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:Blender 2.8 Released. Please leave us alone together for a few days.I’ve been using the beta for months, but…CybercultureAdventure | T.M. CampGreat story of nerdiness and discovery a…CybercultureChristmas 1970. I was feverish and it was unseasonably warm outside. One of my favorite pi…PersonalWe were pretty even for about 25m, but I let him get…
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:My 13yo homeschooler had no idea how to open a little milk carton. I had to show her.CultureMy student journalists sport…
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:Making movie magic with my dueling gut-shot daughterAestheticsI am happy with how this turned out. My mother told me about this story when I was little,…PersonalIt not only went VROOM, it carried chunky plastic letters that could *spell* VROOM.Tonight, when I got home after all the e…AestheticsGeometry and color maps for wooden desk tray. #Blender3D…
Similar:I'm having scads of fun designing #steampunk control panels. #blender3d #blender3dart…AestheticsHad a rough day. Designing another 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel doesn't fix everyt…AcademiaUgh. Unmarked items waiting for me as I start to recover from an illness.PersonalI may or may not make a zapping sound under my breath while phasering your ticket. @prime_……
Similar:Avoiding Spoilers Gives You a Superficial Appreciation of ArtI very much appreciate that nobody spoil…ArtFirst time visiting the Point. Listening to Quantum's 10 for 21 (audio adaptation of the D…My first time visiting the Point. Listen…CultureThe overlooked masterpieces of 1922In literature the response to the challe…BooksUgh. Unmarked items waiting for me as I start to…
Similar:Work / Life Balance: UnlockedI think I must be doing something right …AcademiaAssembling wall units to bake into a texture atlas. Teacup is a freebie from polyhaven.co… AestheticsNo, Running Online Classes Isn't CheaperA good response to the myth that the lab…AcademiaThe Onion's Supreme Court Briefing on Satire Is StunningFrom October: A man who was arrested…
[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:Oh dear, George Lucas! Why the Star Wars universe is going from bad to worseThough I always preferred a different fr…EmpathyThe daughter looks stunning in pink. AestheticsMars Panorama — 10yo with iPad…
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:Looking in on the officers' wardroom (conference and…
This sounds like the plot of a Young Indiana Jones episode, or maybe Johnny Quest. William Gadoury is a 15-year-old student from Saint-Jean-de-Matha in Lanaudière, Quebec. The precocious teen has been fascinated by all things Mayan for several years, devouring any information he could find on the topic. During his research, Gadoury examined 22 Mayan…
One day when I was an undergraduate working for one of two competing student papers, two rallies were held on opposite sides of the downtown mall. One group held signs like “Keep your laws off my body,” and “Keep abortion safe and legal,” and the other group held signs like “It’s a child, not a choice”…
There can be no true distinction drawn between the effect of word processing on the literary imagination and its intervention in the working lives of the women employed as noncreative automata…. How can we know who was working where, what relationship each female amanuensis had with each new device that came to take her work away?