Clive Thompson : The Attack of the Incredible Grading Machine
"The theory behind the method is this: For any given essay, good content is a function of using certain words in the vicinity of certain other words, and that accomplishment can be expressed numerically." Fascinating. The claim is that it is optimized for short-essay answers, but how long will that last? What happens, then, when you feed it a paper by someone who decides to challenge accepted notions, expand the area of discussion or just outright aims to prove an idea to be wrong wrong wrong? Galileo, anyone?
Nando Times on the next-generation Virtual Hell
"They hope to develop simulators to help soldiers learn the customs of foreign countries to prepare them for the kind of peacekeeping missions that have taken troops on short notice to places like Bosnia and Kosovo. For example, a soldier could take an online course about an area's history, then enter a virtual reality where a "guide" could lead the soldier through a town." Cute. Really cute.
This is what it's really going to be used for.Robert Vipond : Holes in the anti-squeegee manifesto
"[They] have become living metaphors for a social reality that includes child poverty, dysfunctional families and a counterculture that openly mocks middle-class values. Understandably, many of us would rather not confront or be reminded of this reality at every intersection. But our discomfort at what they represent is a bad reason for riding squeegee kids out of town on a rail." see also : Brian Myles'
La dictature de l'image.
BBC : Timor activists warn of cyber war
It's always nice to see
Nobel Peace Prize Laureates wax poetic about bringing down the banking industry.
More bunnies!
mmmmm...stripey bunnies.