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:Heart of Glory (TNG Rewatch, Season 1 Episode 20)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…MediaConfessions of a Nerdy Homeschooling DadAre you unexpectedly home-schooling your…CultureSix rainbow-colored objects, arranged like THIS?These are shoe-holding racks at a local …AestheticsThey've got magic to do. Carolyn is the Leading Player. (Pippin, Oct 21-29) AwesomeThoreau's Cellphone ExperimentWhen I teach “Intro to…
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:On my fantasy #steampunk capital ship, every uniform is a full dress uniform. #blender3d #…AestheticsHere's to the grim-based photojournalist who saved…
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:Looking forward to more live local theater. (Support the arts!)PersonalA picture of puffy white clouds floating in a blue skyAestheticsMe: Carolyn, are you ok? Carolyn:Just reminding myself that I am a gift.AmusingCelebration of Writing — a big presentation day for freshman writing classes.PersonalMy brother, in town to see The Nutcracker, starts a chess game with…
Similar:My daughter found where all the missing pens and pencils end upAmusingYes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalRandom #steampunk workstation with a porthole, because why not. Most of the surfaces are f…AestheticsI create five color variations of each #blender3d building I #design, and each of those ha…I create five…
Similar:In May, 2001 I was blogging about lanuguage, design and Cliffs NotesIn May 2001, I was blogging about B…AmusingNortheast braces for temps near boiling point – Yahoo! NewsThe inter tubes are clogged with pundits…Current_EventsEclipse!PersonalWhy Teachers, Parents, and Society at Large Have Destroyed Kids’ Love of LearningI have experimented with rewarding stude…CultureI Was Taught From a…
Similar:Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at EverythingThe Alot is an imaginary creature that I…AmusingThe Importance of PunctuationFrom Yahoo! News: Update: T…GamesMy new inspiration as I work on my syllabuses I applaud you, person who, halfway …AcademiaTom Jones, librettist for "The Fantasticks," dies at 95I was so glad to see…
[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:Filmmakers fighting “Happy Birthday” copyright find their “smoking gun”Who owns the copyright to the “Happy Bir…BusinessLotteries: America's $70 Billion ShameCan this be true? People spend more mone…BooksInfluencers overtaking journalists as news source:…
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:Crash site and Tower of Voices. Well worth…