A full minute standing ovation after that rousing final “Alleluia.” Thrilling!

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This class has been everything that I expect it would be and I cannot believe that we are so close to its end.

Some days are slogs. Some weeks are slogs. Some weeks are slogs that end with a wonderfully heartening comment from a student. I will not deny that I was a little worried about reading Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet as I know that they are two of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and I feared that…

How Artists on Twitter Tricked Spammy T-Shirt Stores Into Admitting Their Automated Art Theft

Yesterday, an artist on Twitter named Nana ran an experiment to test a theory. Their suspicion was that bots were actively looking on Twitter for phrases like “I want this on a shirt” or “This needs to be a t-shirt,” automatically scraping the quoted images, and instantly selling them without permission as print-on-demand t-shirts. Dozens of…

My Freshman Comp Student Didn’t Recognize the Term ‘Word Processor’

Most of my students use MS-Word, but maybe a third use Google Docs (that’s a big increase lately) and a handful (but a bigger handful) use Pages. Today during a writing conference, a freshman comp student blinked in confusion when I asked her to “take me to your word processor.” I tried again. “Open up…

The Most Unexpected Workplace Trend Coming in 2020: the Return of the Liberal Arts Major

On LinkedIn each year author Dan Schawbel writes a list of workplace trends to watch for in the coming year. This time around Schawbel makes this prediction about degrees in subjects like literature, philosophy and history: “AI will automate technical skills and drive the demand for soft skills like creativity, communication and empathy. While there’s been such a…

Shakespeare's Will

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The Dauphin (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 10)

A pretty 16yo destined to bring peace to a war-torn planet falls for Wesley, but 1) her governess disapproves and 2) well… Wesley. The puppy-love story is cringe-worthily wholesome (influenced by the long dark adorable shadow of “The Wonder Years”), but still enjoyable.

Last day filming for “The First Night of Summer”

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That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with.

Big Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math Class

My math education predated the widespread use of graphing calculators. I remember writing my own BASIC programs to graph simple functions, but that was in a summer school programming class during middle school, not part of my high school curriculum. I’m amazed these old calculators cost this much. Bulky and black, with large, colorful push…

Elsa at noon. College “Intro to Chemistry” in the afternoon. Amy March at night.

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Greensburg Holiday Parade

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Little Women (the daughter plays Amy, the youngest sister)

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Point Park cancels ‘The Adding Machine: The Musical’ after student objections to offensive content

Citing student objections to offensive content, Point Park University canceled its production of The Adding Machine: The Musical, which was scheduled to run Dec 6-15. The PPU Globe reports that during an emotional “town hall” meeting that included the cast and crew and more than enough members of the public to fill the Highmark Theater,…

Little Women (Thurs-Sun)

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Celebration of Writing Fall 2019

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Before and after making a meme of myself as Oberon, King of the Faeries

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Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice is my literary crush.)

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Empathy in a Downtown Sub Shop

Sitting in a downtown sub shop. A half dozen 40yo dudes — boots & jeans & beards & tattoos — pile in, trash-talking each other. “I don’t wanna sit next to *that* retard!” says a guy in a knit cap. “You gotta pick your ‘tards!” I take a deep breath. Almost immediately, the dude with…

In November 1999, I was blogging about books, camomile tea and Skylon 4, the death of Star Trek, and the “active user paradox”

In November 1999, I was blogging about John’s Book Pages (by a CS grad student who had recently read Gene Wolfe and Anthony Bourdain, among many others) What camomile tea has in common with the attack squadron over Skylon 4 (rec.humor newsgroup reference to a disastrous “tandem story” assignment) “Nimoy is, to say the least,…