“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:Apple Watch is ugly and boring (and Steve Jobs would have agreed)I am not…
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:Emily Dickinson Manuscript for "The Chariot"A new Emily Dickinson archive is online….CultureIn March, 2001, I…
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:Critical Thinking…
“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:Really, WCCC? AcademiaTwo decades of Alzheimer's research may be based on deliberate fraud that has cost million……
He taught ethics classes in California! LA Times —Law School Dean Fired for Plagiarism Similar:Death to high school English”There’s such an emphasis on keeping stu…AcademiaThe secret life of a public library security guardThis made me think of a college friend w…CultureShakespeare Popularized Falconry TermsEnglish is full of figures of speech pop…CultureTrue Q (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch,…
“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:On Their Last Day, Student Newspaper Editors Cover a Shooting on Their CampusTHREE HOURS BEFORE A SHOOTING WAS FIRST …Academia2001: Stanley Kubrick’s Exasperating…
“[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:Darkest Hour (2017)I’m not a huge fan of war movies, but my…CultureI have for some reason reached another #duolingo milestone.CultureYahoo, You…
“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:Robot wars: 100 years on, it's time to reboot Karel Čapek's RURI…
“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:Writing Effective Dialogue (Punctuation and Actions in Creative Writing)“Punctuating dialogue properly is import…HumanitiesIn September, 2001 I was blogging about… With a grant from UWEC, I was able t…AestheticsSeven Guitars…
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:Why Tetris is the 'perfect' video gameRather than wanting to make a film about…AestheticsWhat You Need To Know About WordPress 3.9 Users are now…
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:Journalists prefer plain language.AestheticsNellie Bly statue to be unveiled at Pittsburgh airport ThursdayIn 1889, Bly became famous for an-around…AwesomePerspective | After a stunning news conference, there’s a newly crucial job for…
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:Not a #carguy but I…
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:New Data Shatters Video Game Player Stereotypes: Gamers Regularly…
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:Professional or college…
(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:Goodbye, Google Search.…
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:Secret Mouthwash Dance Exposed as FraudRecently, while getting the kids ready f…Amusingxkcd: Headlines It: nailed.…
“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:Advent of Digital Humanities Will Make English Departments Pointless — New RepublicDon’t overreact to the headline, which i…Academia100 Careers for English MajorsAnyone…
“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:Fences ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle, 6 of 10)August Wilson’s Century Cycle > …BooksCitations: Efficient In-text QuotationsWhen writing a…
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…