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:The Transformation…
“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:How America fell in love with crazy amounts of air conditioningBy the 1950s, as air conditioners became…BusinessI regularly…
He taught ethics classes in California! LA Times —Law School Dean Fired for Plagiarism Similar:Keeping things in the proper perspective at 4Cs: Praise for my delivery of a line from Sta…Already met a lot of good people and fou…AcademiaAnti-Semitic Times Square Elmo admits to Girl Scout extortion attemptThe headline made me click the link, and…EthicsPrototypes…
“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:Robot wars: 100 years on, it's time to reboot Karel Čapek's RURI was honored to play Alquist in Artisti…BooksJournalists write to inform, not…
“[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:The Strangest, Most Spectacular Bridge Collapse (And How We Got It Wrong)At a glance of the edited footage, it’s …DesignFacebook Should…
“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 press lobby is going feral—ignore it Given that they need to…
“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:That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest TicketWhat kind of boss hires a thwarted actre…AcademiaStop Using 'Poet Voice'This article analyzes (and skewers) that…AestheticsSilicon Avatar (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch,…
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:Facebook "Grid View." Is this new? My first thought is that I rather like it.I just noticed an option for viewing a F…AestheticsText, Speech,…
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:If you want to work with words, then journalism courses are very practical options.AcademiaVincent Connare, Inventor Of 'The Most Hated Font,' Defends HimselfA typographic engineer, Connare was work…AestheticsTwitter / Search -…
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:Quidditch Comes to Seton HillwartsVisitors…
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:The girl around the house casually dressed "as a…
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:"I’d never heard…
(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:My mother-in-law invited…
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:“We hate math,” says 4 in 10 – a majority of AmericansIf 30% love math,…
“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:'Arrival' Is Smart, Stylish Sci-Fi About Language, Not Laser BeamsThe premise sounds quite interesting. Re…CultureThe Transformation of American Journalism Is UnavoidableThere will…
“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:1,000-pound rosary sends heavy message: PrayThe rosary that retired quarry worker Be…AestheticsHumanities research is groundbreaking, life-changing……
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:A selfie with a Chekov action figure after learning of Anton Yelchin's deathCurrent_EventsRichard Halloran /…
: “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:Computer scientist Leslie Lamport to [Brandeis] grads: If you can’t…