With the money I saved by working on the car (watching a lot of YouTube tutorials) I bought a new midrange zoom, in the hopes I won’t miss shots by swapping lenses. And now my camera bag won’t quite zip shut. #ConspicuousConsumption Similar:Celebration of Writing Fall 2025. Students present their research for their upcoming term…
Similar:Google 1407Philipp Lenssen and I had a bit of fun i…AestheticsAnime Treatment of Star WarsI am not particularly into anime, though…AestheticsWide-angle view of a villain’s secret lair. #blender3dAestheticsSnap's share price sinks, trades just above IPO priceNASDAQ.com throws shade via Reuters: Sn…BusinessThe Impact of Google on Our MemorySo what is it that makes us memorize…
Similar:Do you get your news mostly from social media? I check NPR, Drudge, and news.google.com.Do you have a regular news-consumption r…CultureComfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. –Mr Dooley on the function of journali…“Comfort the afflicted and afflict the c…CultureFlying Saucer Irony AmusingShakespeare-themed Math PuzzlesI didn’t know I had a Shakespeare-themed…AmusingR.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) Full Play…
While doing some spring cleaning around my computer desk at home, I noticed that there are scores of old PC games that are still stacked up within arm’s reach, even though I no longer even use a computer with an optical drive at that workstation. But these are games that have sentimental value for my…
Oppressors deny their own agency and dehumanize their victims by using the passive voice. I want my students to recognize this deliberate strategy, and to look for hidden actors and dehumanized recpients of injustice. (I try to teach about active and passive verbs in a more lighthearted way, but I only bothered to photograph and…
The voice of Wallace has died. The silly, plummy, character-driven steampunk/sitcom hybrid Wallace & Gromit films were a big influence on the tone of the “Captain Gearhart and the Magnificent Blimpship” steampunk bedtime stories I used to tell the kids. Peter Sallis has died at the age of 96, his agents have announced.The actor…
The First Amendment of the constitution protects the incoming students’ right to say whatever they like, even if Harvard doesn’t like it. And, as a private institution that is not regulated by the First Amendment, Harvard has the right to kick out incoming students unwise enough to exercise their rights in this manner. (The government…
Just as comedians generally don’t laugh at their own jokes, Shakespeare doesn’t call too much attention to his own linguistic cleverness, which is one reason his work rewards close scrutiny. It’s not that he was being deliberately obscure or flowery — though some of his obsequious characters definitely exhibit such speech patterns. One line of…
Similar:Twitter and the "Two Minutes Hate"Another of the many, many reflections on…CultureThe difficulty is the point (teaching critical thinking skills differs from teaching facts…In the past few years I have seen more s…AcademiaSTEM Education Won't Solve the World's ProblemsI love STEM. My SAT score for math was e…AcademiaThe Duolingo owl has been judging my German…
Similar:Shy Preschooler Won't Say Her Lines in "Peter Pan" Rehearsal (Stage Right! Greensburg)Little Maggie isn’t so sure she wants to…DramaAnother #steampunk #neovictorian control panel module. #blender3d #blender3dart #design #…AestheticsThe Best Word Book Ever, 1963 and 1991.As a child, I obsessed over many Richard…BooksHappy Easter 2022PersonalMy laptop hard drive is full & my comfort-food shelf…
Could the absurd examples of bizarre public discourse please stop happening so I can investifart some of them? Similar:The false link between Amy Coney Barrett and The Handmaid’s Tale, explainedOne of the weirder ways this debate has …BooksCNN employees resign after retracted articleCNN is pretty upfront; three journalists…BusinessWet Book Rescuehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9_fwmdC…BooksKairos: Open Since 1996As a plucky…
Most research subjects, when offered the chance to win $10 and read essays that opposed their views, or $7 and read essays that confirmed their views, chose comfort over the higher potential prize. Liberals and conservatives reacted basically the same–with liberals slightly less willing to read conservative views. (I changed the click-baity headline, which sensationalized the issue…
I remember being fascinated with and challenged by The Waste Land in high school, though it wasn’t until I read some of Eliot’s essays in college that it all sunk in. The same man who could write such clear, sensible prose when he wanted to explain could also construct densely packed, layered, gnostic verse. What…
Fake news is frustrating. Nothing new there. I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately. Students in my freshman writing class often want to write their first college research paper on the topic of unrealistic images of women in advertising. Their first thesis is often something like “Advertisers should not damage women’s self-esteem by promoting…
I didn’t use Newsweek’s clickbaity headline: “Trump and JFK Are More Alike Than We Like To Think.” They are different in many ways, but JFK was remembered for mastering the new medium of television (people who listened to the Nixon/Kennedy debates on radio were more likely to believe Nixon won, but those who watched the…
To believe Donald Trump, you must believe two largely contradictory things. | You must believe that there are a slew of leakers in the executive branch who are providing damning details to the press illegally, and who must be rooted out and punished. punished….You must also believe that the press makes up imaginary leakers simply…
The girl was singing lyrics she learned from a friend. They were so bad I had to Google them. But the animation and tune were better than I expected. Wocka-chicka makes everything better, including this cheesy-but-catchy orc song from the 1980s animated Return of the King. Saving this for the next time I need motivation. Similar:My…
While Pittsburgh has become more metropolitan in the last generation, the culture here one county to the east still bears witness to its rust belt past. This may sound dull as ditch water to those who believe that the “flyover” states are inhabited largely by clodhoppers, fundamentalist zealots and loudmouthed Babbitts. In fact, Lauck’s aim…
I like introducing my English majors to coding. Here’s a computer scientist who’s returning the favor, advocating the importance of writing skills. “If you succeed in attaining a position that allows you to do something great, if you do something that really is great, and if you realize that it’s great, there’s still one more…
By the end of the semester you will be able to: * Write a good clickbait headline * Fire off a snappy tweet to trolls * Use facts ironically to disprove the President * Locate Sean Spicer in a variety of diverse hiding places * Pin a congressional candidate in under 60 seconds —McSweney’s Internet…