I’m planning to begin my online Shakespeare class with commentary on how it’s a good thing that language changes, so that students will (I hope) see the effort they will need to put into understanding English from 400 years ago as part of the process of engaging with a living language, the same process that…
How do you tell a story that people know, or maybe just think they know? Each of the newsrooms featured here this week took on that question in different ways. In Los Angeles, the LA Times made a game to go with project on sea level rise. The Chico (California) Enterprise-Record made a podcast to…
Friendly advice… If you are practicing with your new green screen backdrop, don’t wear a plaid shirt with blue-green in it. I’m not happy with the lighting… the foreground lighting is pretty good (some spare photography lamps — much better than the fluorescent ceiling lights) but I don’t like the shadows on the backdrop. I…
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation after a 20-year break. Unfrozen humans from the 21st Century annoy the crew while the Enterprise investigates the destruction of several Federation outposts near the Romulan Neutral Zone. The episode begins and ends with the cryonics story, so technically it’s the A plot, but there’s little at stake. Nobody…
I try to watch this every July to commemorate the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Based on a true story, The Dish focuses on the staff of the Australian radio antenna charged with relaying the TV signals from the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The story was exaggerated here and there for dramatic effect, but does…
Similar:In October, 1999 I was blogging about college application essays, Willie Crowther, and Eli… Jessica found herself wishing that s…AcademiaLego TimelineThe Lego brick system was patented 50 ye…AestheticsDespicable Me 2 "Bottom" gag will do for A Midsummer Night's Dream what Disney's Little Me…The name “Bottom” in A Midsummer Night’s…CultureA surprising detail in bank records helped…
50 years ago today, three humans were on their way to the moon for the first time. Todd Douglas Miller’s documentary “Apollo 11” uses lots of found footage (including longer cuts of iconic sequences I know well, and plenty I’ve never seen before) arranged on split-screen multi-angle shots, woven together with low-key graphics and the…
In July, 1999, I was blogging about: (July 19) Florence, Italy — Librarians stumble across a bag of Dante’s ashes, lying on a shelf. [more | Digital Dante (U.Va)] (July 20) “That’s one small step for [a] man“…one grammatical goof for mankind? [RealAudio] [transcript] Did Neil Armstrong flub the first sentence spoken on the soil of the moon?…
While contemplating what sort of body language I could give to a robot character I’m designing in Blender 3D, I started wondering about the shrug. I remember reading that kissing seems to have developed from the behavior of giving young offspring pre-chewed food, and sticking your tongue out at someone echoes what babies do when they don’t like what’s in their mouth. Raising your hand in greeting shows you aren’t carrying a weapon. But what’s a shrug?
Viral app FaceApp has been giving people the power to change their facial expressions, looks, and now age for several years. But at the same time, people have been giving FaceApp the power to use their pictures — and names — for any purpose it wishes, for as long as it desires. To make FaceApp…
The Society of Professional Journalists has compiled the following resources in light of the increasing sexual misconduct allegations against high-profile male journalists. These are for journalists everywhere, but especially for those being harassed, those whose employers don’t provide employee training or those colleagues who know harassment is taking place but aren’t sure what to do…
Just spending an August evening with the boy. Similar:Introduction to The Skin of Our Teeth (optimistic, absurdist metatheater; Thornton Wilder,…https://youtu.be/1okt8MIVTtsAcademiaBrother Stuck in the BathroomThe girl posted this story on Instagram …AmusingThe Miller of the Dee; by James Baldwin; read by Dennis JerzI showed up at the recording studio for …AestheticsA pleasant find: somebody left a…
It’s a logical fallacy to suggest that where two sides disagree, the truth must lie in the center. It doesn’t matter how many people believe in Bigfoot or essential oils or the city of Boston — popular opinion won’t make something factually true. (Though of course, well-meaning people can disagree over values, such as whether…
Happy Independence Day, fellow Americans. “Saltpeter, John!!!” Similar:A #neovictorian master status display board for a #steampunk #blender3d project. Inspired …AestheticsOh, No. YouTube is Deleting Videos.Oh no. First YouTube institutes a “COVI…Current_EventsYounger Americans and Public LibrariesMillennials are quite similar to their e…BooksHaving a rough day. But in a span of about 24 hours, three former students…
I rather enjoyed recording this oral interpretation of the Declaration of Independence for WAOB Audio Theatre. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzVQeAUIdHM&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR22qfKVNroqFkRrs3fgvWwpHMpEFZvdaNB_-tskGCm-IltxB3ByKKnpu8s Similar:Preemptive Strike (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 24) Lt. Ro's loyalties are te… Rewatching ST:TNG The newly promo…EthicsCan you tell the difference between factual and opinion statements?I got a perfect score. How did you do on…CultureJustice (TNG…
The president of the US bonds with Vladimir Putin over journalists: “Get rid of them.” This is not normal. This is not right. Donald Trump joked with Vladimir Putin about getting rid of journalists and Russian meddling in US elections when the two leaders met at the G20 summit in Japan. As they sat for…
Spent a relaxing evening in playing solitaire chess puzzles with the boy. Similar:For years, I’ve tried to work my way back into the middle classWell-meaning people tried to encourage m…CultureIf I don’t hang my own artwork on the walls of my #steampunk fantasy ship-of-the-line, who…AestheticsA trend story about millennials, by The New York Times“When it…
The girl (blue skirt and pigtails), who just finished her junior year of homeschooling last week, is in the dance ensemble for this professional production of “Beauty and the Beast,” which opens tonight (in a sold-out show) at the St. Vincent Summer Theatre. I spent a few summers doing PR for the Heritage Repertory Theater…
Workspace for an in-progress Unity3D tutorial. Installing the Unity Hub. (Unity.com documentation) Tutorial Assets <- Download, unzip Place in [YourUnityProject]/Assets Video Tutorials: Unity3D Game Spaces for Beginners (#CWCON 2019 #e11) Similar:Partisan Pa. websites masquerading as local news threaten trust in journalism, new report …People with financial interests to prote…CultureDouble Entry Journals: Your Scholarly Research…
I’m brushing up on my Unity3D skills, and created this simple hedge maze game. When I decided to let the player shoot books instead of bullets, I turned on the physics (so the books bounce and roll), but I forgot to tick the “use gravity” checkbox, so they float. (Music: “Dreaming of Flying” by Celestial…