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:Robots Are Coming for Our PoemsThe robots are quickly and surely coming…AestheticsHealing the WebThe lessons I learned in just over an ho…BusinessStar Wars: The Last…
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:Students Are Using ChatGPT to Write Their Personal Essays Now: AI can replicate the shape …Students say they appreciate AI’s abilit…AcademiaI am not up on My Little Pony lore.…
“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:The joy of text – the fall and rise of interactive fictionAlthough the IF…
(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:January 6th … the board game? About…
“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:Unity3D Maze Game TutorialWorkspace for an in-progress Unity3D tut…AcademiaNever use very. Write the word damn…
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:Do television and electronic games predict children’s psychosocial adjustment?Wow… what a drab, unquoteworthy, unsou…AcademiaCulture Desk: My Life in PencilsDevotees of the Blackwing had been payin…AestheticsPerseverance lands on Mars today! Here's…
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:I played Pseudolus freshman year in college. Haven't seen the…
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:As Mount St. Mary’s Offers to Reinstate 2 Professors, Faculty Demands President QuitThe president of Mount St. Mary’s Univer…AcademiaIf You Ever…
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:How PatrioticAmusingGoogle, AI Announcements, and the Future of LearningGlenda Morgan does not sound that impres…AcademiaWhat is a CRT and Why…
“Content certainly has all the glamor. What content does not have is money.” Andrew Odlyzko. —Content is Not King. Similar:Presenting at #NEMLA session 8.1 Friday. “Hacking English: Examining a multimedia sandbox …AcademiaWhy Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending OtherwiseA reminder that polls that ask people to…CultureA stranger approached me today.A stranger approached me today. I…
Tom Van Vleck. (Rather dry reading, but offers an opposing view to The First E-Mail Message) —The History of Electronic Mail Similar:I went with frisse. German uses esse “to eat” for people…AmusingBrother Stuck in the BathroomThe girl posted this story on Instagram …AmusingThe Article is Dead. Long Live the ArticleTake the background paragraph. It ill-se…CultureReal…
A reporter drops in on a Britney Spears chat room and talks about politics. Sort of. —You are in BRITNEY SPEARS Similar:BBC News – TS Eliot's widow Valerie dies aged 86 She guarded her late husband’s liter…CultureWhat Happens When Digital Cities Are Abandoned?“The great paradox about these digital c…Culture''The Balloon Hoax'' by Edgar Allan PoeWhen…
“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:What Borges Learned from CervantesBorges reinvented Don Quixote as a playf…BooksWho needs the Metaverse? Meet the…
go hand in hand; and nobody really wants to slow down progress. Jennifer Kahn —Noise and progress Similar:Henry V Fans: Today is St Crispin's DayKing Henry rallies his troops just befor…CultureWhy Audiences Hate Hard News—And Love Pretending OtherwiseA reminder that polls that ask people to…CultureRt Covid-19 — How Quickly Coronavirus is Spreading in the American…
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:Script: Prospero Makes a Circle on the Beach. Scene Designer: "How?"I was amused by this little…