What do The Iliad, Beowulf and Hamlet have that Doom, Quake, and Tomb Raider don’t? After all, each involves bloodshed, revenge and people armed with nasty weapons running amok. USA Today Similar:Another visit to downtown Pittsburgh with my history-loving son.CultureLet there be light The Irish have a weakness for puns, …AestheticsThe ballroom of my #steampunk…
The fantastic and faith-filled works of C.S. Lewis will be re-issued by HarperCollins. Similar:Symbiosis (TNG Rewatch, Season 1 Episode 22)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…CultureHumanities and STEM Can and Should Get Along BetterIn my lit and writing classes, I regular…AcademiaBeam me up, Chewie. AmusingPart of my daily routine is practicing German for about 15m per day.…
“We put up the instructions on the booths,” said Don Hersey, Putnam County’s supervisor of elections. “We tell them, `Fill in the ovals. A check or an X may not work.’ But that’s the problem we’re having — some people just don’t follow instructions.” —3% of Floridians spoiled their votes in Election 2000 Similar:14% of…
“[P]rofessors who give easy grades gain just a fleeting popularity, salted with disdain. In later life, students will forget those professors; they will remember the ones who posed a challenge.” Harvey C. Mansfield (Mansfield has been criticized for bringing race into the grading equation) —Grade Inflation: It’s Time to Face the Facts Similar:What a 21st-Century…
You be the judge… is this plagiarism? [ Jerz handout | UCSB handout ] [Note: at first, the UCSB website did not mention my name anywhere, though it did provide a link to the original source.] Similar:Restoring the first websiteVery important bit of history. For a st…CybercultureSorry, not sorry. I don't want such friends. Back…
John Lennon Artificial Intelligence Project: Hey, this is John speaking…Who’re you? [Enter your first name below] > Dennis Nice to meet you Dennis > What do you think of computers? If you could have any kind of pet what would it be? > A walrus? Go on. > I am the eggman! What does it…
“Cases of badly translated English text in Asia remain quite common. Movies, signs, menus, ads, clothing – and now Web sites as well – harbor myriad examples of funny, cute, or just bizarre translations into English. Native English speakers tend to make light of such sightings, but this seems unfair…” Asia Internet Report —All Your…
Browsing through the shelves is one of the great joys of visiting the library. But when the shelves get too tall and threaten to take away precious study space, books are relegated to warehouses, sold, given away, or worse — retired to the circular file… Katie Dean —Library Card Catalog, R.I.P. Similar:Create Engaging Infographics for…
A study of just four users of the Bowling Green State University website finds “that parents received the message better than students, regardless of professed ability to use the computer, both students and parents have trouble finding the sections intended to carry their messages, even when directed to the areas intended to carry their messages,…
Despite the ever-ballooning size of the World Wide Web, which some experts claim is on the order of 550 billion Web pages, much of the most interesting and valuable content remains hard to find. The best search engines, such as Google or AltaVista catalog about 1.4 billion Web pages, or less than 1 percent, barely…
It isn’t as if we have yet lost all awareness of the social significance of modes of address, though that day might yet come. For the moment, people are still aware of the differences between calling someone “Bill” or “Jones” or “Mr Jones”. Theodore Dalyrmple. —Please don’t call me Theo Note: I once worked at…
“There are three gigabytes of e-mail stretching back to 1983, another gigabyte of articles, letters and papers that I’ve written, and one more gigabyte of programs that I’ve coded, photographs I’ve taken, financial records and electronic keepsakes. Every time I get a new computer, I painstakingly copy this data from one machine to the next.” …
“Do [computer] animators’ abilities to make their creations more lifelike actually detract from the spirit of animation? It depends on who you talk to.” Wired. —Every Pixel Tells a Story Similar:Why I Resist Web Redesigns (And Maybe You Do, Too)Words many of us never want to hear: “It…AestheticsUrsula K. Le Guin: A Personal Take on…
held the most important religious office in Sumer — high priestess at Ur; she is also being credited as the world’s first known author, writing only 300 years after written language developed in what is now Iraq. [Why it took a California psychoanalyst to translate her 4,000-year-old poetry is unexplained by the article, but it…
Huzzah! Bigger, more annoying online advertisements will soon be clogging up your Internet connection! (Now is the time to check out ad-erasing software such as WebWasher.) Similar:Youth Can Check Out Briefcases, Neckties via NYPL Grow Up Work AccessoriesThe New York Public Library has a progra…BusinessGrading writing: The art and science — and why computers can’t…
“As all parties assess the damage wrought by the market meltdown, 20-20 hindsight shows some startlingly clear mistakes–beginning with a preponderance of money in search of investment, no matter how dubious the venture.” news.com —One year after the dot-com bubble burst Similar:STEM Needs a New LetterCreativity alone does not foster innovat…ArtDan Rather reflects critically on…
(Interactive fiction) … She might be the model in a perfume ad; the trophy wife at a formal gathering; one of the guests at this very opening, standing on an empty pedestal in some ironic act of artistic deconstruction — You hesitate, about to turn away. Her hand balls into a fist. “They told me…
Eliza was the first chatterbot — a computer program that mimics human conversation. In only about 200 lines of computer code, Eliza models the behavior of a psychiatrist (or, more specifically, the “active listening” strategies of a touchy-feely 1960s Rogerian therapist). Dennis G. Jerz —Doctor Eliza is in Similar:Captain, the Fake News Detectors are Offline!…
“I was strolling past some Korean shops in Chinatown when I overheard members of a Cambodian mafia having a powwow. One of these heathens had welshed on a deal to buy a ghetto blaster and was shanghaied off to the Near East. As if that weren’t hurtful enough, it was Dutch treat all the way.”…
Most teachers I know cringe when students who missed class e-mail to request a transcript of the class they missed. My policy is to say, “Get the notes from a classmate.” Dennis G. Jerz —I Missed Class…Did I Miss Anything Important? Similar:Hemingway: The First Draft of Anything… Facebook.AmusingHad a rough day. Designing another 10 sq cm…