Photos inspired by Wuthering Heights
A photographer blogged about taking photos inspired by Wuthering Heights. Note please the dark clouds and the wall of rain looming in on us…. We were racing against the impending drenching, and chuckling at the comments from a family of climbers “oh how beautiful! I think they just got married!” We had to break the…
Using “Strive” as a Noun
Obviously I know what my students mean when they use “strive” as a noun, in phrases like “the strive for success.” I have noticed this more frequently in recent years. I do not think they are mishearing “strife” (which has the same linguistic root, but has negative connotations of violence and opposition, whereas the verb…
High School Poems in a College Writing Workshop
Poems that you wrote in high school to celebrate a first love, work through a painful breakup, or say goodbye to friends at graduation may be of extreme personal value to you; but if such poems are historical artifacts — if you value them as definitive records of the way you felt at that time…
I felt a great disturbance in the Fandom
“…as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.”
Hasbro removes embedded typeface from My Little Pony website after copyright infringement claim
Considering the scope of the alleged infringements, which affect pretty much the entire My Little Pony line, the potential damages run into the millions. In addition, Font Brothers demand the destruction of all products and material which utilize the infringing font. Update: Hasbro quietly removed the font from their website, but Archive.org still has a…
Kids Turn Bratz into Star Wars Rey Dolls
Sometimes, I catch myself thinking there may be hope for the future. There has been something of an outcry over the toy merchandising associated with Star Wars: The Force Awakens with the apparent dearth of Rey dolls in play sets (Rey being the lead female character in the film). Parts and Crafts, a family…
How Bad Design Wrecked Steve Harvey’s “Universe”
The consequences weren’t as serious as the infamous Palm Beach County Butterfly Ballot; however, Eric Thomas has taken it upon himself to redesign the illogical “Miss Universe” results card. First, I’ve updated the brand to match. Just because this is simple and utilitarian doesn’t mean it can’t match the rest of the show. After that, I…
Canon Australia video: 1 man; 6 backstories; 6 photographers; 6 photos
Canon Australia wants to sell cameras. This soft-sell video flatters the creative ambitions of customers in order to make them want to invest money in a fancy camera. We should be critical of the premise, because the video is not an art project or a psychological study. Still, this is good storytelling, and helps make a…
Where is the tipping point?
What if universities stopped buying academic journals, and put the money towards hiring editors who helped their faculty publish their scholarship in their own free, open-source journals? I don’t know how much labour goes into running a prestigious journal, but let’s say all the universities that really need those specialised mathematics journals sat down and…
Play-Doh was Originally Wallpaper Cleaner
The story of Play-Doh began when Kutol, a Cincinnati based soap company, was about to go under in the late 1920s. Cleo McVicker, just 21 years old, was tasked with selling off the company’s remaining assets, which at the time comprised mainly of powdered hand soap. Once that was done, the company would be too. …
‘NPR Voice’ Has Taken Over the Airwaves
In literary circles, the practice of poets reciting verse in singsong registers and unnatural cadences is known, derogatorily, as “poet voice.” I propose calling this phenomenon “NPR voice” (which is distinct from the supple baritones we normally associate with radio voices). This plague of pregnant pauses and off-kilter pronunciations must have come from someplace.…
The Little Professor: How to write an essay about teaching that will not be published in the NYT, Chronicle, IHE, or anywhere else
All instructors have to assemble their own pedagogical toolkit from the many resources out there and restock it (and recreate it) as necessary. There is no one single way of being effective. There is no magic spell (previous post on this blog to the contrary) that will make all pedagogical techniques effective all the time.…
Ermahgerddon: The Untold Story of the Ermahgerd Girl
Deciding against the coonskin cap, Goldenberger put on the vest, hoisted her hair up into intentionally dorky pigtails—she never wore them like that otherwise—brandished the chosen books, and pulled an intentionally hideous face for the camera. Normally, she hardly ever wore her retainer like she was supposed to, but it felt right for the character:…
Architecture in Video Games: Designing for Impact
Deanna Van Buren writes: I wonder why do we not see more collaboration between experienced architects, landscape architects, and video game developers. From the architect’s side, I know that we like to make stuff in the real world, and perhaps don’t think it will be rewarding. Architects often don’t play games or see how they…
Kafka Meets Charlie Brown
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of Franz Kafka’s The Metamorphosis. An opportune time, then, to revisit R. Sikoryak’s “Good ol’ Gregor Brown,” which first appeared in Russ Kick’s The Graphic Canon, from Seven Stories Press. —Literary Hub
Nerd Break! Listening To: Wilhelm Scream / Castle Thunder / Amen Break (While Watching Lights Blink in an Oft-recycled Sci-Fi Prop)
In order to provide some context for a blog post on a blinking lights prop we’ve all seen in dozens of different TV shows and movies, I opened different tabs for compilations of the Wilhelm scream, the castle thunder sound cue, and the Amen break drum solo. All three of those sound effects are now playing at once, and I am…
Why You Hate Google’s New Logo
The new logo retains the rainbow of colors but sheds the grownup curlicues: it now evokes children’s refrigerator magnets, McDonald’s French fries, Comic Sans. Google took something we trusted and filed off its dignity. Now, in its place, we have an insipid “G,” an owl-eyed “oo,” a schoolroom “g,” a ho-hum “l,” and a demented,…
To Learn More, This High-Schooler Left The Classroom
Nick Bain, 17, was in class one day when he calculated that only “2 1/2 to three hours” was actually useful instruction. So he decided to go out on his own to learn. —NPR
