Thank you, anonymous person who left a container of Oreo minis outside my door.
Beautiful, meditative video shows how books are made
Pretty sure you can’t do this to a Kindle. Posted by Tenth + Fourth on Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Details matter in journalism.
Get the brand of the beer, the make, model and year of the car and the name and breed of the dog. Here’s a great story that suggests journalists also “get the brand of the bra.”
Letter of Recommendation: Fanny Packs
What other accessory ensures the safety of your essentials, with easy access, while also liberating your hands? The fanny pack, when used properly, enables a whole host of activities that other bags render awkward: a deep embrace, a dance party, the ability to quickly find and swipe and secure your MetroCard. Through its rare combination…
Nerd Break! Listening To: Wilhelm Scream / Castle Thunder / Amen Break (While Watching Lights Blink in an Oft-recycled Sci-Fi Prop)
In order to provide some context for a blog post on a blinking lights prop we’ve all seen in dozens of different TV shows and movies, I opened different tabs for compilations of the Wilhelm scream, the castle thunder sound cue, and the Amen break drum solo. All three of those sound effects are now playing at once, and I am…
Why You Hate Google’s New Logo
The new logo retains the rainbow of colors but sheds the grownup curlicues: it now evokes children’s refrigerator magnets, McDonald’s French fries, Comic Sans. Google took something we trusted and filed off its dignity. Now, in its place, we have an insipid “G,” an owl-eyed “oo,” a schoolroom “g,” a ho-hum “l,” and a demented,…
Bias is a noun.
Grumpy Gamer – Happy Birthday Monkey Island
I guess Monkey Island turns 25 this month. It’s hard to tell. Unlike today, you didn’t push a button and unleash your game to billions of people. It was a slow process of sending “gold master” floppies off to manufacturing, which was often overseas, then waiting for them to be shipped to stores and the…
Dean Jones Dead: Disney Actor Was 84
“The Love Bug” was one of the movies that the kids asked for over and over. I didn’t mind watching it with them, becuase Dean Jones, Buddy Hackett, Michelle Lee, and David Tomlinson did such a good job carrying the story. Dean Jones, the affable actor who starred in such classic Disney family comedies as…
There are many Star Wars references in Dani Girl, so I made this tribute to Tom Jung’s 1977 poster.
Why Fan Theories Are Destroying Film Discourse
Fan theories are no substitute for critical analysis, yet they have quickly become inseparable for so many readers online. On one hand, it’s (sadly) a small encouragement that there’s any discussion about a movie that already exists, instead of a movie that will open in two years and only has a slew of set photos…
The secret history of “Y’all”: The murky origins of a legendary Southern slang word
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is usually academics’ first go-to for all things linguistic, and it cites the first occurrence of “you all” in print in 1824, from Arthur Singleton’s Letters from the South and West:“Children learn from the slaves some odd phrases;..as..will you all do this?”This example is important for understanding not only the…
Spotted: the North American tree daughter.
How The Ballpoint Pen Killed Cursive
In Death of a Salesman, Biff impulsively steals Bill Oliver’s fountain pen. That would be roughly culturally equivalent to a modern Biff swiping a businessman’s custom iPhone case, rather than a modern pen. This history of the ballpoint argues that the new pens cut down on leaks, but in the process made handwriting more physically…
Is this Wonka's factory, or the presidential picnic @setonhilluniversity ?
Charlie Brown has his kite-eating tree. I have my keys-eating chair. #foundthem
Dinosaur Comics Creator Stuck in Skate Park Hole Takes His Predicament to Twitter In Real Life Text Adventure
HI IT’S ME RYAN @ryanqnorth If I climbed into this in the rain to get this picture and now couldn’t get out, what should I do? Hypothetically 2:04 PM – 18 Aug 2015 Source: Dinosaur Comics Creator Stuck in Skate Park Hole Takes His Predicament to Twitter In Real Life Text Adventure
When Is Asking the Question Part of the News? (Rarely.)
We mostly only encounter the phrase “when asked about” in reporting, so when students start writing news reports, they tend to gravitate towards that phrase in order to signal to the world, “I am doing journalism now.” In truth, journalists use that phrase only in very specific circumstances, when omitting it would give a distorted impression of the truth.…
Employers Will Hire You For: 1) Leadership; 2) Teamwork; 3) Writing; 4) Problem-solving 5) Work Ethic (NACE 2014)
What do employers say they are looking for in new hires? Do they want drones who are good at following instructions and memorizing the “right answers,” who like working by themselves so their perfect grades aren’t threatened by the unpredictability of group work? No. Here’s what employers do look for: Leadership experience Ability to work…