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,…
Interviewer Katie Couric asks a group of gun owners the question: “If there are no background checks for gun purchasers, how do you prevent felons or terrorists from purchasing a gun?” The gun owners respond right away, according to audio recorded by one of the participants. But in the documentary Under the Gun, footage taken from elsewhere…
Michael Dirda offers a thoughtful assessment of Poe’s career. My initial puzzlement about Edgar Allan Poe (1809-49) was hardly surprising. His fiction can seem too rhetorical, too thickly textured, too literary for most young people. Still, Basil Rathbone’s recording did persuade me to give the writer another try—sometime. The opportunity finally arose in high school…
Similar:Celebration of Writing Fall 2025. Students present their research for their upcoming term …PersonalSam Shepard Giggles, Doesn't GoogleI wrote my undergraduate honors thesis o…CybercultureMore #steampunk control panel goodness. This section features a nice retro pixelboard text…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsI didn't exactly set out to achieve this goal, but it's not hard…
The brain-as-computer is a powerful meme. It’s no more accurate than metaphors inspired by fluid dynamics or automata, which were cutting-edge technology in their time, says Robert Epstein. The invention of hydraulic engineering in the 3rd century BCE led to the popularity of a hydraulic model of human intelligence, the idea that the flow of…
I think I must be doing something right if the professionals I see each year at Computers and Writing are as likely to mention seeing Facebook pictures of my kids’ achievements as they are to bring up topics about, you know, computers and writing.
I can’t really get myself that worked up over prescriptive grammar issues, but I do enjoy reading the arguments. The adverb is an incoherent lexical category, a catchall. How are “there,” “yesterday,” “quite,” “assiduously,” and “indeed” all members of the same family? As we learn in school — in a definition that dates from Dionysius…
I have not had much luck with Zagg keyboard cases before (I think this will the fifth time I’ve asked for a replacement, across three different products), but Zagg itself has followed through every time. Similar:The Offspring (StarTrek:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 16) Data Experiences FatherhoodRewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CybercultureThe problem I just learned about…
Creating n00b-friendly interactive fiction by deliberately reducing the number of available verbs? Intersting… Though I rather liked the results when I experimented with diegetic (in-game) hints delivered by an NPC who gets more and more specific to help the player accomplish some orientation tasks. Parser IF is fundamentally driven by player action, by game verbs, in…
This app, which sports a little red notification bubble showing the number of unmarked assignments on my to-do list, controls much of my life during the school year. This app doesn’t show the number of committee meetings I have to attend, the minutes from committee meetings I have to post, the assigned tasks I have…
Defeat clickbaiters with this one weird trick! You won’t believe how punctuation can save you time. Will you regret clicking that headline phrased as a question? (You can safely avoid clicking any headline phrased as a question, promises an emotional reaction, or hedges a claim with “may” or “could be”. You won’t miss anything important if you don’t click that bait.)
Similar:Date a girl who reads.I earned a +8 or +9 spousal bonus when I…AmusingFamily catch and eat octopus with six tentacles during Greek vacationI keep a silly personal blog devoted to …PersonalIf I don’t stock the officers’ pub on my #steampunk #fantasy #CGI flagship, who will? (All…PersonalAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d…
Similar:Seeing Lyle Kessler's "Orphans" with the girl.PersonalPerspective | After a stunning news conference, there’s a newly crucial job for the Americ… I have always taken a neutral stan…CultureChess tournament.PersonalDance of "the awkward nerd trying to act really cool" Carolyn (doing a really cool dance m…AestheticsI baked about 12 million vertices of steampunk control panel geometry…
Similar:Let's talk about AI art (long, scrollworthy post from The Oatmeal)https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_artAestheticsCommentary: What My Struggling Students Wanted Me to UnderstandI haven’t taught a developmental course …AcademiaJust Doesn’t LIke MasksCurrent_EventsFox apologizes for "error" in news story that created the impression Eagles players knelt …Context matters. Good journalists should…CultureThe Outrageous Okona (TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 4)Rewatching Star…
Similar:Much Ado About Nothing (Beatrice is my literary crush.)PersonalLooking forward to what looks like an exciting evening of dance.PersonalA big day for our first year writing students! So much energy in the room! AcademiaHow the Midwest went from the idealized to the deridedWhile Pittsburgh has become more metropo…AcademiaWhy We Fall for Fake News and…
[G]ames is a bit more financially brutal than either theatre or poetry, which is funny, because poetry is already financially brutal. It is harder to get people to pay for games than for any other artform I work in. I could make more money for less work elsewhere. That said, in both theatre and poetry…
I was in no rush to finish the beautiful mind-puzzler game Monument Valley. Minimal story, but an engaging world and a satisfying ending. Similar:Kate Upton and Ryan Gosling Explain the SequesterApparently these are two famous and phys…AestheticsThe chief engineer does not know where the floating lamps are coming from, but he looks gr…AestheticsAnother chess tournament…
You don’t want to use Courier New and 1.25 inch margins on your term paper. You want to go home and rethink your life. A true Jedi uses the power of the Font for emphasis and visual rhetoric, never for stretching a 6-page paper to 10 pages. Similar:Laughter and Light Abound in Prime Stage’s “Twelfth…