When an author uses AI for “polishing” a draft, they are not seeing improvement; they are witnessing semantic ablation. The AI identifies high-entropy clusters – the precise points where unique insights and “blood” reside – and systematically replaces them with the most probable, generic token sequences. What began as a jagged, precise Romanesque structure of…
Similar:Knee-jerk sharing of memes denigrates the truth.Trump never told People magazine that Re…CultureInternet hyperlinks do not infringe on copyright, EU court advisedWhile European Union rules say every act…Current_EventsBooby Trap (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 6) When LaForge gets absurd with a hologr…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year b…DesignLanguage Log » 25 Questions for Teaching with "Word Crimes"A…
A fascinating concept. (Thanks for the suggestion, Mom!) Ever wonder how we ended up with so many different styles of letters? Open any text editor, email client or design app and you will immediately be bombarded with a buffet of typographic choices. Serif or sans serif? Display or text? Classical or contemporary? Formal or casual?…
Twelfth-grade reading scores are at historic lows, and college professors, even at elite schools, are increasingly reporting difficulties in getting students to engage with lengthy or complex texts. Perhaps that is to be expected in the era of TikTok and A.I. Some education experts believe that in the near future, even the most sophisticated stories and…
My auditory processing disorder makes it hard for me to process speech when I can’t see the speaker’s lips. My wife is being treated for an ear infection. We are asking each other “What?” after somebody coughs, after we ask each other “What did you say?” and after we answer each other “Never mind.” In…
Essays like this remind me why I picked my English major. There are other ways to get facts. Newspapers are full of them, as are podcasts and documentaries. Travel shows proliferate, take your pick. But even then, there is nothing like the view of the world via a novel. Novels can go beyond merely being…
AI has transformed my experience of education. I am a senior at a public high school in New York, and these tools are everywhere. I do not want to use them in the way I see other kids my age using them—I generally choose not to—but they are inescapable. During a lesson on the Narrative of…
Students say they appreciate AI’s ability to organize ideas and improve flow, but many also recognize that what comes out often feels “robotic,” emotionally flat, or uncanny in tone. Still, convenience almost always wins. Reflection is hard, and AI makes things easy. I don’t fault students for wanting help. Writing about your life, especially the…
After marking a set of bibliography exercises, I created this graphic to focus on the kinds of citation errors I found in submissions that students clearly aren’t proofreading. I’m amazed that students don’t correct the capitalization errors (often caused by the keywords the student was searching for) or when they don’t notice that entries repeat…
As a grad student at the University of Toronto, I picked up a bit about Marshall McLuhan here, a bit of Harold Innis there… Blogging this so I keep this in mind the next time I teach a course like The History and Future of the Book. (There’s so much out there!) [S]ome media are…
The technology will continue to improve so that that simulated gymnastics videos will look less and less bizarre, but people who can use AI to create flawless gymnastics videos aren’t actually learning gymnastics. No human being will become a better gymnast thanks to a better AI simulation of a gymnastics routine. More convincing AI-generated…
Touched up and created an infographic for a web page that I first posted in Nov 2000. Similar:Another delightful section of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #design #aesthetics #…AestheticsMedia Bias Chart version 11 — Journalism sorted by bias (Left / Center / Right), reliabili…The very useful “media bias chart” is on…CultureWhy I Resist Web Redesigns…
As those familiar with the liberal arts know, in antiquity there were seven such arts. Three formed the trivium of the humanities: rhetoric, grammar, and logic. And four formed the quadrivium of the sciences: music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy. The assertion was this was the knowledge one required to participate as a citizen, as a…
The new AI advanced version of Google Search, aka Google SGE or Search Generative Experience, provides wicked smart AI answers to your queries. And if you ask it how to pass kidney stones quickly, Google will tell you to drink at least two quarts of urine every 24 hours. Source: Google SGE Recommends You Drink…
How to Disagree Academically: Using Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” to organize a college term paper. Similar:Education: Teaching teachers how to teach readingI’m definitely seeing students in my fre…BooksDear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to youI am intrigued by the possibility that M…CultureWhat Is Gamergate, and Why? An Explainer for Non-GeeksI’ve been following the frustrating…
Dr. David von Schlichten honors the spectrum of motivations (not always financial) featured during Seton Hill‘s “Celebration of Scholarship.” Similar:Memorizer (Memorization Tool)A Midsummer castmate shared a link to th…CybercultureLog Off, You Losers! Electronic Flatulence Must Cease!”Put your hands in your laps. Close your…AcademiaAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #design #aestheti…AestheticsRhythm of the Dance…
MLA In-text citations: Writing that got you through high school won’t do in college. Similar:The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and waveThere’s so much I don’t know! When teac…EducationAnother very rough day. Students are cheerful and patient, obviously happy to be here.Another very rough day. Students are che…AcademiaThe Protagonist’s Best…
In my lit classes, I’m definitely teaching more short stories and fewer novels that I used to. I’ve expanded the time I spend on note-taking, synthesizing quotes from different sources, and why at the college level it’s not a good paragraph if it simply introduces “One quote that supports my position,” repeats three or four…
Book historian Irene O’Daly notes that the passage crossed out in a medieval manuscript matches where the scribe accidentally turned two pages while copying out a printed book, showing that manuscript culture continued to exist even after the printing press was introduced. (It’s the third of three examples she uses.) Similar:Oh the Overthinks You Can…
Similar:Vandal scratches Poe phrase into car at dealershipLanguage nerds will appreciate this news…AmusingUNC student newspaper goes viral for coverage of campus shooting As Emmy Martin was locked down Monday …AcademiaOriginal Mickey Mouse Character Enters Public Domain in 2024As a grad student in the 1990s, I chose …AcademiaThe new marshmallow test: Resisting the temptations of the…