Jonathan Frei – Page 103 – Based on a true story

Charlatan, Martyr, Hustler (via Poster | Joey Roth)

September 12, 2011October 7, 2014 by Jonathan Frei

Superheros are like the rest of us.

azizalbraik:

Super Heroes

September 8, 2011October 7, 2014 by Jonathan Frei

Fast or Slow

Speaking fast or slow, most languages convey the same amount of information in a minute due to the correlation between data-density and the syllables per second of speech. This means someone speaking high data-density language (like English) and a low data-density language (like Spanish) will still communicate the same amount of information in a minute, even though one sounds much faster:

English, with a high information density of .91, is spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second. Mandarin, which topped the density list at .94, was the spoken slowpoke at 5.18 syllables per second. Spanish, with a low-density .63, rips along at a syllable-per-second velocity of 7.82. The true speed demon of the group, however, was Japanese, which edges past Spanish at 7.84, thanks to its low density of .49. Despite those differences, at the end of, say, a minute of speech, all of the languages would have conveyed more or less identical amounts of information.

via Kottke

September 8, 2011 by Jonathan Frei

Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive

The 9/11 Television News Archive is a library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists, and the public, it presents one week of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis.

Television is our pre-eminent medium of information, entertainment and persuasion, but until now it has not been a medium of record. This Archive attempts to address this gap by making TV news coverage of this critical week in September 2001 available to those studying these events and their treatment in the media.

Explore 3,000 hours of international TV News from 20 channels over 7 days, and select analysis by scholars.

September 7, 2011 by Jonathan Frei

Google Gravity

This is really fun. Try a Google search on this site.

September 7, 2011 by Jonathan Frei

Mass in Wartime via New Liturgical Movement

September 7, 2011October 7, 2014 by Jonathan Frei

terrysdiary:

How a bad idea starts: “That looks easy… I could do that.” How a good idea idea starts: “That looks fun… I should do that.”

September 7, 2011October 7, 2014 by Jonathan Frei

Conservatives were always skeptical of the campaign to democratize higher education, arguing that it was bound to lead to lowered standards and loss of purpose. Events have confirmed their predictions, even if their diagnosis has done little to alter the path of the American university.

What’s wrong with our universities? by James Piereson – The New Criterion

September 6, 2011 by Jonathan Frei

Typewriters live on in India

Computers may be everywhere today, but typewriters stay alive in India.

The factories that make the machines may be going silent, but India’s typewriter culture remains defiantly alive, fighting on bravely against that omnipresent upstart, the computer. (In fact, if India had its own version of “Mad Men,” with its perfumed typing pools and swaggering execs, it might not be set in the 1960s but the early 1990s, India’s peak typewriter years, when 150,000 machines were sold annually.)

Credit for its lingering presence goes to India’s infamous bureaucracy, as enamored as ever of outdated forms (often in triplicate) and useless procedures, documents piled 3 feet high and binders secured by pink string.

Also, since many homes don’t have electricity, typewriters function well to keep India’s ever-growing workforce, productive all hours.