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:Journalism students guiltily ignoring the "no electronic devices" note in the program duri…That moment when you see a dozen or more…AcademiaAn Hour of Monastic Silence…
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:The quest to save today’s gaming history from being lost forever “If you want to know how the game was pl…CybercultureTwitter Cheat Sheet to Help Increase Engagement-Brands see 17 percent…
“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:Vintage TV News Coverage of Pac-ManVintage TV news coverage of Pac-Man. …CybercultureUkraine’s Three-to-One AdvantageThe…
(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:The Rise of "Synthespians"”Mr. Serkis is 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:Post Gazette Corrects Headline of Seton Hill iPad FollowupEveryone makes mistakes. As a student jo…AcademiaHow…
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:Thoreau's Cellphone ExperimentWhen I teach “Intro to Literary Study,” …AcademiaThe Printed Word in Peril: The age of Homo virtualis is upon usWho, I thought, besides a multidisciplin…BooksTrump communications director Murtaugh…
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:Knowing Poe [Annotated Version of 'The Raven']Edgar Allan Poe’s most…
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:"We are not Amazon franchises": booksellers respond to Amazon Source Wonderful snark from an indie bookselle…AmusingChristmas Day Truce 1914: Volunteers re-enact…
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:Oh, No. YouTube is Deleting Videos.Oh no. First YouTube institutes a “COVI…Current_EventsAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d…
“Content certainly has all the glamor. What content does not have is money.” Andrew Odlyzko. —Content is Not King. Similar:Local News in a Digital AgeLocal TV news is the “most visible prese…AestheticsWhy Tetris is the 'perfect' video gameRather than wanting to make a film about…AestheticsThe woman and the car: a chatty little handbook for all…
Tom Van Vleck. (Rather dry reading, but offers an opposing view to The First E-Mail Message) —The History of Electronic Mail Similar:The focus on misinformation leads to a profound misunderstanding of why people believe and…I’m consciously fighting confirmation bi…Current_EventsYour first test layout of medieval city streets will be your worst. #blender3d #medievalyo…Your first test layout…
A reporter drops in on a Britney Spears chat room and talks about politics. Sort of. —You are in BRITNEY SPEARS Similar:Shakespeare on EclipsesPrepping for tomorrow’s first meeting of…AcademiaThe super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse This was probably the wealthiest, most…BusinessCharlie and the Chocolate Factory Coloring PagesOver the past few weeks, I…
“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:Snap's share price sinks, trades just above IPO priceNASDAQ.com throws shade via Reuters: Sn…BusinessPicking a rubric…
go hand in hand; and nobody really wants to slow down progress. Jennifer Kahn —Noise and progress Similar:English Is the Language of Science. That Isn't Always a Good ThingEnglish speakers tend to assume that all…AcademiaSocrates envisaged a time when we would forget how to remember.From Daisy Dunn’s review of Puchner’s Th…BooksEmployers unhappy with new generation…