“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:Healing the WebThe lessons I learned in just over an ho…BusinessIdlewild's Story Book Forest Improves Its SignageIn the past, I have pointed out copy-edi…AestheticsSuch A…
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:Top: flat, monochrome rectangles. Middle: rectangles with a flat bitmapped texture of butt…AestheticsEco-critical Code Studies: Reconfigurations of nature in the born-digital artifact “Coloss… Video game history is colliding:…AcademiaI've completed…
“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:On Instructional Technology and Face-to-Face Interaction CybercultureA Word About Group ProjectsOkay, students… who loves group…
(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:15 Times "Filler Text" Became a Journalist's…
“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:Citations: Efficient In-text QuotationsWhen writing a paper in MLA style, prefe…AcademiaMidterm Grades Spring 2025: Posted!I…
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:Tell-all crime reporting is a peculiarly American practice. Now U.S. news outlets are reth…Journalists should balance the public’s …CultureA day after using an apparently altered hurricane map, Trump defends his…
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:Delightfully geeky news story about a legal kerfuffle over typefacesI’m…
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:There's No Substitute for FictionWhat do Peskin and Astington recommend f…BooksSplit Infinitives in English: Not Actually Wrong, But UnwiseThe rule against…
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:Rethinking TV news, Part III: First, kill the stand-upI’ve told my journalism students that TV…DesignBeautiful. No Data / Lore opposition…
“Content certainly has all the glamor. What content does not have is money.” Andrew Odlyzko. —Content is Not King. Similar:Storage Wars Sued By Its Star; Show Is Faked And Execs Were Confronted By Cast, Court Pape…”Reality TV” star is shocked — shocked …AmusingThe Booming Japanese Rent-a-Friend BusinessWe had a case recently where a dying man…BusinessOkay,…
Tom Van Vleck. (Rather dry reading, but offers an opposing view to The First E-Mail Message) —The History of Electronic Mail Similar:from “The Poet” by Ralph Waldo EmersonThe poets made all the words, and theref…AestheticsStar Wars' Original, Scum-Caked BrillianceThe B-movie shoddiness of actors and aes…AestheticsWe are cruel. We always have been. The Internet did not…
A reporter drops in on a Britney Spears chat room and talks about politics. Sort of. —You are in BRITNEY SPEARS Similar:Unearthing a Long Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by…Not only is this a fantastic story about…AcademiaDefiant (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 9) Riker visits DS9, and it's he who's…
“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 daughter was five or six when she created the character “Moonbot” for the #steampunk be…https://youtu.be/GoWiNB_tlJ8…
go hand in hand; and nobody really wants to slow down progress. Jennifer Kahn —Noise and progress Similar:▶ Taylor Mali on "What Teachers Make"I find that re-watching this every year …CultureReflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an “In…CultureWhat Happens When Digital Cities Are Abandoned?“The great paradox about these digital c…CultureWhat…
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:My Shakespeare students are off peer reviewing their term paper rough drafts. I’m official…AcademiaBoy, this sort…
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:Have 40 years of mobile phones given literature bad lines?The X Files did a good job of embracing …CybercultureDon't hide your online self when applying for college or…
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:Jerz Nerdcation 2013On a visit to the Washington DC area for…CultureWithout ComPUNction: Doing verbal battle at the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships. “It…