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:Texas lawyer trapped by cat filter on Zoom call, informs judge he is not a catA Texas lawyer accidentally left a kitte…AmusingKarate, Wonton, Chow Fun: The end of 'chop…
“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:Blender Griffin, Part 3Okay, that’s enough work for one evening…AestheticsConnecting the Dots…Madeline Cash reflects…
(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:Who needs the Metaverse? Meet the people…
“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:Grappling with Genocide: Fostering Empathy and Engagement through Text and Image (NEH fund…Some of my…
As Napster wavers, file-trading network Aimster is using an unusual shield to protect its users from snooping: copyright law sponsored by the recording industry. Wired.com Similar:The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months “I have always understood the Nazis,” …BooksPa. agency explains why it enacted new 'no…
It would only take an hour to drive out to the crash site, but Uncle Owen will kill you if you don’t finish this repair by sundown. Do you repair the vaporator or investigate the crash? Mike Helba —Star Wars Legos Choose Your Own Adventure Similar:Another 10 sq cm of details for a #steampunk control…
Publishing giant Random House goes after tiny RosettaBooks, which has published e-texts of some popular Random House authors. RosettaBooks says they got permission directly from the authors. —Styron, Vonnegut E-Books Spark Random House Lawsuit Similar:Salman Rushdie: how Cervantes and Shakespeare wrote the modern literary rule bookBy a set of strange coincidences, compli…BooksDid you share Russian…
A new generation of three-dimensional printers can create nearly any solid shape as easily as an inkjet printer creates a letter. The trick is to spray layer after layer of thin, fast-drying resin. Rick Overton Similar:Stapler jam during a midterm exam.My years of watching MacGyver definitely…AcademiaInfographics: the PowerPoint of the 2010sI used to say that…
“Content certainly has all the glamor. What content does not have is money.” Andrew Odlyzko. —Content is Not King. Similar:When In Academia – WHEN A COLLEAGUE KEEPS TALKING ABOUT ‘DIGITAL HUMANITIES’:When In Academia – WHEN A COLLEAGUE KEEP…AmusingWhy Marlon Brando’s Streetcar Co-Stars Couldn’t Stand Him Williams’ last play, The Glass Me…CultureCan you melt eggs? Quora’s AI…
Tom Van Vleck. (Rather dry reading, but offers an opposing view to The First E-Mail Message) —The History of Electronic Mail Similar:My virtual army of grey capsules is just barely smart enough to follow my avatar around. #…My virtual army of grey capsules is just…AestheticsTwo computer screens aren't better than oneI turned off the extra…
A reporter drops in on a Britney Spears chat room and talks about politics. Sort of. —You are in BRITNEY SPEARS Similar:Star Wars: TIE Fighter 20th Anniversary RetrospectiveIn the Star Wars films, the empire is ev…CybercultureBeowimp (spoof I wrote for my high school lit magazine c. 1985)I got an email this morning from someone…AmusingCreative writing…
“In addition to selling e-books from their online sites, the stores will be testing numerous methods to cross-market e-books with traditional forms, including in-store kiosks, author appearances and e-book demonstrations.” M. J. Rose —E-Books Are Now on the Shelf Similar:My #Blender3D set design for a Zoom-based production of Rossum's Universal Robots, which I…I’ve loved this…
go hand in hand; and nobody really wants to slow down progress. Jennifer Kahn —Noise and progress Similar:T.S. Eliot: "when we do not know enough, we tend always to substitute emotions for thought…I remember being fascinated with and cha…CultureParrots learn to make video calls to chat with other parrots, then develop friendships, No…A new study…
A longtime technology critic has fashioned a prototype of a device that he says could do away with traditional colleges and teachers, replacing them with knowledge-dispensing terminals that look like A.T.M.’s. Jeffrey R. Young —Behold the “Automatic Professor Machine” Similar:Star Trek: "Wink Of An Eye"/"The Empath"Amusing, if cynical, reaction to some of…AmusingIn "World Drama" I'm…
The Navy is providing handheld computers to almost all of its new officers and giving them to graduates of the Naval Academy and other naval programs. CNN.com Similar:Feature: History Lesson: the treasured past of LucasArts point and clicksI played more of the Sierra point-and-c…Cultureink: Inkle's open source scripting language for writing interactive narrativeGearing up to…
More proof that the apocalypse is nigh: “Typing of the Dead” is a typing tutorial that also just so happens to be 3-D computerized gorefest. GamesDoman review of Typing of the Dead. Similar:Jimmy Maher's Appreciation of Infocom's Classic Sherlock Text AdventureI learned a lot while reading this enjoy…Business"The face of the last man on Earth."…
(See also: Digital Hollywood- No Resolution) —Latest on Napster Update, Feb 27, 2021 The above links are dead, but here’s a screenshot of what the Yahoo News “Technology Full Coverage” section looked like on February 23, 2001. (Courtesy the invaluable Internet Archive Wayback Machine) Similar:Thoughtful Gestures Sometimes Speak Louder than WordsShe ended up waiting out…