Science for non-majors offers an important chance to reach out to students outside the sciences, and try to give them some appreciation for scientific inquiry. This is critically important, as we live in a time where science itself is under political assault from both the left and right. People with political agendas are constantly peddling…
Over a ten-month period, the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) documented television newsrooms’ use of 36 video news releases (VNRs)–a small sample of the thousands produced each year. CMD identified 77 television stations, from those in the largest to the smallest markets, that aired these VNRs or related satellite media tours (SMTs) in 98…
Veteran commander John Young and his rookie pilot Robert Crippen faced a lot of uncertainties April 12, 1981, as they waited for the space shuttle Columbia to lift off from Florida’s Kennedy Space Flight Center. —STS-1: ‘A test pilot’s dream’: Columbia astronaut recalls first shuttle flight on 25th anniversary (CNN) When my class was watching the…
Fanny Pack This is great if you’re trying to create a singularity of pure geekness that will open up a portal to an alternate universe where they’re still making episodes of Reboot. But if there are even two working neurons in the style portion of your brain, the same neurons that explained that Mr. T’s…
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. —The Bill of Rights: Amendment I The First Amendment, among…
I called a disabled colleague a spaz after hearing he’d spilt coffee over yet another expensive bit of computer kit…. I use the term with irony as someone who was regularly called a “spaz” in the school playground, though I’m visually impaired and not what we once called “a spastic”. To confuse the issue, a…
A merchant adressing a debtor Remarked in the course of his lebtor That he chose to suppose A man knose what he ose; And the sooner he pays it the bebtor. —Poems showing the absurdities of English spelling (The Simplified Spelling Society)
“Wouldn’t shooting cell-phone users in research libraries be counterproductive?” you might well ask. “Wouldn’t that actually make the library more noisy?” A fair point. Yes, it would. But not for long…. —Scott McLemee —The Silencer (Inside Higher Ed)
Like most of the faculty on my campus, I typically just use the ELMO as an overhead projector to show handouts, but without having to go through the trouble of making a transparency, since it will project anything you put on it. In my mind, it’s even easier to operate than a PowerPoint presentation, and…
Publisher sales reps inform Wal-Mart buyers of games in development; the games’ subjects, titles, artwork and packaging are vetted and sometimes vetoed by Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart tells a top-end publisher it won’t carry a certain game, the publisher kills that game. In short, every triple-A game sold at retail in North America is managed start…
The Times article adds, from the CIRP survey, that the proportion of students who applied to 12 or more colleges increased by 50 percent from 2001 to 2005. The article does not go on to note that the 50 percent increase brought the percentage from 1.4 to 2.1. Most of the students who are using…
On one level, blogs are little more than personal journals posted on the Internet for all to see. They provide a forum for teachers to share ideas with colleagues around the world or simply talk about themselves and others. But under a wider lens, the sometimes funny, sometimes searing blogs paint what may be the…
Michael Smith, professor in Temple University’s College of Education and coauthor of Reading Don’t Fix No Chevys, said the language of crisis was overblown but noted that the facts are plain: Boys read later than girls and lag them in both reading and writing across grades. They read fewer books, and value reading less. “If…
“We found that men do not regard books as a constant companion to their life’s journey, as consolers or guides, as women do,” said Prof Jardine. “They read novels a bit like they read photography manuals.” Women readers used much-loved books to support them through difficult times and emotional turbulence, and tended to employ them…
He always kept his poise To the top branches, climbing carefully With the same pains you use to fill a cup Up to the brim, and even above the brim. Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish, Kicking his way down through the air to the ground. —Robert Frost —Birches (Bartleby) When I was…
Yes, you did read that right. And also, yes, this eight-year period of temperature stasis did coincide with society’s continued power station and SUV-inspired pumping of yet more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In response to these facts, a global warming devotee will chuckle and say “how silly to judge climate change over such a…
Half-Life 2 Mod: Week 7 — Gleaming Translucent Chandeliers, Detail of Railing, Heavy Object Designing (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) This week I finally managed to make my chandeliers look decent. Previously I had placed an invisible light-emitting entity inside a solid translucent block, but that unfortunately left the outside edges of the block looking very dark. So…
Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests. —!!! BREAD IS DANGEROUS !!!
My Students Impressed Me Today (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) In my “Intro to Literary Study” class, I assigned Arthur Miller’s recent play, Resurrection Blues. At the beginning of the class term, I told my students that it wouldn’t be in the bookstore yet because Amazon.com said the book wouldn’t be published until early February, just a few…
Also known as yupster (yuppie + hipster), yindie (yuppie + indie), and alterna-yuppie. Our preferred term, grup, is taken from an episode of Star Trek (keep reading) in which Captain Kirk et al. land on a planet of children who rule the world, with no adults in sight. The kids call Kirk and the crew…