150 popular songs now?” …
“Every time he excuses his own refusal to observe the rules he dictates to everyone else on the grounds that he ‘knows his audience’, take one drink…. Every time he quotes statistics from an unrelated study to prove a point about Web usability, take one drink.” Jakob Nielsen Drinking Game Not that I’m condoning the…
“In which we take apart the news and put it back together all wrong.” A collection of short stories composed by re-arranging the words found in front-page news stories. Shelly Jackson —Front Page News Similar:The Ongoing Obsession with Shakespeare’s True IdentityI’ve never been all too keen on Shakespe…AcademiaIn Which I Bow Before the Mistress of…
Imagine 50 people getting together to write a 20,000-line epic poem, on time and on budget. Software programmers have an added constraint — it has to run! —Software Development as Community Poetry Writing Similar:Google Favors Good Reporting, Not Liberal Views: StudyIt’s a logical fallacy to suggest that w…CultureToday I didn't save the world, but I…
“These angry radicals who have now declared war on the West emerged from a movement we financed and armed. Then it turned against us.” LA Times —The Warnings Were on Page 1 Similar:Annoyed and Bored by Lazy Anachronisms in The Great Gatsby MovieI just watched the recent Great Gatsby m…AestheticsRolling Stone heading to trial over…
From the user license for Microsoft FrontPage 2002: “You may not use the Software in connection with any site that disparages Microsoft, MSN, MSNBC, Expedia, or their products or services…” Ed Foster (I don’t have FP 2002, so I can’t check this. –DGJ) —A Punitive Puppeteer? Similar:Physician: "My career of treating patients has ended"Very painful…
“The popular image of the computer hacker seems to be part compulsive programmer preferring the company of computers to people, and part criminal mastermind… But this is at best only half the story.” Gisle Hannemyr —Technology and Pleasure Similar:Photo of William Crowther, 2012I just noticed that a few days ago, a Wi…CybercultureHow to fix the…
“By sacrificing human life to serve their radical visions, by abandoning every value except the will to power, they follow in the path of fascism, Nazism and totalitarianism. And they will follow that path all the way to where it ends in history’s unmarked grave of discarded lies.” George W. Bush —The President’s Speech Similar:Children…
, the captain gave an inspirational speech over the loudspeaker, and concluded: “Now, since we’re a family for the next few hours, I’ll ask you to turn to the person next to you, introduce yourself, tell them a little about yourself and ask them to do the same.” Wash Times —Aboard Flight 564 Similar:I Love…
Many modern idioms are mechanical: “she has a screw loose,” or “he broke down crying”. Every culture has its in-jokes and specialized language. The Jargon File defines computing terms such as “404 compliant” and “kluge“. Similar:Oscar Wilde and the Importance of Being Earnest (Part 1 of 2)https://youtu.be/tF4ndwOoPPsCultureThe Staying Power of "A Christmas Carol" — Dennis…
“Ever since Stalin and the Nazis, reality has transcended fiction.” (BBC) —Playwright Arthur Miller on Terrorism Similar:Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading?A good feature from the New York Times: …BooksNicholas Winton, “Britain’s Schindler,” Dies at 106Nicholas Winton, a British stockbroker w…CultureFacebook Axes “Trending” SidebarFacebook is discontinuing the “trending”…BusinessSeton Hill's #CIO @PhilKomarny is moving on…
‘‘Hello,’’ a man’s voice, not my husband’s, said. I had no idea whom I’d called, but I had finally gotten through to New York, to news. NYT Magazine —Talk to Me Similar:Half a Life (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 4, Episode 22) Lwaxana Meets CogsworthRewatching ST:TNG The teaser sets up an…CultureLego signs multi-million-pound deal with BBC…
“The freedom we have enjoyed in the states has been unusual in world history and may be becoming more unusual.” (BBC) —Novelist John Updike witnessed the WTC Attack Similar:Spring 2023 Grades: Submitted! (I only had 3 last-minute submissions to mark today.)AcademiaNew NASA Astronaut Wrote a Limerick to Get Hired “There was a lot of writing…