Carolyn’s Theater Bio for Prime Stage’s The Outsiders (Mar 6-15)

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Valentines for Journalists

Mark S. Luckie, Medium Similar:William Zinsser: What Is Good Writing? (Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.)Most of the students in my “News Writing…CultureThose shoggoths hacked from lungs unspeakable1) Last night, I’m fairly certain some …AmusingBattle of Agincourt — 600 Year Anniversary of Henry V's "St. Crispin's Day Speech"Sure, Marty McFly Day is interesting and…CultureDo Cultural Critics Have…

Those Were the Days: On ‘Nostalgia’ When missing home was a disease

Although we now associate nostalgia with fond memory, the word was coined to refer to an unwanted medical condition. The –algia in nostalgia means “pain”; a product of New Latin, it can be found in more clinical-sounding words such as glossalgia (pain in the tongue), cranialgia (a fancy word for headache), and proctalgia (a literal pain in the behind). Johannes Hofer (1669–1752) was a Swiss…

Computers and Writing 2020 Funding Request: Submitted

My contributions this year are a workshop on #Inform7 and “Fixed It For You: Modding Memes, Maps and Minds”. Similar:Dean Jones Dead: Disney Actor Was 84″The Love Bug” was one of the movies tha…Current_EventsMasks serve many purposes. How sad that they’ve become politicized. I’ve seen the original meme on my so…Current_EventsRehearsing 'Fiddler on the Roof'…

Pop song lyrics use more negative words (“hate”, “sorrow”) than 50 years ago

The use of words related to negative emotions has increased by more than one third…. If we assume an average of 300 words per song, every year there are 30,000 words in the lyrics of the [Billboard] top-100 hits. In 1965, around 450 of these words were associated with negative emotions, whereas in 2015 their number was above 700. Meanwhile, words associated with positive emotions decreased in the same time period.

These Fake Local News Sites Have Confused People For Years. (Buzzfeed) Found Out Who Created Them.

People who caught the sites plagiarizing began speculating about the motivations of whoever was running them. One person noticed that their Google Alerts for Julian Assange were flooded with results from the sites, leading them to warn that “cyber marketing tools are being used in the propaganda war against #WikiLeaks.” One researcher labeled the network of sites…

My students seem increasingly confused by the difference between journal title vs. article title

Sometimes students will submit bibliography entries that repeat a title — either the journal or the article.  I assume they are using an online citation generator and I assume they’re not bothering to check its output. What I had previously thought of as a random careless error now seems evidence of a paradigm shift. I’ve…

Pen Pals (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 15) Data Hears a Who

Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation A new-to-me “Data Hears a Who” character story, featuring a multi-layered philosophical jam session in Picard’s quarters, a substantial B-plot for Wesley, and some tacked-on science-fictiony frippery for the groundlings. I started watching the show late at night, and lost interest when Wesley was steeling himself in the hallway…

MoonBot (from the family #steampunk bedtime RPG 2007-2013) vs. a crate and lamps.

MoonBot (from the family steampunk bedtime RPG 2007-2013) vs. a crate and lamps.

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On the Hatred of Literature

Going back to Plato—perhaps the first hater of literature on record—philosophers and religious authorities have attacked art for the same reasons our professors taught us to deconstruct and distrust it: because it is unpredictable, unreasonable and often inconsistent with their preferred politics or morality. It was also a lesson that was destined, in the years…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

In January 2000, I was blogging about dancing paperclips, the transience of literary judgement, “bafflegab,” and a planned B&N/Microsoft online bookstore

In January 2000, I was blogging about Dancing paperclips and telemarketers A “100 best novels” list published in 1899 Updike’s prequel to Hamlet The “bafflegab” jargon generator “Bookseller Barnes & Noble is teaming with Microsoft to build a new online e-book store.” (but the link is dead) Similar:Star Wars: TIE Fighter 20th Anniversary RetrospectiveIn the…

I do not know why this antique service button from my campus cafeteria delights me so.

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Over time, Google has made paid ads harder to spot

  In 2007, Google changed the long-standing shaded background indicating the ads section of the page from blue to yellow. In 2008, it then briefly tried a green background before reverting back to yellow. Google continued to test variations of background colors including bright blue and a light violet. In 2010, violet officially replaced the…