The world needs well-rounded leaders. A liberal arts degree encourages the kind of critical thinking that breeds managers and CEOs. American undergraduates are flocking to business programs, and finding plenty of entry-level opportunities. But when businesses go hunting for CEOs or managers, “they will say, a couple of decades out, that I’m looking for a…
Similar:Making movie magic with my dueling gut-shot daughterAestheticsA professor examines why her students seem to act so helpless (essay)This essay on college students acting he…AcademiaThis morning I awoke to YouTube’s live footage of crowds circling a mosque in Mecca. For m… CultureDear 11yo DaughterYou are growing up smart, talented, dete…PersonalStupid Puns For the WinMy daughter…
Similar:The daughter joined the cast of this show a few days ago. As Safie, she sings a folk song …She says she got the email while at a ca…CultureMore glorious #steampunk control panels, created for no practical purpose. #blender3d #ble…AestheticsChurning Out More Non-profit Arts PromosAs part of my volunteer work for a local…AestheticsMore modular, swappable…
I am in rehearsals to play Oberon in a community theatre production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He is a fairy king who manipulates the lives of humans who wander into his realm. I am also playing Dwarf Fortress, an insanely complex game in which the player indirectly manages a community of dwarves. I’ve been surprised by the connections I’ve observed.
This is nerd heaven — a deep analysis of all the text that appears in the 1980s cult science-fiction film Blade Runner. (I really want this typeface to be Caslon, but despite everything else matching nicely, the top of the 6 is just wrong. I can only apologize for the discrepancy.)UPDATE: Several folks have noted in the comments…
Similar:My wife reports: “There was one smart aleck walking along the street who exclaimed: “Look,…PersonalFormer NFL receiver Antwaan Randle El regrets ever playing football“There’s no correcting it. There’s no he…BusinessClosing the Door on the Video Store Era (with tweets) · chutry · StorifyNow that Blockbuster Video has officiall…BusinessIn November 1999, I was blogging about books,…
Similar:Ground-nesting Yellowjacket WaspsWhile my 16yo son was mowing the lawn wi…CultureOn my fantasy #steampunk cruiser, every uniform is a parade dress uniform. #Blender3D #ble… The first few weeks of Jun…AestheticsScience Fair VictoryIn this photo from the front page of tod…ArtThe boy plays chess with his uncle before seeing The Fantasticks.PersonalProgress.PersonalCan you really say you’ve designed…
Similar:One of my undergrad lit papers. Dot-matrix printed, with hand-written instructor annotatio…AcademiaShe doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties. ht…AmusingReading in the MorningTo qualify for a day at the local water …BooksThe Comic Sans SongComic Sans is a typeface, not a…
Facebook’s video push threatens the edited TV news package as much as it threatens the written word. I’ve definitely noticed a difference in traffic when I post a YouTube video (which generally gets modest attention on FB but often accumulates views over time) vs when I post similar content directly within Facebook (which FB seems…
Language evolves, so oldsters like me should get just used to it, right? Well, langauge was evolving long before “text” was a verb, and that’s exactly the reason why the English of Dickens and Shakespeare and Chaucer looks so different from our ordinary speech. I still use a pay-as-you-go dumb phone, and have to pay…
This is fallout from losing an invasion of privacy lawsuit, filed in the name of wrestler Hulk Hogan and backed by tech investor Peter Thiel (co-founder of Paypal and an early investor and current board member for Facebook, and in his younger days also co-founder of the Stanford Review). Gawker slogan: “Today’s gossip is tomorrow’s…
Saving this for the next time I assign an oral presentation. Now that doesn’t sound important, and it’s not. But if I repeat it three times, I’m making you believe that it is important… Let’s look at a picture of the planet for no reason …. Slowing my speech, lowering the volume of my voice, by…
Good essay by Mikita Brottman. When I read Macbeth for the first time, I understood almost nothing. The play’s immediate subjects (kingship, Scottish history, nations at war) did not engage me, nor did I have any interest in theater. I loved Macbeth not for its story but for its language. I was fascinated by the…
In 1977, when I was about nine, I saw the original Star Wars, and I certainly enjoyed it, but unlike many of my friends, I kept my allegiance to Star Trek — which was on every afternoon in reruns, and was also available as an animated series, novels, comic books, etc. My fourth-grade classmate Dean…
Funny and clever. Via Excuse the Bananas “Confessions Of An Angst-Ridden Sailor Who Took Out His Emotions On The Wrong Bird” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge “13 Ways To Have No Chill When It Late At Night & You Lonely AF” by Edgar Allan Poe “This Tyger Is Way Too Turnt” by William Blake “3 Foods…
It’s a little bit shallow and solipsistic to say a liberal arts degree is valuable because it can make you a better Borg drone in the technohive, but this guy seems to mean well. Most liberal arts degrees encourage a well-rounded curriculum that can give students exposure to programming alongside the humanities. Philosophy, literature, art,…
The Selfish Gene is a brilliant phrase. It’s also accurate, so long as you realise that “selfish” doesn’t mean selfish, “gene” doesn’t mean gene, and the definite article is a bit of an abstraction. But taken as the literal truth, it’s about as much use as “In the beginning was the word”. Given Dawkins’s hostility…
I think I’m managing work-life balance pretty well. I’m not ready to give up the sweet cheeks and sticky paws — not yet. I’m being pawed and kissed by a lollipop-slurping preschooler at the moment, so I’m signing off for now. Everything else is going to have to wait. Source: So, What’s in It for…
The other day, I noticed that if you Google for “mla style paper,” the first two images that appear are from my website — but out of context, they aren’t terribly useful. They’re just screenshots of sample papers. I’ve added some callouts with visual tips. Not the best graphic I’ve ever created, but certainly more useful…
The 96-year-old inventor of the eponymous anti-choking procedure had never actually used it to save a life — until the woman sitting next to him at a retirement facility got a bite of hamburger lodged in her throat. When he heard that a resident was choking, Perry Gaines, maître d’ for the Deupree House dining room,…