Category Archives: Reading

Notes, amusements, and other glosses.

Four times four

Posted on August 4, 2010 by cbd

CARLI goes to a four-week term for book borrowing. Yuck. Continue reading →

Posted in Reading | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

TCQ 19.1: Posthuman rhetorics & TC

Posted on February 17, 2010 by cbd

My copy of TCQ 19.1 arrived the other day, and I got a chance to read it last night. It’s a special issue on “Posthuman Rhetorics and Technical Communication”, edited by Byron Hawk and Andrew Mara. Good stuff: the articles … Continue reading →

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Platform studies, antidefined

Posted on December 17, 2009 by cbd

Ian Bogost and Nick Montfort on what “platform studies” is not–and is. We need to balance thinking about hardware, and we need to learn some code. But that doesn’t mean getting away from software, culture, or the traditional concerns of the humanities. Continue reading →

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Kopelson’s “Sp(l)itting Images”

Posted on July 25, 2008 by cbd

Time to join the fun. Since others have already written some interesting things, I’ll keep this short. First, on context, to pick up on Alex’s comments about Cortland, what if we shift the ground from research universities to institutions where … Continue reading →

Posted in Composition, Reading | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Catching up on dumbing down

Posted on June 7, 2008 by cbd

Everyone else on the planet has probably read it already, but I’ve finished my first read of Steven Johnson’s Everything Bad is Good for You. I like Johnson’s stuff (I fancy this this comment about an update of Interface Culture … Continue reading →

Posted in Reading, Writing | Tagged , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Running spark

Posted on February 13, 2008 by cbd

I’m getting faster; some sparklines show it Continue reading →

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Tufte, Beautiful Evidence

Posted on February 10, 2008 by cbd

Edward Tufte’s most recent book Beautiful Evidence follows in the tradition of his previous books, arguing for visual displays with high information density. Much of the argument is by example, annotated reproductions or redrawings of images Tufte identifies as “graphical … Continue reading →

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Odds and ends Sunday

Posted on February 3, 2008 by cbd

The Easterling-Dilger household is bustlin’ these days, so bloggin’ sometimes has to take a back seat. I’m very, very glad to say I’m reading a fair amount these days. I’m halfway through a second reading of Tufte’s Beautiful Evidence, which … Continue reading →

Posted in CF, House, Reading, Running, Teaching, Weather | 2 Comments

Nielsen & Loranger, Prioritizing Web Usability

Posted on January 3, 2008 by cbd

Jakob Nielsen and Hoa Loranger Prioritizing Web Usability New Riders, 2006 Jakob Nielsen is the 800lb gorilla of usability, at least where the web is concerned. Why? Academics like him because of publications like Usability Engineering (1993), which uses a … Continue reading →

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Crystal, The Fight for English

Posted on October 22, 2007 by cbd

Commentary on David Crystal’s The Fight for English (Oxford 2007), a history of and argument against prescriptive views of English. Continue reading →

Posted in Reading, Writing | 4 Comments