Weekly Web Harvest (weekly)
-
Man Regrets Jumping Onto Whale Being Eaten By Sharks – Business Insider
“Even the parents of this Perth, Australia, man who jumped onto a whale circled by hungry sharks say their son is an idiot.
“
-
Intoxicating machines – O’Reilly Radar
““Mr. Frankel, who started this program, began to suffer from the computer disease that anybody who works with computers now knows about,” [Richard] Feynman later explained. “The trouble with computers is you play with them.”
— George Dyson, describing the beginning of the Manhattan Project’s computing effort in Turing’s Cathedral.“
-
“And so it goes. No contest. The infant experience of the easy life can only ridicule the idea that patience and effort used to be fine. But I’ve been trying to examine the problem from a new angle, and I keep coming back to the same truth: Life is better. In some nostalgic, carefree, totally invented Mississippi River of the mind, we were always floating downstream in a vessel of our own making, always happy to have nothing, living high on our wits and our basic decencies. But was it nice? Was life as good as it is now? One is almost programmed, if over the age of 35, to say no to this question. One is supposed to stare into the middle distance and recall the superior days of a life less needy, the rich rewards of having to wait and having to try and having to do without. But the actual truth, my friends, is that my childhood would have been greatly, no, infinitely, improved, if only I’d had a smartphone and a dog walker.
“
-
“That level of caution, I thought at the time, bordered on tinhat-level conspiracy theory. You might as well declare Alex a false flag attack on the American psyche before descending into your bomb shelter. But my editor, unlike ufologists and 9/11 truthers, comes by his paranoia honestly — because there is nothing on the Internet that cannot be manipulated or contrived, no defense against a particularly savvy hoaxer. Sock puppet accounts can be made, and fake followers bought. Screenshots can be Photoshopped. Algorithms can be gamed.
“
-
“The goal of Explorable Explanations is to change people’s relationship with text. People currently think of text as information to be consumed. I want text to be an environment to think in.”
-
“Mother Wishes Son Had Been Killed” — Medium
“The two women were defended by E W M Flock. Both were flashily dressed and stod before the magistrate in a haughty manner. Annie Garfield is better known to the police as Annie Harkness, “the women”, said Crown Attorney McKillop, “who has the reputation of having so many husbands.” The woman made no reply to this remark.
“
-
Nixie wearable brings a personal drone to your wrist – SlashGear
-
How ‘Alex from Target’ became an unwitting Internet superstar – The Washington Post
“Meanwhile, on YouTube and Vevo, fans will compulsively refresh video pages inflate their view counts. One Direction actually coaches fans on the practice: Make sure you’re watching the right video, they advise; share the link “constantly;” and watch for at least 30 seconds before Ctrl+R-ing the page. There’s no denying that the scheme works: “Steal My Girl,” which One Direction just released just over a week ago, has already been viewed almost 20 million times.
“
-
How This Working Man Became Japan’s Most Controversial Marathoner
“In 2013, Kawauchi, a self-coached, 40 hour/week government worker, ran eleven marathons (most top marathoners run two, maybe three, marathons per year). His average time in those eleven outings was faster than the top eleven US marathon times, run by all Americans. Four of Kawauchi’s eleven marathons were sub-2:10 (still the benchmark for elite status, though East Africans are often five minutes faster). In the history of US marathoning, there was only one year in which the entire US produced more,five, sub-2:10 performances. The US is lucky to have three sub-2:10 performances in a given year, usually posted by three different people.”
-
“This was probably for the best, because the bite of a slow loris is no joke. Being the only known venomous primate in the world, its bite can quickly turn deadly.”
Related posts
So Long and Thanks for all the Fish
[cue Tom Petty’s “Time to Move On”] For those who haven’t already counted me out, now’s the moment you’ve been putting off for months. I’ve enjoyed my erratic posting on Bionic Teaching over the past couple years. Tom, thanks for letting me ride along with you for awhile. I’m continuing my professional development work at Varina High, but I’ve decided to dedicate my personal time to other explorations and exploits. You can find me at my newly renovated home, Cynical Idealists. Expect nothing less than what I’ve always provided: Everything from the heart, and nothing on a timeline. -Jim
Weekly Web Harvest (weekly)
BitTorrent Sync Open Source Dropbox replacement . . . tags: dooo bittorrent sync dropbox weekly opensource Interactive Billboard Tells You Where The Airplane Overhead is Going – Neatorama Blending the digital and the real in interesting ways. tags: mechanized mixed airplanes planes billboards weekly Terminal Cornucopia by Evan Booth “Can common items sold in airports after the security screening be used to build lethal weapons? As it turns out, even a marginally “MacGyver-esque” attacker can breeze through terminal gift shops, restaurants, magazine stands and duty-free shops to find everything needed to wage war on an airplane. Just how easy is it to build these weapons? The bulk of Evan’s research, Terminal Cornucopia, has been released publicly for you to see for yourself. This work is ongoing, so be sure to check back for future updates.” tags: terminal cornucopia airport reality weekly terrorism ‘Because’ has become a preposition, because grammar | Sentence first “However it arose, it seems to be spreading. Language loves economy, and the sheer efficiency of this use of because is likely boosting its popularity. Similar constructions are occurring with but, also, so, thus and similar words – see the frame from xkcd, above. And in the Language Log thread (which is worth reading in full), Rod Johnson says a friend “ended a litany of miscellaneous complaints with […]
Untitled
I found out this morning that one of my former students, Hakeem Witcher, probably shot and killed another boy on Friday. I taught Hakeem and his sister. I knew their little sister. I knew their mother. I called her all the time. I spoke to her when she’d pick them up from school. I remember trying to help her when she asked what to do one night. She was overwhelmed enough to ask for help from some stupid first-year teacher who didn’t even have kids of his own. After I left New Bridge, I saw his mom a few more times. She said Hakeem was up in New Jersey with his dad- that she just couldn’t control him. It didn’t sound good. At some point I saw Hakeem as well. I can’t recall exactly where or when now. He’d started to harden some, a hint of a mustache growing on his face, but that kid who really wanted to please was still there. He wanted to know why I left New Bridge. I probably said something about money. It’s an easy cop out. I really just remember how much I liked Hakeem, how much I hope that there’s still that reachable core of good in him. I know there’s a poor boy who’s dead here and family that’s grieving for […]
Trackbacks and Pingbacks on this post
No trackbacks.
- TrackBack URL
Comments on this post