Writing in the 21st Century

Kathleen Blake Yancey offers a thoughtful overview of the challenges and opportunities that technology brings to teachers of English. I particularly like her analysis of an effort, organized by high school students, to get AP test-takers to insert the catchphrase  “THIS IS SPARTA!” into their exams. [‘T]he students understood the new audiences of twenty-first century…

The Pac-Man Dossier

Nerd heaven. In chase mode, Pinky behaves as he does because he does not target Pac-Man’s tile directly. Instead, he selects an offset four tiles away from Pac-Man in the direction Pac-Man is currently moving (with one exception). The pictures below illustrate the four possible offsets Pinky will use to determine his target tile based…

The Smart Set: Hot Wheels

Great little feature on a nostalgic pleasure. The Ferris wheel takes you nowhere but up and around. And it is precisely the lack of direction that makes you feel as if you are going everywhere. It doesn’t feed us, doesn’t clothe us, doesn’t give us a home. But man, we’re told, does not live on…

Magenta Ain't A Colour

Disturbing, yet cool.  Biotele.com A beam of white light is made up of all the colours in the spectrum. The range extends from red through to violet, with orange, yellow, green and blue in between. But there is one colour that is notable by its absence.   Pink (or magenta, to use its official name)…

Coraline — My Quick Review

I bugged out of work a few hours early today so I could meet up with the family for a matinee showing of Coraline. The local theater had a rather defensive home-grown sign explaining that the extra $2.50 they were charging per ticket pays for the cost of renting the 3D projection equipment from Disney.…