Renata, Carolyn and Alex in a scene from this weekend’s Pippin.

Similar:Rules for Civility: 14-Year-Old George Washington's 110 Commandments for Cultivating Chara… Every Action done in Company, ought…CultureMe as a highshool photo-bomber, I presume at the cast party for The Music Man.DramaMe: Carolyn, are you ok? Carolyn:Just reminding myself that I am a gift.AmusingNellie Bly: A Race Against Time | Heinz History CenterOn Nov. 14, 1889,…

One strategic twist-tie, and my bedside cable-tangles are a distant memory.

Similar:I'm marking them faster than they come in, which is a good thing. I won't be doi…PersonalMy too-big Android phone stresses the pockets of one of my favorite shirts. My grandmother…PersonalToday's 10 sq cm of #blender3d #steampunk control panel. #aesthetics #design #blender3dartAesthetics"I'm a geek. Deal with it." –my 11yo daughter. #geekgirlproblemsAmusingThis winter I changed my…

My dad predicted Trump in 1985 – it’s not Orwell, he warned, it’s Brave New World

As my father [Neil Postman] pointed out, a written sentence has a level of verifiability to it: it is true or not true – or, at the very least, we can have a meaningful discussion over its truth. (This was pre-truthiness, pre-“alternative facts”.) But an image? One never says a picture is true or false.…

Journalists call out White House claims on terror reporting

The easily-disproved surface-level claim, that the media have not “adequately” reported on terror, is nerd-baiting. What’s more important to the White House seems to be that the public fear imminent and ongoing attacks by Muslims, and now journalists around the world are reminding the public that they covered all these incidents (including minor ones, such…

Business is the most popular college major, but that doesn’t mean it’s a good choice

Make that dime-a-dozen business degree more marketable. Study the humanities or the arts, too! Learn how to develop critical thinking, self-reflection, compassion and wisdom that will help you decide what to count or measure or build, and why. And, hey, artsy people! Take a statistics or grant-writing or computer programming class. The world needs more balanced…

More Fake News from the Biased Fake Crappy Bad Media

Clearly the pesky reporters whom the powerful keep insulting and belittling in oder to diminish their impact aren’t doing their pesky insulted belittled and diminished jobs. Isn’t there celebrity cleavage to report on? Because that cleavage won’t cover itself! President Trump’s eldest daughter said she’d give up management of her businesses. We checked. … “I will…

Hacking the Attention Economy

The techniques that are unfolding are hard to manage and combat. Some of them look like harassment, prompting people to self-censor out of fear. Others look like “fake news”, highlighting the messiness surrounding bias, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. There is hate speech that is explicit, but there’s also suggestive content that prompts people to frame…

Newsworthy vs snoozeworthy

Jerz > Writing > Journalism Similar:I ordered a box of composition books. Low-tech response to AI.I felt like a capitalist, buying in bulk…AcademiaUChicago College Admissions, Indiana Jones Mystery PackageWhat we know: The package contained an i…AcademiaCommonly Misused Words: THAN and THEN  AmusingAmazon Staff Meetings: “No Powerpoint”I am not a big fan of traditional slide-…BusinessNews organizations held off on reporting…

York Corpus Christi Play Simulator Screencast (PSim 2.1; D.G. Jerz)

Another digital artifact lives. The York Corpus Christi Pageant Simulator was my first serious accomplishment in digital humanities. After I learned all the medieval drama content from a class with Andrea Johnston at the University of Toronto, I made the computer program as part of a humanities computing course with Willard McCarthy in 1994, and…

The Last Soviet Citizen

Interesting reflection on the collapse of the USSR, from the vantage point of a cosmonaut who returned to a completely different world. After blasting off from Baikonur, Krikalev wouldn’t inhale earthly air for 312 days. In that time, the soft-spoken cosmonaut would watch his country crumble from 200 miles up. Presidents would change. His hometown…

A Pox On Your Listicle Clickbait

Yup, seeing “1 of 21” at the top of your thin paragraph of prose makes me hate myself because I fell for your damn listicle clickbait. #goback Similar:Conundrum (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 14) You Get Amnesia! And YOU Get Amne…Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D cr…CultureRereading “Writing to Learn”Rereading “Writing to Learn,” William Zi…AcademiaOedipus Tyrannos…