“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 science of fake news: Addressing fake news requires a multidisciplinary effortThe rise of fake news highlights the ero…AcademiaA support sloop…
“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:The Trouble With Online EducationI’ve taught an…
“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:Playing with depth of field (blurring details that are closer than and farther…
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:What Jonson meant by Shakespeare's "small Latin and…
“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:Invasive Procedures (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 4) A disgruntled…
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:Judge orders Montana congressman who assaulted a reporter to be formally booked on assault…A judge…
“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:A #neovictorian #steampunk ship-of-the-line needs a dramatic flag…
(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:They Should Have Used Another TypefaceHave you ever noticed that the letters “…AestheticsSeriously, Fuck You, "Kindle Unlimited"I’m just quoting the f-bomb in…
“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:Could We Just Lose the Adverb (Already)?I can’t really get myself…
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:Yep, it's time to read student papers on Flannery O'Connor.AcademiaBoston marathon bombing: All the mistakes journalists make during a crisis like the Boston… First, do not pass on speculatio…Current_EventsOld English Has…
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:Cry…
“[T]he Internet story has come to an end.” Reuters —Silicon Alley Reporter Magazine Closes (Wired) Similar:Confronting the Myth of the 'Digital Native'It’s one thing to be able use a service …AcademiaThe Post drops the ‘mike’ — and the hyphen in ‘e-mail’When I announced these style changes, an…CultureDonald Trump tests positive for Covid-19. CNN: "A nightmare…
“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:In August, 2001 I was blogging about… Broken Links and Poor Information Ar…AestheticsHow Trump Is Making Journalism School Great AgainThis is an important time to teach peopl…AcademiaYou 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:Interview: Bjarne P. Tveskov, Classic LEGO Space Designer – Boing Boing GadgetsBoing Boing interviews Bjarne P. Tveskov…AestheticsMultiple Choice…
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:The Period, Our Simplest Punctuation Mark, Has Become a Sign of AngerYou text your girlfriend: “I know we mad…CybercultureI never have time to create materials like…
(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:Top Russian News Site Calls Out Putin's 'Paranoiac' War Journalists at…
(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:Latest on Napster(See also: Digital Hollywood- No Resolut…Current_EventsNo results found for "officer on leave after video allegedly shows him pulling gun…