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TIME.com: Time's Person of the Year: You -- Dec. 25, 2006 -- Page 1 America loves its solitary geniuses—its Einsteins, its Edisons, its Jobses—but those lonely dreamers may have to learn to play with others. Car companies are running open design contests. Reuters is carrying blog postings alongside its regular news feed. Microsoft is working…
Read more →A Renaissance of the Commons | Nick Lewis: The Blog Cultures, like people, can run out of ideas. They can exhaust themselves in the face of events and ideas they can no longer predict, explain or control. When they do, they revert to the repetitive assertion of the simplest and most soothing of their founding…
Read more →Left Behind Games The storyline in the game begins just after the Rapture has occurred â when all adult Christians, all infants, and many children were instantly swept home to Heaven and off the Earth by God. The remaining population â those who were left behind â are then poised to make a decision at…
Read more →On The Media: Transcript of "Paper Wait" (December 1, 2006) BROOKE GLADSTONE: So why not then stick to âsectarian violenceâ?? What changed? BILL KELLER: You know, itâs kind of emerged as an issue, and then last Sunday we ran a story about one of our reporters in Baghdad, Ed Wong, who surveyed a number of…
Read more →Column by PC Magazine: Our Modern World—Weirder by the Minute DIGITAL CAMERA ARM STRETCH. Okay, let's get to the meat of this essay. Perhaps the weirdest societal change has to do with digital cameras and the practice of framing shots in the preview window by holding the camera out in front of yourself. Even ten…
Read more →November 17, 2006, Hour Two: The Family that Couldn't Sleep / The Artist and the Mathematician Starting in the 1930s, Nicolas Bourbaki published dozens of papers, becoming a famous mathematician. There was just one problem: he didn't exist. Join Ira in this hour on Science Friday for a conversation with Amir Aczel about the genius…
Read more →On The Media: Transcript of "The Power of Myth" (November 24, 2006) ANA MARIE COX: Well, I think that Joe is a provocative thinker and a great reporter. He was really early out of the gate t rying to put a narrative around this election . There was a very unusual mid-term. There were races…
Read more →Malaysian National News Agency :: BERNAMA PEKAN, Nov 4 Bernama -- Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has called for the countrys memory-based education system to be replaced with one that promotes mind development so that the students become more creative and critical. The Deputy Prime Minister said the education system was currently directed towards memorisation…
Read more →From the Wikipedia entry : Accepted is a 2006 comedy motion picture about a group of high school seniors who, after being rejected from all colleges to which they had applied, create their own college. ... At one point Bartleby [the main character] wants to end the charade before it begins, but is overcome with…
Read more →BBC - Radio 4 In Our Time - Home Page the mammoth undertaking that was the Encyclopédie – one of its editors, D’Alembert, described its mission as giving an overview of knowledge, as if gazing down on a vast labyrinth of all the branches of human knowledge, observing where they separate or unite and even…
Read more →YouTube - Team America Finale Speech PhatGun (3 months ago) HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA SO TRUE!!! Tomster22 (19 hours ago) Neo-Cons = Dicks, Peacenicks = Pussies, Islamo-Fascists = Assholes AerisRocks (2 months ago) lol! Thats a great metaphor they used...assholes want us to shit on everything and dicks fuck assholes lmfao, great scene. This post has been brewing…
Read more →ANTI- Album - Orphans What’s Orphans? I don’t know. Orphans is a dead end kid driving a coffin with big tires across the Ohio River wearing welding goggles and a wife beater with a lit firecracker in his ear. Just like true mythopoeic narrative is returning to its roots through TV series after a brief…
Read more →BBC - Radio 4 - Feedback Love quadrangle Things have been getting very steamy in the cowshed at Brookfield lately and Archers listeners who've written to Feedback talk of sensationalism and complain that some of the main characters seem to have had personality transplants. After David Archer's flirtation with his old flame Sophie, his wife…
Read more →Revenge of the Nerds (1984) They've been laughed at, picked on and put down. But now it's time for the odd to get even! I decided it's time to start keeping track of my frequent encounters with popular culture - in other words, I'm adding a new category: Reviews . I'm going to try to…
Read more →Buzz Out Loud: CNET's podcast of indeterminate length on CNET.com [ click here to listen to clip ] recently featured this fascinating discussion of analogies. A caller suggests an analogy and the hosts discuss both the aptness of the analogy itself as well as the medium of analogies for elucidating certain issues. The combination of…
Read more →14 WFIE, The Tri-State's News Leader: Manhunt Ends, Baby Found Safe A fugitive couple who hid in a camper are now behind bars. The kidnapped baby is safe, and the funeral for the social worker who cared the baby is over. It's been a busy and emotional 24 hours. What a great little example of…
Read more →BBC - Radio 4 - Archive Hour - 21 October 2006 Matthew Parris uncovers the remarkable story of the Electrophone, the first sound broadcasting service to operate in Britain. Electrophone (information system) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The name Electrophone was used for a telephone-distributed audio system which operated in the United Kingdom between 1895…
Read more →Evening News 24 - Cyclist attacked by An N&N spokesman said: âAccording to sources this gang has been doing this for a while - stopping people at the bridge and demanding money to get across. âBut this was the first time they have actually attacked anyone and he has been not only harmed, but also…
Read more →Maths has the reputation of a a 'pure' discipline which sets both the practice and essence of mathematics apart from all other fields of inquiry. Mathematicians often use this 'axiom' to remind other academics of their superiority. Many people mention Gödel's incompleteness theorems as a proof to the contrary but given that his is a…
Read more →One small word is one giant sigh of relief for Armstrong âThatâs one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind,â? they heard him say as he dropped from the ladder of his spacecraft to make the first human footprint on the lunar surface. But from the moment he said it, and for 37…
Read more →On The Media-- The War in Iraq = Iraqi Civil War ETHAN BRONNER: Our policy is not to label it a civil war. We recognize and describe elements of civil war in what's going on in Iraq. We tend to call it sectarian conflict, sectarian violence. Civil war, to us, feels like a stage of…
Read more →On The Media-- Eau-Stained Wretch BOB GARFIELD:: He describes another perfume as, quote, "sweeping over you like the silent, massive shadow of an Airbus A340, and yet another is "like looking down into a well of cool, black water." I told Burr he had a real knack for turning a phrase, but that I had…
Read more →Bearing witness to a teacher's task - The Boston Globe Many people believe they know what makes effective schools because they have attended school. This is akin to saying I am a physician because I've been in a hospital. I challenge any of this group to spend a week teaching in a public school classroom…
Read more →The Books Google Could Open The nation's colleges and universities should support Google's controversial project to digitize great libraries and offer books online. It has the potential to do a lot of good for higher education in this country. ... This powerful tool will make less well-known written works or hard-to-find research materials more accessible…
Read more →On The Media-- I Know You Are But What Am I? SHANKAR VEDANTAM: [The study] just showed six television clips of the conflict to 144 observers, some of whom were pro-Israeli and some of whom were pro-Arab and some of whom were neutral. And pro-Israelis found that the clips had an astonishing number of anti-Israel…
Read more →NPR : Roundtable: The Future of Jazz Radio News & Notes with Ed Gordon, August 10, 2006 · Some experts say the jazz radio format is in crisis. Some of the few stations devoted to jazz may soon change format. Guests: Suzan Jenkins, president of Jazz Alliance International, an industry group; Tom Thomas, president of…
Read more →MercuryNews.com | 07/31/2006 | Internet raises gender gap This gender gap, which affects everything from the marketing of new technology to attracting more women for engineering careers, is elegantly illustrated in an academic study just published by a researcher from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. Eszter Hargittai tested and interviewed 51 women and 49 men…
Read more →BostonHerald.com - Opinion & Editorial: Education studies show: $$ wasted on them Choice, competition and freedom are core values that define what we are about as a nation. The Bush administration proposal to appropriate $100 million in opportunity scholarships for poor kids in failing schools is a needed program. Let’s use our limited taxpayer dollars…
Read more →'Google' becomes an official verb - ZDNet UK News Though you may have been "googling" people for years, the verb you were using was technically slang, until recently. In fact, many regularly used tech words are just now getting the official stamp of approval from English-language dictionaries. On Thursday, Merriam-Webster announced its latest update, and…
Read more →English is Spoken Here - Yahoo! News The second dumbest statement in the debate over Senate legislation establishing English as the national language came from Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.), who said it was needlessly divisive. ADVERTISEMENT Wait. A law that unifies a country under a single language is divisive? What kind of logic is that?…
Read more →Czech lobby in Washington takes a second seat to Poland - 22-05-2006 - Radio Prague There are three criteria that countries must fulfil in order to qualify for the proposed amendment to the U.S. Visa Waiver Program. The first is membership in the European Union; secondly, they must be allies in the war in Iraq…
Read more →CNN.com - 'National' or 'common'? Senate ponders what to call English - May 19, 2006 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Whether English is America's "national language" or its national "common and unifying language" was a question dominating the Senate immigration debate. The Senate first voted 63-34 Thursday to designate English as the "national language" after lawmakers who…
Read more →Cartoon Warfare (Ann Applebaum, WP) In recent years "the personal is political," a phrase whose origins are lost deep in the history of the women's movement, has among other things come to mean that just about anyone is allowed to transform her personal experience into a political program. Writing about oneself has a long history…
Read more →Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the liberal democratic systems. When Fukuyama was toying with the Hegelian notion of the…
Read more →Feminismus jako islám Muslimové majà obecnÄ rádi feministky asi stejnÄ jako feministky muslimy. PÅesto je feminismus jako islám. ProÄ?? Protože: a) islám je hlubokým a významným myÅ¡lenkovým hnutÃm s ustavenou, zajÃmavou tradicÃ. b) islám je pestrý a mnohorozmÄrný, nabÃzà spoustu cest a smÄrů. c) islám klade otázky, které nikdo jiný neklade, a bez nÄj by…
Read more →CBC Radio | Quirks & Quarks | April 8, 2006 Heading into the 21st Century, our planet is undergoing rapid change. Species are disappearing daily, and along with them human languages and cultures. Terry Glavin, a conservationist and writer, set out to document these changes in his new book, Waiting for the Macaws. Along the…
Read more →NPR : Global Sex Survey: Satisfied in the West A groundbreaking international sex survey reveals that couples in Western countries are the most sexually satisfied, while countries in the East appear to be less satisfied. The reporter commented that it is ironic, that in societies where men were the dominant gender, they also tended to…
Read more →Wired News: How Lara Croft Steals Hearts I think young boy gamers loved Lara for reasons that were considerably stranger. They weren't just ogling her: They were identifying with her. Playing the role of a hot, sexy woman in peril -- surrounded by violence on all sides -- was, unexpectedly, a totally electric experience for…
Read more →Several years before his death, the famous Estonian semiotician Yuriy Lotman came to Prague and the thing that I still remember from his talk is an admonition that boundaries are the places to study because that's the most interesting phenomena happen (or come to the surface) at the border between two stereotypes (my words not…
Read more →I was just listening to the UK Prime Minister's Question Time. I don't do it very often, because the questions and answers are predictable in content and not particularly informative, but maybe I should tune in more often to get a sense of the tone of the exchange. As I was listening, I was struck…
Read more →AfterEllen.com - The L Word's Vanishing Bisexual The L Wordâs representation of bisexuality reflects popular and sometimes opposing ideas about bisexuality. One belief--represented best on the series by Jenny--is that those who identify as bisexual are merely experimenting with their sexuality before they choose to identify as strictly heterosexual or homosexual, thus suggesting that a…
Read more →CNN.com - Quotes from the Golden Globes - Jan 16, 2006 "As I was coming in, I felt a little tug at my skirt. And I looked, and there was a little girl maybe 8 or 10 in her first party dress, and she said, 'Because of you I want to be president someday.' And…
Read more →Technology News: E-Commerce: Study: Poor Web Design Alienates Customers One twentieth of a second. That's about how long it takes for a Web site Get Linux or Windows Managed Hosting Services with Industry Leading Fanatical Support. to make a first impression on an Internet user, according to researchers at a Canadian university, whose findings could…
Read more →The Prejudice Map The Prejudice Map According to Google, people in the world are known for... Here's an interesting 'mash up' of Google's API that supposedly answers the question above. It uses a very simple Google query as in http://www.google.com/search?q="germans+are+known+for+*" to create a graphical overview of the different 'prejudices' about various cultures in the world…
Read more →January 13, 2006, Science Friday = Franklin at 300 Franklin as inventor, socialite and statesman, and take a look at the Tercentenary Exhibition in his honor, now open in Philadelphia. America is often said to be an experiment in new national identity (or something along those lines). However, any closer examination of American national identity…
Read more →Wired News: Military Women Can Hack It Female soldiers have long fought off perceptions that their bodies just aren't equipped to handle the rigors of training and warfare. But a decade's worth of research suggests that women are hardly as fragile as critics once thought. A new study by military researchers found that many assumptions…
Read more →The Aargh Page # Not surpisingly, "argh" is much more frequent than any of the alternatives, and the items with fewer 'a's or 'r's are more frequent than their longer neighbors. # However, there are high-frequency islands , even way out in the long-word planes. For example, "a17r23gh" (17,23) occurs in 171 pages, even though…
Read more →On The Media-- NAMING RIGHT The key variables that differentiated the titles that had been number-one bestsellers from the titles that had failed to be were whether the title was literal or figurative, the word type of the first word, although it was interesting that the word type of the second word didn't matter, and…
Read more →ABC News: Sharon Reportedly Moves One of His Hands The headline is the only thing of interest here. It is an example of several things. On the one hand, it shows how easily a person's personal tragedy can be abstracted away from the larger symbolism (Terry Shiavo last year and Charles Kennedy this are other…
Read more →ABC News: Sharon Reportedly Moves One of His Hands One headline, two blog posts. What value! There seems to be a fine line between what is in the public interest and what the public is interested in. Personally, I find every mention of the story compelling but its information content is of no consequence to…
Read more →The GIF Pronunciation Page The GIF graphics file format was invented by CompuServe in 1987. In the years since, a debate has been raging as to the correct way to pronounce "GIF": like "jif", or with a hard 'g' as in "gift" as a majority of Mac users seem to prefer. With this page I…
Read more →NPR : Muslim Migrants, 'Embracing the Infidel' Author Behzad Yaghmaian spent two years traveling with Muslim migrants and collected their stories on safe houses, bribes, police custody, and human trafficking. He talks about his book, Embracing the Infidel: Stories of Muslim Migrants on the Journey West. An interesting podcast about a book illustrating the transformation…
Read more →Urban Legends Reference Pages: College (The Unsolvable Math Problem) This legend combines one of the ultimate academic wish-fulfillment fantasies — a student not only proves himself the smartest one in his class, but also bests his professor and every other scholar in his field of study — with a "positive thinking" motif which turns up…
Read more →A List Apart: Articles: Thinking Outside the Grid Because Iâd been thinking about this article for some time, the aerial view of these cities struck me as an apt metaphor for grid design on the web. With todayâs technologies and techniques, we are free to create grid designsâor we can choose to break out of…
Read more →There are two analogies in this post! What great value. Discover Music through The Music Genome Project by Pandora Together we set out to capture the essence of music at the most fundamental level. We ended up assembling literally hundreds of musical attributes or "genes" into a very large Music Genome. Taken together these genes…
Read more →Florida high court kills school voucher program In a ruling expected to reverberate through battles over school choice in many states, the Florida Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a voucher program for students attending failing schools, saying the state Constitution bars Florida from using taxpayer money to finance a private alternative to the public…
Read more →iRex : The iLiad Digital written content can now be read as easily and conveniently as the printed word on paper. The iRex Technologies E-reader provides true reading comfort, flexibility and versatility. It can be read outdoors, in sunshine or shadow. As well as reading you can also write comments, mark or underline sections, for…
Read more →I thought, I might add another category for the new year. analogies. This springs from two separate and seemingly conflicting tendencies in my intellectual life. One is to expose potentially harmful and disparate analogies and the other is to create new analogies to illuminate similarities otherwise unnoticed. I use these strategies in teaching, popular writing…
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