The girl spent her birthday weekend opening a show and auditioning. Similar:Last night I dreamed I was a stagehand during a metatheatrical number called “Butts in Sea…I saw Seton Hill’s production of The Dro…DramaSettling in for a jukebox show (not my favorite genre but the Go-Gos are fun).PersonalBryan A. Louiselle, 1966-2022 (musician, composer, orchestrator, musical…
Similar:Preview of "The Fantasticks" (thanks, Tribune-Review, for covering the arts community)For Luisa, Jerz’s character, “the world …CultureA stranger took this photo of my parents doing their daily crossword together in a cafe.A stranger took this photo of my parents…CultureNot attempting historical accuracy but still had to learn a heck of a lot to model the…
Similar:My brother set my parents up for a Mother's Day video call.AmusingLook at how many times this false claim of media conspiracy is being shared. Compare that …PersonalMy buddy JTK helps me make a key point in my slideshow. #4c18 #b29Putting speaker notes on an iPad is alwa…AcademiaAnother corner building. Designed and textured. Needs an…
Similar:Another delightful caricature by Rebecca ScassellatiAestheticsPreparing for some serious nerd time with the family this summerSet phasers to “nerd”! This summer I’ll…CultureCongrats to all the winners at the Pittsburgh 48 Hour Film Project! Bit-Sized Productions …Bit-Sized Productions was nominated for …ArtClues (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 14) Data's faslehoods nonpluss and Pic…Rewatching ST:TNG After…
“If you find yourself agreeing with everything your news outlet says, you’re doing it wrong. If your news doesn’t challenge you, challenge your news.” CBS News veteran Dan Rather, who knows a thing or two about fake news, offers sound advice for news consumers.
Posting this mostly to prove that I can remain rational even when I encounter criticism of classic Star Trek, which certainly had its silly moments, but which offered many, many serious adult treatments of social issues. If you like your science fiction overlong and overserious, may I recommend Star Trek: The Motion Picture? 2001 is…
Similar:"Only You" — 11yo Carolyn Sings a Power Ballad from "Starlight Express"The observation car Pearl sings of her l…AestheticsThe captain will shortly address the officers and crew. Please have the custodial bots pol…AestheticsThe reception line begins. Grad2018PersonalMy journalism students just gave me this wristband: "What would Jerz do? / Verify or duck…. AestheticsI’ve finally started…
I knew the command line well, and very occasionally delved to snoop around at the level of machine code. My brother showed me how to hack a game by changing the last machine code the game executed before rejecting an incorrect password, creating a version of the program that only let you proceed if you…
Don’t trust the scary bad interweb. Do trust us, your local TV talking heads, who will do all the scary thinking for you! Seeing local TV devote air time to discuss fairness and accuracy in journalism is a good thing. But when scores of newscasters read word-for-word the exact same statement, which blames social…
Similar:James Goodwin Clonney: Mother's WatchThis painting, of two impish children ta…AestheticsElmo? Yes, I do mind. I learned far more from Bert.Like plenty of people my age, I grew up …AestheticsTop U800. #chesstournamentPersonalEverything is beautiful at the ballet.DanceLooking forward to Part 2 of #PPTPlaytime’s production “The Rivals” (live… now!)CultureI just thought of a time before you…
I don’t know the provenance of this quote attributed to Gus Speth, which affirms the role of the humanities in a STEM-obsessed world, but I did find this interview, conducted by Steve Curwood. “You know, what’s an environmental issue?” And if the answer is air pollution, water pollution, climate change…then we’re really right where we’ve…
Historian Niall Ferguson notes that Silicon Valley is not that interested in history, which is one reason why technological gurus keep making the same mistakes. Technology that decentralizes power brings its own problems. According to Ferguson: “The idea that witches live amongst us and should be burned went as viral as anything that Martin Luther…
In 2012, Apple tried to position iPads as replacing textbooks. Last year, Microsoft tried to position laptops as replacing Chromebooks. Now, Apple needs to hook educators on the power of future-looking tech such as coding and augmented reality.
The Cambridge Analytica scandal is drawing attention to malicious data thieves and brokers. But every Facebook app—even the dumb, innocent ones—collected users’ personal data without even trying.
Instagram dialed in early to the power of building community through visual communication. From the start, Instagram was a mobile app that revolved around snapshots, not snippets of text. This visualization of social media was propelled by young people who, bombarded by text messages, status updates and blog posts, gravitated to a simpler, faster and more expressive medium…
Misspelled tweets and typos in press releases are becoming the norm under President Trump, but critics say it points to a pervasive carelessness in the White House.
I still miss Notepad++, a Windows tool on which I coded many an Inform 6 puzzle. When Seton Hill started handing out iPads and MacBooks, I switched to MacOS. I really don’t miss Windows at all, but I did miss my Notepad++ text editor. TextWrangler was a decent substitute, though over the years I have…
Wired, obviously having worked on a thinkpiece about Zuckerberg’s silence, manages to repurpose it in light of this afternoon’s statement. The Irreversible Damage of Mark Zuckerberg’s SilenceWhat has happened in the last five days has been the biggest crisis of Facebook’s existence. But Zuckerberg’s five-day silent treatment may prove more damning for Facebook than any…
Facebook does not care what Hobbit you are, whether your name is on the list of people who deserve a nap, which side of the controversy your temporary profile supports, or whether the news you shared is fake. Or, to be more precise, Facebook cares only to the extent that it can control our behavior,…
This is a welcome step, but we cannot trust big corporations to solve the fake news problem for us. (Slow down and think before you share that infuriating or inspiring detail you see in your feed.) In a move to combat the epidemic of false and unreliable information on the internet, Google is pledging to…