BREAKING: All ITT Campuses Will Close

All ITT Tech campuses will be shut down, its parent company announced today. — Inside Higher Ed Similar:Dean Jones Dead: Disney Actor Was 84″The Love Bug” was one of the movies tha…Current_EventsOn the Hatred of LiteratureGoing back to Plato—perhaps the first ha…AcademiaMy understanding of biased polls is… (choose one) AmusingThe 7 key components of a perfect elevator…

Crowther’s Adventure: Tough Memes to Squash

Will Crowther, an RPG-er, created the first text-based adventure game for computers Colossal Cave Adventure in 1975.6 When Don Woods developed it into Adventure in 1976-1977 he added the Tolkienian elements of trolls and elves. —Helen Young, Journal of Tolkien Research Well, yes, but Crowther had already started with the Tolkenian elements of underground dwarves,…

Facebook does not care about truth. Facebook wants to sell your attention to the highest bidder. 

  Don’t trust your Facebook feed. All Facebook wants is for you to spend time on Facebook, so that they can sell your attention to the highest bidder. Facebook recently fired 18 employees whose job was to write headlines for and monitor the “Trending Topics” list. When that list fell under scrutiny for an alleged…

How to Think Like Shakespeare

Saving this for the next time I teach Shakespeare. All well and good, you say, but my parents are worried about what I’m going to do after I graduate. There, too, Shakespeare can be a model. When he was born, there wasn’t yet a professional theater in London. In other words, his education had prepared him…

Rip Van Winkle

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles, and never failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children…

Facebook Removes Human Curators From Trending Module

Today, Facebook announced that human curators will no longer write short descriptions that accompany trending topics on the site. Instead, the company will rely on an algorithmic process to “pull excerpts directly from stories.” The company also said it will stop using human curators to sort through the news…. It’s important to note that Facebook originally…

Hypertext as a Teaching Tool — Brown University Poetry Classroom 1974

Similar:What Is The Value Of An Education In The Humanities?For those who go to college, the four ye…AcademiaUnity3D Maze Game TutorialWorkspace for an in-progress Unity3D tut…AcademiaDear organization from my past that just sent me a scolding email…Dear organization from my past that just…CultureBREAKING: All ITT Campuses Will CloseAll ITT Tech campuses will be shut down,…AcademiaPartisan…

Hypertext as a Teaching Tool — Brown University Poetry Classroom 1974

This short film documents an early attempt to use hypertext to help students study poetry. A fascinating early collaboration between computer science and the humanities. Similar:Washington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeFormer Washington Post cartoonist Ann Te…CultureI'm really enjoying seeing how my students are responding to Hamlet.As part of a class…

The girl sank her brother’s last ship with the homophonous cry “I-1.”

Similar:Dance of "the awkward nerd trying to act really cool" Carolyn (doing a really cool dance m…AestheticsListening to Weird Al's "Word Crimes." Awesome. My teaching method does not involve sham…AmusingCarolyn's performance as Ariel #bardinbloom @ThePublicPGHSo good to see her preforming live on st…CultureAncient Sea Rise Tale Told Accurately for 10,000 Years”It’s quite gobsmacking to think…

NASA Just Found a Lost Spacecraft

If movies about space have taught us anything, it’s that no one can hear you scream. If you get lost in space, nobody’s going to find you. Unless you’re a spacecraft with a direct link to NASA. Then, there is hope for you yet. STEREO-B, from the Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory mission, went missing on…

Connecting with the Boy

Today my son asked me to take him shopping for his favorite foods. He’s tired of fast-food take-out. I told him I was busy today running the spotlight for and videotaping yet another one of Carolyn’s performances (this time her voice teacher’s summer revue).
The poor boy has been left at home a lot while the rest of us did so much theater over the summer. He competed in a chess tournament last week. I fell asleep in the next room. He came in second place. (I have no pictures. I’m a bad father.)

Annie Sullivan on teaching: 

Helen Keller, rendered blind and deaf after an infection as a toddler, learned the gift of language from her patient and determined teacher, Annie Sullivan. Their story is told in the play The Miracle Worker (and my daughter plays Helen in three more shows this weekend at Latrobe’s Cabaret Theatre). As a young woman Helen Keller…

Star Trek Beyond was an enjoyable nerdy family outing.

Similar:Preview of "The Fantasticks" (thanks, Tribune-Review, for covering the arts community)For Luisa, Jerz’s character, “the world …CultureSold out show today. Carolyn gets tomorrow off, then a final week.PersonalSome problems bringing #Blender3D models into the #Unity3D game engine. The pink represent…AestheticsOpens Wednesday.PersonalBackstage with the White Swan and her prince.PersonalMaking progress.Personal