My big acting moment in this scene is declining a drink. #indie #film

Similar:Finished Reading "Deathly Hallows" for the First TimeWhem my kids started reading the books o…BooksHow Copyright Law Gave Us STAR WARSIn an alternate universe George Lucas ne…BusinessToasting Shakespeare at the Bard's Birthday BashOrganized by Pittsburgh Shakespeare in t…CultureThe Future of Academic Style: Why Citations Still Matter in the Age of GoogleLooking forward to getting my…

Added a pilot and cockpit details to my flyby of a #steampunk scout ship. Costume is a pre-fab placeholder. #makehuman #blender3D

  Similar:I'm not a big fan of Disney's corporate greed.I’m not a huge fan of Disney, largely be…AcademiaSo, What's in It for Me?All in all, I enjoy my job very much, an…AcademiaA colleague bakes Irish soda bread to share on the Humanities floor every St Patrick's DayPersonalThe daughter introduced me to this wonderful Martin Freeman…

Data-Related Deaths, 1960-2019 (Excluding Fatalities Caused by Misreadings, Typographical Errors, and Paper Cuts)

Similar:Toiletries for a steampunk villain who needs to look dapper. Straight razor and shaving br… Nice lighting shows clearly that I h…DesignCarnegie Science Center: Roboworld (and a bit of SportsWorks)Here’s a brief video, made up of clips I…CultureHow to Keep Students Writing in the Age of AI Tools In a writing-intensive class, studen…AcademiaHow 15 minutes…

The worst-case scenario Converging in a tense section of Huntsville: A white police officer fresh from de-escalation training, a troubled black woman with a gun, and a crowd with cellphones ready to record

This article focuses on a police officer who had just completed training in how to de-escalate an encounter with a mentally ill citizen, and just three days later found himself face-to-face with a mentally ill woman with a gun (and her toddler with a sippy cup). De-escalation training gives cops better tools than AR-15s, and…

Background for Trump’s remarkable pivot to a pro-mask stance; via right-leaning Forbes and The National Review

Background for Trump’s remarkable pivot to a pro-mask stance. First, here’s a report from the right-leaning Forbes, last week. One possible reason for Trump’s continued public embrace of Fauci–even as he shirks his advice behind the scenes–is Fauci’s popularity: an Economist/YouGov poll released Wednesday showed 55% of voters surveyed have a favorable view of Fauci…

This Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest Cave

The Medium headline calls Colossal Cave Adventure “one of the first the video games,” but it’s a stretch to use “video” to describe the modality of a command line text parser game. The former Patricia Crowther was very helpful to me when I interviewed her by telephone for my DHQ article. I could have written…

No, this photo of people wearing coats standing in front of bare trees was not a fake news media attempt to misrepresent what’s happening in Texas and Arizona in July

It’s distressing and shocking to realize that some people are more willing to spread conspiracy theory shit than it they are to check their sources. Isn’t it the bad guys who are supposed to be spreading lies? I like reading news stories for myself, rather than spreading disinformation on social media. How hard is it…

Novel defined: a term used by some students to mean “any text we study in English class”

Similar:In June, 2000 I was blogging about anagrams, 1750 Paris, ambiguity, a hyperlink patent cl…In June, 2000, I was blogging about …AmusingMany things in the world are awful, but my latest #Blender3D work on my #steampunk control…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsIn September, 2003, I was blogging about the emerging fad of internet plagiarism,…

Mechanical innards for a Steampunk set piece. #Blender3D #greebles

Similar:In one small prairie town, two warring visions of AmericaGreat writing and great photography in t…CultureAwesome 1935 Soviet Movie Deploys Saxophone-Controlled Robots to Crush Tophat- and Bowler-…I wish I understood Russian, so that I c…AestheticsPrime Stage presents ‘Twelfth Night’ as season-ending productionLooking forward to seeing this! Set in …CultureHow do you know when your #steampunk…

Okay, a lot of the world is pretty awful right now, but here’s an uplifting video about the “success kid” meme.

Similar:Ancient Sea Rise Tale Told Accurately for 10,000 Years”It’s quite gobsmacking to think that a …CultureShrek: The Musical (Nov 22-24; Stage Right! Greensburg)Come see me as the Captain of the Guard,…Current_EventsWhy I Resist Web Redesigns (And Maybe You Do, Too)Words many of us never want to hear: “It…AestheticsHow Not to Hate Shakespeare The problem isn’t…

Somewhere out there, somebody is working really hard to come up with a meme to blame this on the lying America-hating fake news media.

Front page of the Miami Herald newspaper, with two headlines circled: “Florida schools ordered to reopen in August” and “Miami-Dade restaurants, gyms closing to fight COVID surge” Similar:Microsoft is once again asking Chrome users to try Bing through unblockable pop-ups If you click “Yes,” the pop-up will …BusinessAugust Wilson House officially opens in Pittsburgh's Hill…

And to think… I had just decided to retire this meme because the last time I used in class, the students didn’t get it.

Similar:The Real Reason Why You Can't WriteHave you ever stopped to think about wha…AcademiaAmLit Rescue — Scratch GameA student in my “American Literature: 19…AcademiaThe Case for Breaking Up With Your ParentsI already felt fairly independent from m…AcademiaHow newsroom managers can invest more time developing their staff — and why it mattersOne of my most consistently…

Journalists who are doing their job by reporting fairly on a controversial topic often get attacked from both sides. 

Americans can fairly and legitimately differ on important values. Freedom or security? Peace or justice? Which short-term sacrifices are worth making, for which long-term benefits?

Most readers will nod along with whatever parts of a story affirm their values. A significant number will reject any story — even one that’s carefully sourced and fact-checked — if it challenges their world view. (“So biased!” “Fake news!”)

Whenever even the fairest-minded journalists tackle a high-stakes story involving groups with different levels of access to wealth, education, healthcare and personal security, any honest story they publish is going to make someone upset.

Ménage à Troi (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 24) Lwaxana, Ferengi, Chess, and Poetry

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. The teaser features Picard fibbing awkwardly to evade Troi’s mother Lwaxana, nicely setting up a later scene when he woos her with snatches of Shakespeare and Tennyson — first clumsily, then enthusiastically, as part of a ruse designed to… oh, nevermind why. Seeing Picard save the day with love poetry…

Both Sides in Journalism

Similar:I Know How You're Feeling, I Read ChekhovReading Chekhov for a few minutes makes …Academia87,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus OutbreakSobering report from the New York Times,…Current_EventsAdvent of Digital Humanities Will Make English Departments Pointless — New RepublicDon’t overreact to the headline, which i…AcademiaOur Publication Stands By the Decision to Give…

Capitalists Tell Facebook They’ve Had Enough

It started as a murmur of dissent, but over the weekend the campaign to persuade brands to boycott Facebook ads for the month of July turned into a major crisis for the social media giant. It began badly on Friday when Unilever, one of the world’s biggest advertisers, announced it was joining the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which had already been backed by Verizon, Patagonia, and Ben and Jerry’s.

After a pretty crappy day, I found shreds of joy in this clip of socially distanced salsa.

In my discipline, teaching small seminars typically depends on students sharing their weaknesses and vulnerabilities in pairs and small groups, gradually building trust while the teacher moves through the room, listening and joining in and backing away as appropriate. Masked students who are 6 feet away from each other will have to shout their failures…