(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:Script: Prospero Makes a Circle on the…
“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:Avoiding Spoilers Gives You a Superficial Appreciation of ArtI very much appreciate that nobody spoil…ArtDouble…
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:Blaze of Glory #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 23) Sisko needs imprisoned traito…Rewatching ST:DS9 At dinner with the …EmpathyOur Love Affair With Digital Is OverThe other day I found…
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:Updated Syllabus for Journalism 101By the end of the semester…
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:Wondermark: In Which There Is a TauntingWondermark AmusingRobot wars: 100 years on, it's time to reboot Karel Čapek's RURI was honored…
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:Carnegie Science Center: Roboworld (and a bit of SportsWorks)Here’s a brief video, made up of clips I…CultureCinderella Deadlines: Reconsidering Timelines…
“Content certainly has all the glamor. What content does not have is money.” Andrew Odlyzko. —Content is Not King. Similar:Refreshing my memory of working with reel-to-reel tape as a radio news intern (c. 1989).HistoryPlans for the Little Known Confederate HelicopterThe possibilities of combining Civil War…DesignShipwreck Diary of a Content MarketerDay 1 Today was my first…
Tom Van Vleck. (Rather dry reading, but offers an opposing view to The First E-Mail Message) —The History of Electronic Mail Similar:Shakespeare on EclipsesPrepping for tomorrow’s first meeting of…Academiaink: Inkle's open source scripting language for writing interactive narrativeGearing up to teach “Digital Storytellin…CybercultureAwesome 1935 Soviet Movie Deploys Saxophone-Controlled Robots to Crush Tophat- and Bowler-…I wish…
A reporter drops in on a Britney Spears chat room and talks about politics. Sort of. —You are in BRITNEY SPEARS Similar:Reflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an “In…CultureWhich of my colleagues wants attention?AcademiaSo Long Blogging. Hello—Yep, We're Going to Say It—PloggingI still blog, because I want control ove…BusinessPick Up…
“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:Why do so many small US newsrooms shun innovation? "The goat must be fed."We started this…
go hand in hand; and nobody really wants to slow down progress. Jennifer Kahn —Noise and progress Similar:Set Phasers to Teach!Fans of Star Trek have thus already been…AcademiaWhy Photojournalism Matters World Series: Chicago Tribune & th…AestheticsEnglish teaching: Johnson: Talking past each otherWhen I got to college, I had already lea…AcademiaNYC sent non-police teams to respond to mental…
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:The Post drops the ‘mike’ — and the hyphen in ‘e-mail’When I announced these style changes,…
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:How Facebook – the Wal-Mart of the internet – dismantled online subculturesFacebook wants you to spend more time on…BusinessThe Impact of Google on Our MemorySo what is it…
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:The Impact of Google on Our MemorySo what is it that makes us memorize les…CultureBetween static hand-coded HTML pages and modern content-management systems,…
(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:That Class Where Stanford Profs Projected Hundreds of Zoom Students on…
Copyright: Your Right or Theirs? In Defense of Copyleft Timeline- A History of Copyright in the U.S. SUL- Copyright & Fair Use- Copyright FAQ Digital Copyright Reading List Similar:Robot Dramas: Autonomous Machines in the Limelight on Stage and in SocietyA thoughtful overview of robots in cultu…AestheticsPerspective | After Hannity’s travesty, Fox News redeems itself (just…
“Now, let’s look a bit more closely at this data, remembering that it is absolutely first-rate. Do you see the exponential dependence? I sure don’t. I see a bunch of crap.” Undergraduate physics student Lucas Kovar reconsiders his career choice. —Electron Band Structure In Germanium, My Ass Similar:My buddy JTK helps me make a key…
“Amateur and professional are mutually interconnected. Amateurs are sometimes professionals; professionals are sometimes amateurs. Moreover — brace yourself — history exists.” Marjorie Garber‘s Academic Instincts blows kisses at the literary establishment. Review by Russell Jacoby. Similar:Game Criticism, Why We Need It, and Why Reviews Aren't ItGreg Costikyan on Play This Thing! A re…AcademiaI’m still teaching…