The public disintegration of a platform that millions of people used every day has been painful to watch. Now that Google’s search results seem almost completely colonized by AI-generated crap, it will be harder for me to listen in on and learn from a wide range of everyday people sharing their opinions and talking to…
In the weeks leading up to the US midterm elections, the message from Fox News was clear: violent crime is surging, cities are dangerous hellscapes and Democrats are responsible. With the vote over, however, the rightwing news channel appeared to decide things weren’t that bad after all, and decreased its coverage of violent crime by 50% compared…
Political tensions alone could be a major source of conflict, according to Michelle Hanlon, the co-director of the Air and Space Law Center at the University of Mississippi law school. For one, there still isn’t a globally shared vision for what the future of the moon should entail. Just over 20 countries have signed the US-led Artemis…
What a horrible situation. The Adobe monthly leases are way too expensive for a student paper that only prints a few magazines a term. The software costs more than the printing process, and about the same as the web hosting service. Just not worth the expense. We are making do with free alternatives. For people…
The very useful “media bias chart” is one of several useful ways to classify sources of journalism. UPDATE: See the Media Bias Chart, v.11 While individual items published by any of these sources can vary considerably from the general location depicted in this chart, the takeaway message is that journalism can still be valid and…
Rewatching ST:DS9 The station prepares to welcome Cardassian engineers. While Sisko and Quark are hopeful, Downer Dax doubts the technobabble, and also notes Quark’s Cardassian booze has spoiled. The vedek Yarka warns Sisko that letting the Cardassians establish a relay link through the wormhole will fulfill an ancient prophecy that foretells doom. Kira finds his…
After reviewing 22 AI essays I asked my students to create, I can tell you confidently that AI-generated essays are nothing to worry about. The technology just isn’t there, and I doubt it will be anytime soon. […] The students in this class were mostly juniors and seniors, and many were majors in rhetoric and…
Rewatching ST:DS9 In a runabout, Kira bickers with a grumpy Odo. Kira: You’re right. Next time we are invited out for dinner, I’ll make sure you are the one to say no. Odo: I’d appreciate that. There’s warmth under the snark on both sides, though as usual Kira isn’t aware of how much she means…
In April, the FBI raided an ABC journalist’s apartment. James Gordon Meek abruptly resigned, and his former colleagues say they haven’t seen him for months. Rolling Stone just broke this story. Multiple sources familiar with the matter say Meek was the target of an FBI raid at the Siena Park apartments, where he had been living on…
Rewatching ST:DS9 An accident aboard a transport arriving at the station rattles Kai Winn and seriously injures Vedek Bareil. Winn suspects the accident may have been sabotage, infodumping to Sisko that Bareil is crucial to the success of secret peace talks with Cardassia. Winn admits that since she won the election as Kai, her former…
In June, 2002, I was blogging about A female autistic scholar’s lament The origins of Horton Hears a Who A NatGeo article on the media-saturated life of Iowa college students The function of “er” in speech A Pravda article on parallels between Orthodox Christianity and computer programming Dr. Toast’s Amazing World of Toast (I really…
I’m conflicted. This is a very well done animated documentary, creating visuals that were not part of the original press coverage of Floyd Collins, the caver trapped in Sand Cave in 1925, and the subject of the first media circus, fed by the emerging new medium of radio journalism. The animation adds sight gags and…
If you’ve been following the sad story of Elijah McClain, a Black man who went into cardiac arrest and died in police custody in a Denver suburb in 2019 (after telling the officers who were arresting them that he was unarmed, that he doesn’t even kill flies, and that he loved them) you might know…
It’s been decades since I’ve had the “I’m in school again and I forgot to study for the test” nightmare, but it hasn’t been so long since I’ve had nightmares about the faculty job search. I did have one nightmare campus visit, where I was told I was one of six candidates brought to campus…
Rewatching ST:DS9 Quark scowls as a lucky customer cleans up at a dabo table. Jake blows a kiss at the attendant, who must be Mardah, his girlfriend (of whom we have heard but never seen). Mardah encourages the customer to play one more round, which he loses. He aims to console himself with Marda’s attention,…
An elected county official in Las Vegas is being held on a murder charge in connection with the stabbing death of a veteran journalist who had reported on the official’s purported wrongdoing, a sheriff announced Thursday – a case that raises questions about press freedom in America. Clark County Public Administrator Robert Telles, 45, was…
This study relied in part on the repondents’ self-reporting of what they read as children, but it was a complex study that approached the core issue from multiple angles. The researchers note that an “association” is not a “cause” — yet the correlation is still worth reflecting on: Those people who did not read fiction…
I guess I was expecting something like Seinfeld with a studio audience guffawing or maybe a wobble-noise sound effect followed by sad trombones but oh my, that clip is a masterclass in storytelling and I am an awful person for laughing this hard.
