computers

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Drunk Emailing

Now I'll admit that from time to time, I enjoy a good glass (or six) of, uh, wine, in the course of, oh, let's say an academic discussion or an evening symposium. One such evening last week led to an incident in which I, being thoroughly uninhibited and deeply joyful, decided to share my unedited joy with others...let's say coworkers...via email at... READ ON

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The Internet Archive Part 1 - The Wayback Machine

This week we'll explore the Internet Archive, a modern-day cabinet of wonders-slash-library that hosts tons of educational (and fun) materials online. First stop: The Wayback Machine. Ever wondered what a web site looked like ten years ago? The Wayback Machine likely has the answer. This service of the Internet Archive started in 1996, actively archiving large chunks of the web. While it hasn't indexed every web site out there, it has gotten quite a... READ ON

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Apple's Knowledge Navigator

In 1987, Apple produced a futuristic concept video (Google Video link) showing their vision of the future of computing in the year 2010. The video featured a laptop-ish computer which embodied several major advancements, chief among them a natural-language spoken interface -- not just voice-controlled, this interface was conversational. Aside from the (still sci-fi) verbal interface, many of the other innovations have come to pass, at least in some form: wireless networking, effective internet... READ ON

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Image Macros: Oddballs and Advanced Forms

Throughout the week, I've looked at Image Macros: Intro to LOL Cats, "Invisible" LOL Cats, "I Can Has Cheezburger?" LOL Cats, and I'm in Your X, Y'ing Your Z. Today the series wraps up with some unusual Image Macros that have caught my eye. "Bucket" Image Macros are based on this deeply evocative two-panel... READ ON

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Image Macros: I'm in Your X, Y'ing Your Z

Okay, now that I've spent the first three days of this week talking about LOL Cats, it's time to move on to something marginally more advanced: the "I'm in Your X, Y'ing Your Z" Image Macros. According to several web sources (which are so not-work-safe I won't link them), this genre of Image Macros started with the statement, "I'm in your base killing your d00ds" (that last word being a Leet spelling of "dudes"), from a classic video game. Non-gamer translation: "You lose." This Image Macro genre... READ ON

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LOL Cats: I Can Has Cheezburger

Over the past few days, we've shown you several flavors of LOL Cats. Today's focus, the famous "I Can Has Cheezburger?" LOL Cats (the premiere LOL Cats blog is named for this image). The cheezburger cats appear to have started with this... READ ON

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Image Macros: "Invisible" LOL Cats

Yesterday we introduced you to LOL Cats, today it's time to dig deeper. It's hard to create a firm timeline of how these images evolved, but it appears that one of these two images created a subgenre of LOL Cats, which I refer to as "Invisible" LOL... READ ON

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Image Macros: Intro to LOL Cats

I've long been interested in Image Macros, which are best described as web based images with text superimposed on them. Okay, that's a poor description. Here's an... READ ON

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April Fools' Day - Tech Prank Roundup

Yesterday's April Fools' Day was packed with pranks; here are a few of my... READ ON

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Learn Via Podcast

We've covered free stuff on the iTunes Store before, including some higher education content. But did you know there's a whole directory of educational podcasts, including higher education... READ ON