I’m not giving any final exams this term. On the one hand, we tell students to value learning for learning’s sake; on the other, we tell students they’d better know this or that, or they’d better take notes, or they’d better read the book, because it will be on the next exam; if they don’t…
I love a good infographic. HubbleSite – NewsCenter – Hubble to Use Moon as Mirror to See Venus Transit (05/04/2012) – Release Images. Similar:At Computers and Writing #cwcon for the weekend.Am I wise now? At an event for encouragi…AcademiaOver time, Google has made paid ads harder to spot In 2007, Google changed the long…BusinessNASA Calls…
Pittsburgh’s Trib Inadvertently Advises Readers to Shit Themselves. The copy I picked up has been fixed. Similar:Genesis (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 19) The crew de-evolve into hominids, a… Rewatching ST:TNG After Worf lose…DesignMy meeting was cancelled, so I spent the morning assembling a cabinet for a Little Free Li…AcademiaAnother section of a…
Our last day of classes is Monday, followed immediately by final exams. My freshman writing students still have a final revision and a final reflection due, but they seemed surprisingly relaxed today. They have all given informal presentations in both informal and formal settings, and turned in solid drafts. For my part, I’ve already returned…
Great little story that I’m saving for a future “history of journalism” module. The German surrender happened at 2:41 a.m. on May 7, 1945. Kennedy was one of 17 reporters taken to witness the ceremony. He and the others were hastily assembled by military commanders, then pledged to secrecy by a U.S. general while the…
I already knew that a free press is precious, but I had no idea it was so rare.. A Washington-based human rights organization says that, overall, press freedom around the world stopped declining in 2011. But while there are positive changes in some countries, the overall picture is not too bright. Last year, less than…
I don’t really want to assign a grade to this draft… I just want to sit down with the student and have a conversation about why the words “cannot” and “because” mean completely different things according to context. “The ice cannot be melted because the temperature is below freezing” uses “cannot” as a physical impossibility…
Hap Aziz, who’s running a Kickstarter campaign to fund an interactive fiction exploration of colonial Williamsburg, was interviewed by Emily Short. One of the fascinating things to me about the events surrounding American independence is that there was so much disagreement and debate regarding whether or not the colonies should dissolve their bonds with England.…
The other day, a worker was pushing his cart through my office building, attaching these little cork board strips to our doors. Something about the moment cried out for commemoration. Similar:Shakespeare's Globe Theatre, Minecraft Stylehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?time_conti…AestheticsThe Period, Our Simplest Punctuation Mark, Has Become a Sign of AngerYou text your girlfriend: “I know we mad…CybercultureDeath of…
I don’t want to put Humpy Dumpty back together. Let him lie there, a cracked shell oozing yolk. He is broken. And he is beautiful. The smell, the colors, the flow, the texture, the mess. All of it, it is unavailable until we break things. And let’s not soften our critical blow by calling it…