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:My Ouya…
“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:It Costs So Much to Run ChatGPT That OpenAI Is Losing Money on $200 ChatGPT Pro Subscripti…I’m…
He taught ethics classes in California! LA Times —Law School Dean Fired for Plagiarism Similar:My semester with the snowflakesInsightful essay from a US Military vet …AcademiaDozens of Colleges’ Upward Bound Applications Are Denied for Failing to Dot Every II’m not saying that the Upward Bound kid…AcademiaChristmas Day Truce 1914: Volunteers re-enact football game on Belgium…
“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:4 writing lessons from the comedy of Joan RiversAll writers can learn from studying the …Current_EventsMicrosoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased…
“[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:dungeon.jpg (JPEG Image, 2535×1616 pixels)Great Zork map.AestheticsClickbait Tactics Drive the Writing of Headlines on ABC NewsI probably should not be surprised,…
“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:No, the Fed Did Not Just Give Stock Traders $1.5 TrillionI don’t…
“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:Chillax, Wikipedia, and bridezilla are not puns: Against adjoinagesSo if recessionista and fembot are not r…AmusingBirthright, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 16) Worf learns his father…
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:Anti-globalism Is Common Factor in Social Media Conspiracy Theories, says UW ProfFascinating academic effort to find a pa…AcademiaBen Franklin Sings about Your Rights as…
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:Richard Halloran / Owns Home Computer.“Engineers now predict the day will come…AmusingVerizon's $4.4 billion deal for AOL sends AOL stock on a tearVerizon has experimented with journalism…BusinessKittenwar”May the cutest kitten win…”…
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:The disastrous voyage of Satoshi,…
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:Trump Briefly Glanced at Eclipse without Protective GlassesDonald Trump’s…
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:Context for Hayles,…
(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:Big Calculator: How…
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:In December 1999, I Was Blogging About Joseph Heller, E-Journalism, and Travel WritingIn December 1999,…
“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:A Message from Hester Prynne (Student Video)Have I mentioned lately that I have awes…AcademiaResearch Poetry (communicating research results and expressing their significance…
“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:York Plays 2025: Five cameras, adding up to ~100 hours of footage.Five cameras, adding up to…
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…
The second most popular form of entertainment after television, video games have rapidly become the largest segment of the entertainment industry. Mounting evidence lends support to what parents have suspected all along — violent videogames encourage violent behavior. Contemporary Pediatrics Similar:BlewsMicrosoft researchers discuss Blews, whi…Cyberculture"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (a reading)https://youtu.be/mppsaL4MEXU https://…BooksThe Masterpiece Society…
: “Every report you ever write from this day until the day you die should start out by saying something nice about the product or service you are reviewing. Then you can get down to business.” Tog —How to Deliver a Report Without Getting Lynched Similar:Adding a media project to a semester-long paper assignment is…