Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg strides past fettered drones at Mobile World Conference.

I’d like to think that all these people were actually blogging well-researched self-aware essays about the absurd spectacle. Similar:Disagreement Hierarchy: Arguments, ranked from name-calling to the careful refutation of a…My weekend coronavirus lockdown project …AcademiaThe Crucible, Geyer PAC (Scottdale, May 16-19)My wife is directing Arthur Miller’s The…CultureA Quick and Comprehensive Guide to Type A Quick…

This image of Mark Zuckerberg says so much about our future

A billionaire superman with a rictus grin, striding straight past human drones, tethered to machines and blinded to reality by blinking plastic masks. Golden light shines down on the man as he strides past his subjects, cast in gloom, toward a stage where he will accept their adulation. Later that night, he will pore across…

Those shoggoths hacked from lungs unspeakable

1) Last night, I’m fairly certain some of the shoggoths I’ve been coughing up had achieved sentience. But today, fewer are chasing me shrieking “Tekeli-li!” 2) Those shoggoths hacked from lungs unspeakable Last night evolved to sentience; yet this noon Their chasing shriek “Tekeli-li!” doth wane. Similar:Ambiguous language in journalism: Monkey Pox and Camel Privates…

‘WarGames’ and Cybersecurity’s Debt to a Hollywood Hack

After finishing his synopsis, Reagan turned to Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and asked: “Could something like this really happen?” Could someone break into our most sensitive computers? General Vessey said he would look into it. One week later, the general returned to the White House with…

“Shakespeare in Love” with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra and Stage Right!

When I teach Shakespeare, I will from time to time deliver a short speech for my students, but this was my first time performing Shakespeare before a paying audience. As Oberon from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I got to share the stage again with my daughter Carolyn as Puck. (She also had a separate speech…

Facebook Instant Articles Are on Their Way

Tons of large new media operations produce cool and slick videos on Facebook, and the viewership numbers are skyrocketing! Also skyrocketing: Low-quality rips of poorly compressed videos originally upload to Instagram (themselves stolen from Vine). The freebooting world of Facebook is largely untamed, and one might assume, decently profitable as well. It’s not hard to…

Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dies aged 89

Harper Lee, whose 1961 novel To Kill a Mockingbird became a national institution and the defining text on the racial troubles of the American deep south, has died at the age of 89. Lee, or Nelle as she was known to those close to her, had lived for several years in a nursing home less…

The Secret Lives of Tumblr Teens

That feeling when you hit a million followers, make more money than your mom, push a diet pill scheme, lose your blog, and turn 16. | When I began reporting on the world of Tumblr teens, I first wanted to explain the absurdist comedy of Pizza and dozens of other Tumblrs like hers. But I soon…

As Mount St. Mary’s Offers to Reinstate 2 Professors, Faculty Demands President Quit

The president of Mount St. Mary’s University has reinstated the two faculty members who were fired for disloyalty this week, according to a statement from the institution on Friday afternoon. But one of those faculty members — Thane M. Naberhaus, a tenured associate professor of philosophy — said he would not accept the college’s offer.…

Museum of Endangered Sounds

Imagine a world where we never again hear the symphonic startup of a Windows 95 machine. Imagine generations of children unacquainted with the chattering of angels lodged deep within the recesses of an old cathode ray tube TV. And when the entire world has adopted devices with sleek, silent touch interfaces, where will we turn…

from “The Poet” by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses. For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it…

Video Game about Cancer and Grief

On my list for the next time I teach “Video Game Culture and Theory.” The “extra life” was a fixture of early video games, a reward for skilled players that was imbued with the language of reincarnation. Players would not say they earned additional time to play, or a bonus turn, upon reaching a certain…

I felt a great disturbance in the Fandom

“…as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror, and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened.” Similar:Marching in a parade and watching a patriotic musicalHappy Independence Day, fellow Americans…CultureStudying STEM Isn’t The Career Boost We ThinkTurns out, getting a STEM education may …AcademiaHow We ReadI feel a little nerdier than usual when…

Mount St. Mary’s president fires two faculty members, one with tenure

Mount St. Mary’s fires two faculty members. One was tenured professor charged with lack of loyalty. The other advised student newspaper that recently exposed president’s quotes about “drowning bunnies.” […] Last month The Mountain Echo, the student newspaper, revealed the debate over retention strategies and Newman’s quote about needing to view students as bunnies to…

What Is The Value Of An Education In The Humanities?

For those who go to college, the four years spent there are often the sole chance we give ourselves to think deeply and broadly about our place in the world. To turn college into nothing more than job training (emphasizing only those jobs that pay well), represents another missed opportunity for students and the society…

Stem subject snobbery: a student’s view on why arts subjects matter

While everyone complains about the subjects their parents forced them into, I am in the dance studio every lunchtime. Dance gets me into school. Dance gives me something to pour my head and heart into. It gives me a feeling of belonging, creativity, security and freedom. | Then the bell rings and it’s back to Ohm’s…

Don’t Be Cruel

[M]angled syntax, disordered thinking, and frequent error happen to be hallmarks of a novice writer learning a new discourse. If we incorrectly assume they reflect a lack of effort or character — and base our feedback on that assumption — we do our students a disservice and risk inflicting real damage. | It takes enormous amounts…

When Robert Pinsky Wrote a Video Game

[F]or a brief time in the mid-nineteen-eighties major literary publishers, including Simon & Schuster and Random House, opened software divisions, and major bookstores stocked works of “interactive fiction.” Popular writers, including Douglas Adams and Thomas M. Disch, turned their capable hands to the burgeoning form. It was in the midst of this excited moment that…

Trained eagle destroys drone in Dutch police video

The animal versus machine moment is brought to you by Guard From Above, which describes itself as “the world’s first company specialized in training birds of prey to intercept hostile drones.” Source: —Wash Post Similar:How much of what local TV stations post to Facebook is actually local? For many, right aro…I am not a fan…

Squirrel noisily enjoying a nut alongside the Grotto drive at Seton Hill.

Similar:The Big Boy GraveyardOn road trips in my youth, watching the …AmusingThe Woman in BlackLast night’s preview was a layered treat…CultureCarolyn as Cosette in the wedding scene in Les Miz. #feelsPersonalVulcan mind-melds from Star Trek: The Original Series, in the order that I can think of th… With Dr. Simon Van Gelder in Dagger …PersonalWhen…