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:Details from the author's life are not the magic ticket to "correct" interpretations in li…Students…
: “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:IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE — Berkeley Rep audio productionSinclair Lewis’s…
. Painfully funny small-town satire from The Onion. —Wal-Mart Opens Store in Winesburg, Ohio Similar:How Facebook – the Wal-Mart of the internet – dismantled online subculturesFacebook wants you to spend more time on…BusinessAppreciating the production values and so-stupid-it-might-be-brilliant comedy in Avatar: T…The daughter is showing my wife and me “…AestheticsBye Facebook, hello Instagram: Users make…
“If anything, the recent expansion of literacy and educational opportunities has increased our access to literature and our enjoyment of it.” J. Peder Zane —What Good is Literature? Similar:The Outsiders — four sold-out weekday matinees; four more performances this weekend So proud of my talented, hard-working …Books#PPTPlaytime adaptation of The Merchant of Venice.Top — nonverbal…
“Today, I’m one of the world’s leading anthropologists, an accomplished archaeologist, and an award-winning novelist. And, at 41, I’m only now becoming aware of the globetrotting rut I’ve been in my entire life. Looking back on everything I’ve seen and done, I can’t help but ask, ‘Is that all there is?’” more satire from The…
Microsoft Word requires at least 30% more keystrokes and 100% more mouse moves to accomplish certain editing tasks than would an optimal word processor. Forbes —Bad Design Can Be Costly Similar:And Now for This Breaking News Report “Police have cornered the suspect wh…AmusingWhat Happens When Digital Cities Are Abandoned?“The great paradox about these digital c…CultureGIFs,…
“We are the Gist Generation. We have acquired a taste for hit-and-run, cut-and-paste knowledge. We expect a home page or e-mail correspondence to give us the gist and only the gist—time is money and you’re a click away from an iconographic trash can, so get to the point.” Jeff Barbian Similar:Adventure | T.M. CampGreat story…
This computer game tries something new. “If a character tells you he’ll call you tomorrow, he’s not kidding. You’ll have to wait a day to get his information. Faxes may arrive without warning, and instant messages may pop up onscreen when you least expect them — maybe even while you’re at work.” Wired.com —“Majestic” Invades…
“Organized religion was a primary target of every one of the twentieth century’s regimes of terror. But as is evident in Nazi and Communist terrors alike, organized irreligion (to put it in Royal’s sharp formulation) has proved far more dangerous than organized religion ever was.” Alicia Mosier Similar:Scientists should be goggled and in the lab,…
You might assume there could not be a worse time for a field calling itself “Internet studies.” You would be wrong. The Chronicle of Higher Education Similar:Controversial Content in YA Literature: A College Professor and Homeschooling Parent Answe…I received this comment on my blog: [F]…BooksU.S. Public Wary of Biomedical Technologies to ‘Enhance’ Human AbilitiesAmericans are…
“Lambert received the e-mail in December, a piece of scrap in the vast electronic junkyard that is the World Wide Web. Regrettably, she says now, she removed the letter’s forwarding markers and unintentionally put her name at the bottom, making it appear that she was the author.” Washington Post —Don’t forward that e-mail just yet!…
“[W]hat could be more scholarly than a nice, authoritative statistic, quoted from a professional journal in the student’s field?” The Chronicle of Higher Education —Telling the Truth About Damned Lies and Statistics Similar:Multimodal News Packages (for Student Journalists)A multimodal news package simply means “…AcademiaLLM error rates I worked on LLMs, and now I go…AcademiaLiberal Arts…
The longer the company’s annual report, the less successful the company. This isn’t really a technical writing issue — usually companies with bad news to report need a lot of words to explaining themselves. But if this is what it takes to get some pinhead CEOs to appreciate brevity, so be it. Wired Similar:Microsoft Research…
Danielle Preston —You Know You’re a Technical Writer When… Similar:New data on the first three jobs held by graduates of six popular majors“There is an enormous part of the econom…AcademiaPopcorn MakerI’ll have to look into this. Popc…AestheticsIn April, 2001 I was blogging about interactive fiction, Roget's Thesaurus, John Lennon, H… A student newspaper article about…
A student of mine makes comments on interactive fiction, garish colors, and dancing text. Jan Carroll —Just For the Record Similar:In September, 2000, I was blogging about PICK UP AX, Bellamy's Looking Backward, WB Yeats,…In September 2000, I was blogging about …Business"I’d never heard of this play before now, but I love it." — World…
learns something from my freshman comp students. On March 13, 2000, I e-mailed web guru Jakob Nielsen to tell him that six of my freshmen spent 8-30 minutes on his site without finding a plain-text “search” link on the home page. A week or so later, I noticed that Nielsen changed his page, making the…
“[W]hen it comes to writing, whether you’re a seventh grader, a college student, a professor, a beginning copywriter, or an accomplished novelist, a B isn’t good enough.” Kathy Henning —For Writers, Writing Is Never a Waste of Time: Part 2 Similar:A lost generation of news consumers? Survey shows how teenagers dislike the news mediaMore than…
“[A] society without literature, or a society in which literature has been relegated–like some hidden vice–to the margins of social and personal life, and transformed into something like a sectarian cult, is a society condemned to become spiritually barbaric, and even to jeopardize its freedom.” Mario Vargas Llosa Similar:Everyone Should Get an ADoes a bus-driver-training…
The creator of Cliffs Notes has died. Here’s his obituary — although I know you probably won’t bother to read the whole thing. Similar:Bag a Bot DayAt midnight tonight, participants in the…Current_EventsMisleading Publisher Email Promises Paid Stipend, Delivers LotteryAn email from a reputable higher educati…AcademiaIt's Friday night in July, and I'm jamming with my fall…
On the tasteless side, but still very funny: “Some Features You May Need on Your Computer“ Similar:The Printed Word in Peril: The age of Homo virtualis is upon usWho, I thought, besides a multidisciplin…BooksWhy Tetris is the 'perfect' video gameRather than wanting to make a film about…AestheticsShort Reports: How To Write Routine Technical DocumentsI don’t…