“Without links, you might as well pile all the billions of documents on the Web into one huge container. Link management is therefore an important part of running a Web site.” Gerry McGovern, ClickZ —Broken Links and Poor Information Architecture Design Similar:Twitter / Search – "couldn't remove your contacts" – All Tweets Twitter / Search…
Helvetica Bold Oblique was the big winner at Tuesday’s 73rd Annual Fonty Awards, taking home 11 statues, including those for Best Sans Serif and the highly coveted 2001 Best Font prize. Satire from The Onion —Helvetica Bold Oblique Sweeps Fontys Similar:How reading fiction can help improve our mental healthIn general, I avoid clicking on any…
Dimitri Sklyarov is an unlikely poster boy for American freedom. The Russian programmer was arrested after he spoke at the “Def-Con” hacker convention in Las Vegas about a program, offered for sale by his employer Elcomsoft, which cracks the encryption in Adobe’s e-book software. The Irish Times —Confusion Over Free Speech and Copyright Similar:Judge: Apple…
“While the lack of interest in buying electronic books may baffle some big publishers, the tepid demand comes as no surprise to some bibliophiles.” NY Times (requires free registration) —Forecasts of an E-Book Era Were, It Seems, Premature Similar:Reading in the MorningTo qualify for a day at the local water …Books'Peter Pan Live' Was Never…
He taught ethics classes in California! LA Times —Law School Dean Fired for Plagiarism Similar:Goodby big Android… hello little budget iPhone SE 3rd.I just removed from my syllabus template…AcademiaFlorida Woman Bites CamelIdentifying her as a “Florida woman,” as…Aesthetics'Fontgate': Microsoft, Wikipedia and the scandal threatening the Pakistani PMI would call this “typefacegate,” but th…CultureThe Most Disastrous…
“Handwriting is a basic skill that serves us all our lives. Unfortunately, a problem that primarily affects boys is rarely on anyone’s list of educational priorities.” Christina Hoff Summers —The Write Stuff Similar:Dead metaphor alert, as far as the Associated Press is concernedOther signs of the digital age: we don’t…BooksTeaching Snapshot: First Amendment FreedomsAcademiaYounger friends,…
“[O]nce you have observed that the other is typically portrayed as lazy, dirty, stupid, crafty, womanly, passive, rebellious, sexually rapacious, childlike, enigmatic and a number of other mutually contradictory epithets, it is hard to know what to do next apart from reaching for yet another textual illustration of the fact.” London Review of Books —The…
Too much information? “[T] this weed in our informational landscape has just sprouted–it is only about 50 years old. Up until then, more information was almost always a good thing.” David Shenk —Data Smog Similar:They Smiled Too!Victorians had to stay still for 3 secon…AestheticsComputer scientist Leslie Lamport to [Brandeis] grads: If you can’t write, it…
“Log onto almost any college Web site and you’ll see the same beautiful students talking about their beautiful campuses and how much they learn. But there are no numbers, no studies, no objective measurements.” —Wash. Monthly —What Do the US News Rankings Measure? Similar:The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse This was…
“Hey, all you crafty, capable women wearing chunky, horn-rimmed glasses (this year) and doing your brainy chick thing…” Hank Stuever, Wash. Post —Velma Rules — Jinkies! Similar:The girl’s first day on set filming for “The First Day of Summer” Carolyn plays a teenager who’s outsi…CultureFacebook exec erroneously cites The Lord of the Rings when comparing…
Failed to Practise What It Preached The magazine that chronicled the excesses of the dot.com revolution did not spot the extravagances that led to its own downfall. Mark Tran —Industry Standard Similar:Quantum's King Lear at Carrie Blast FurnaceThe girl and I were thrilled to catch Qu…CultureIn September, 2003, I was blogging about the emerging fad…
Include Your Children when Baking Cookies New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half —Real Headlines Similar:North Sea cod: Is it true there are only 100 left?A spokesperson for the Sunday Times told…BusinessI assume the police report didn't specify what kind of underwear, because this headline is……
Despite the technological hoopla, nobody’s paying attention to e-books but the courts. “Digitizing the printed page has put the very nature of books up for grabs, unleashing heated battles among writers, readers, librarians and technologists over who should control electronic books.” Chicago Tribune —E-Books Solving a Problem Consumers Don’t Have. Similar:Twitter is testing a tool…
Not-Work: “CNN acts like they’re the network of record in Millennial America, just because of their award-winning Gulf War coverage. That was so 10 years ago, and people only watched because there was no MSNBC back then.” The Onion —CNN Should be Named the Crappy News Similar:Journalism is doing just fine, thanks — it’s mass-media…
At first, Huck Finn said “as if” instead of “like,” “wasn’t” and not “warn’t,” and described a night sky “sprinkled”–not “speckled”–with stars. A new edition of the American classic traces Mark Twain’s efforts to refine the speech of his most famous character. LA Times —A New Read on Huck Finn’s Distinctive Voice Similar:The Complete Deaths:…
(Watch them instead.) “Create a few alternative designs, show them to a group of users, and ask which one they prefer. Wrong. If the users have not actually tried to use the designs, they’ll base their comments on surface features.” Jakob Nielsen —First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Your Readers. Similar:Look at the…
At a graveyard near where Beatrix Potter (author of the “Peter Rabbit” stories) spent her youth: “Names on headstones included Mr Nutkin, Mr McGregor, Jeremiah Fisher, Tommy Brock – and even a Peter Rabbett.” BBC —But what about Jemima Puddle-Duck? Similar:It's Friday night in July, and I'm jamming with my fall course preps.The dean sends…
“A modern language changes when we change it, and the metaphor that makes it autonomous only obscures our real task, which is to consider just how and why we change it.” Mark Halpern Similar:‘Because’ has become a preposition, because grammarThe construction is more versatile than …AmusingHow children lost the right to roam in four generations…
“Author Jessica Kingley expressed regret Monday that she had ‘pretty much used up all the hardship‘ from her early life in her recent first novel Bitter Root, leaving her nothing to write about for her follow-up book.” The Onion Similar:I feel juvenile enough today that this headline made me snicker.AmusingLincoln’s last play; or, the continuing…
That said, we’ve decided to acknowledge our very favorite Web sites—five each in 10 subject areas—with the Scientific American.com Sci/Tech Web Award. It is an eclectic mix—from the practical to the academic to the downright silly. Among this year’s winners are sites that decode computer acronyms, explain group theory, unravel the genome, track chemistry in…