Online news overtakes paper - mobile claims half

You read it here first (in the paper tomorrow).

http://www.engadget.com/2011/03/15/online-news-overtakes-paper-and-nearly-hal...

Fifth Grade Radical Manifesto

In sorting through my Grandfather's personal effects this weekend, we ran across a forgotten chapter in the 1970's radical movement, a typed half-page manifesto from a free-thinking 10-year-old. At the time, I was living in Cygnet, Ohio (Wood County) and attending fifth grade in the Elmwood school district. Fifth and sixth graders from several small rural communities in the district were bussed to an isolated, aging building whose name I have forgotten and that I'm not even sure I could find. It may no longer exist.

I have almost zero clear memories of fifth grade - the twins Cheryl and Carol Tyson. Hamburg gravy on mashed potatoes in the basement cafeteria. Kickball. The kid on the bus who could turn his eyelids inside out.

> School
> > These following few paragraphs are about what I, Paul Bradley Reed, think about school.
> > First of all, I think they have a lousy system. For instance, they have one lesson after another and never a rest except lunch and recess.
> > And of course the busses. They don't even run half the time. Just Wednesday, Feb. 18, 1970 we got all loaded up and the bus wouldn't start.
> > Talking about the busses being crouded (sic) ! They're so crammed up you can hardly sit down with three but when you try to get four, well, that's another story. And they never heat the busses. Well, that's all I have to say.
> > Truthfully,
> > Paul Bradley Reed

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Five lessons learned from my grandfather

1. How to dunk donuts in coffee, leading to my lifetime attachment for too much coffee and too many donuts.

2. Be responsible and don't litter. Let the beer can fill with water so it will sink to the bottom of the lake and no just float on the surface.

3. How to level a pop-up camper with just a glass of water. Tools are what you make of them, and improvisation is a survival skill.

4. How to operate a riding mower by generously allowing me to mow his five-acre lot.

5. Mostly, how to be a grandfather. That's the most important lesson of all.

Rest in peace, Tom Shaw. You are fondly remembered!

On becoming an American

When I first saw the headline of this Slate article, I thought it would be another "everything you know is wrong" sort of thing. But actually it is an interesting, insightful and quite touching recollection of the citizenship naturalization process.

The Problem with Question 36

--Brad

Photo retouching revealed!

http://jezebel.com/#!5762410/models-real-faces-before-the-photoshop-magic

The unreal world of beauty photography exposed. Does knowing this make you any less insecure about your own appearance? Of course not!

Insights and Inside Info on IBM's meat-killing Jeopardy machine

Much of the power comes from IBM's carefully curated collection of data. Jennifer Chu-Carroll, one of the scientists who has worked on the project since it began over four years ago, says that Watson excels, predictably enough, when the answer is a detail stored in its database.

http://www.infoworld.com/t/business-intelligenceanalytics/how-ibms-watson-hammered-its-jeopardy-foes-798?source=IFWNLE_nlt_blogs_2011-02-16

Corollary article:

Lest we get too enamored with our technological prowess, however, the authors make some comparisons with biology. “To put our findings in perspective, the 6.4*10¹⁸ instructions per second that human kind can carry out on its general-purpose computers in 2007 are in the same ballpark area as the maximum number of nerve impulses executed by one human brain per second.”

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/world-computer-data/

Hipstamatic and the Death of Photojournalism [Photography]

Hipstamatic and the Death of Photojournalism [Photography]
GIZMODO | FEBRUARY 10, 2011
http://pulsene.ws/10T2w

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