Not knowing what else to do, in the numb hours after the towers fell, I made a web page that explored the World Trade Center in literature and culture, as well as urban technology in general. I updated it a bit over the next few weeks or months, but have mostly left it as an…
Facebook makes editorial decisions that affect its presentation of news through its “news” (?) feed. But Facebook is in the business to make money for Facebook, and the trending topics feed is just a tool to keep people on Facebook. Someone needs to assign Facebook a faculty adviser. In the space of a single day,…
Similar:Salman Rushdie: how Cervantes and Shakespeare wrote the modern literary rule bookBy a set of strange coincidences, compli…BooksWe Tried to Do Vanlife Right. It Broke Us Down.Shortly before I got married, my sister …CulturePicking a rubric in Canvas should not be so frustrating that it makes me want to blog abou…In general, I find Canvas…
Number of times one of my $9.99 headphones fell out of my ears while I was mowing the lawn this morning: 3. Likelihood I might spend $159 on AirPods: 0%. Likelihood I might spend $15.90 on AirPods: 0%. Similar:Looks like somebody’s webmaster accidentally preloaded a headline that would be easy to ed… Looks like somebody’s…
When you plug an audio cable into a smartphone, it just works. It doesn’t matter whether the headphones were made by the same manufacturer as the phone. It doesn’t even matter what you’re trying to do with the audio signal—it works whether the cable is going into a speaker, a mixing board, or a recording…
Fascinating theory. The hard work of raising helpless babies is part of the natural selection process that made us as a species so intelligent. Natural selection favors humans with large brains, because those humans tend to be smarter. This may create evolutionary incentives for babies that are born at an even earlier developmental stage, which…
Update: Here’s a clip of the whole breakfast scene (recorded during a performance). A few weeks ago, my 14yo played Helen Keller in the Latrobe Cabaret Theatre’s production of The Miracle Worker. This clip is from a rehearsal of the epic breakfast scene, a wordless battle of wills between young Helen (who has been blind…
All ITT Tech campuses will be shut down, its parent company announced today. — Inside Higher Ed Similar:"Cool" Rosetta Mission Scientist Matt Taylor Objectifies Women via T-Shirt, LanguageHow very sad that someone with this leve…AestheticsIs AI making us less intelligent?This morning, after students submitted a…CybercultureSupport the arts in your community! I’m here for the daughter and the…
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,…
I just saw the following clickbait for an ongoing non-story in the technology world: “All the latest speculation about [topic X] in one place.” That’s less like a news headline and more like the punchline to a New Yorker cartoon. No, I did not click the link. Similar:Lawyers who won Happy Birthday copyright case sue…
Great reporting from Christopher Goffard of the LA Times. Now she watched as her ruin seemed to unfold before her. It was enough to send her to jail, and more than enough to destroy her name. Source: She was the PTA mom everyone knew. Who would want to harm her? Similar:Where Are the Women?Thanks for…
Similar:Me (glares in iambic pentameter)Me: I need to post the opening lecture f…AcademiaHaven (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 10) When a low-stakes rom-com shows Troi's beau and …Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…MediaEnjoying a visit with an Austrian imperial commander (ahistorically but magnificently pres…Enjoying a visit with an Austrian imperi…PersonalAnother #steampunk #neovictorian control panel module.…
In situations of change, it is natural for human beings to look for touchstones. As a human being, I had always sought a center to my life, an example to follow. What I hadn’t realized was that I was already following a path into the future. It was pointed out to me at a business…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Our future robot overlords never looked so squishy. A team of Harvard University scientists has built an entirely soft robot — one that’s inspired by an octopus. The octobot, described this week in the journal Nature, could pave the way toward more effective soft robots that could be used in search and rescue, exploration and…
Similar:A warning to college profs from a high school teacherMy students did well on those questions …AcademiaDear Google: You Should Have Talked to Me FirstTeacher Jen Marten responds to Google’s …BooksKelly Gallagher on "Readicide" I am reading to my daughter the four…BooksRossum's Universal Robots (Act 2)https://youtu.be/XfOONrGsf2I For my b…CultureKirk's manly, sensitive advice to young CharlieIn…
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:Captive Pursuit (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 6) O'Brien Befriends a Nervous,…Rewatching ST:DS9 Sisko is listening …DesignHow cult leaders brainwash followers for total controlWith each other as validation, we…