To Learn More, This High-Schooler Left The Classroom

Nick Bain, 17, was in class one day when he calculated that only “2 1/2 to three hours” was actually useful instruction. So he decided to go out on his own to learn. —NPR Similar:Checking sources back in 2006 involved using this *steampunk* contraption.Research Before Google Books AcademiaShakespeare’s Genius Is NonsenseJust as comedians generally don’t…

Thoughtful PopCult Analysis of ‘Peanuts’ Deserves Better than a Clickbaity Headline Hating on Snoopy

On a shelf in the slanty room under the stairs, next to her college textbooks, my mother kept a stash of inexpensive Peanuts paperbacks — dozens of them, which reprinted the newspaper strips, perhaps on a yearly basis, maybe more frequently. I spent many a summer afternoon reading through those books, and I remember sorting…

One wild place. (Sunday.)

  Similar:Stage Right's "The Secret Garden": Performing with My Talented Daughter This weekend has been magical. Frida…CultureAcademic robe, Is this the year I finally send you out to be cleaned? Nah, Febreeze is goo…PersonalOne of my undergrad lit papers. Dot-matrix printed, with hand-written instructor annotatio…AcademiaThe daughter is doing another thing, this time in Galway, Ireland.…

After a successful piano recital.

Similar:The Girl Has Started Rehearsals for PICT Classic Theatre’s Jane EyreI’ve chauffeured the girl into Pittsburg…BooksFamily ( #StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 2) Picard Retreats to Family Vineyar…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….DramaGo Ask AliceFrom the tangled tale of mass literacy o…BooksDress rehearsal for The Nutcracker.AestheticsI'd like to speak to the manager. Yes, I'll…

Sesame Street Is Moving to HBO, and the Symbolism Is Crushing

I’ve been fascinated by the rhetoric of headlines surrounding the “Sesame Street moves to HBO” story. * HBO gentrifies ‘Sesame Street’ –VentureBeat * Sesame Street Episodes Will Shrink to Half an Hour –Time * Sesame Street Is Heading to HBO, and Getting Even Bigger –Esquire * This episode of Sesame Street brought to you by…

TARDIS from today’s 3D printing class.

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A serious summer activity.

Once classes start again, we will all have less time for the game of life. Let’s do some serious playing while we still can. Similar:The overlooked masterpieces of 1922In literature the response to the challe…BooksMyths about "Learning Styles Persist in SocietyI first heard the formalized theories ab…AcademiaHow Not To Make Professional ContactsTowards the end of…

Keyboard Shortcuts for Novelists

Use the command-alt functions to add sexual tension, plot twists, or a humorous interlude. —The New Yorker Similar:King Hedley II ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle, 9 of 10)August Wilson’s Century Cycle >  Spoi…BooksFake News Remains Top Industry Concern in 2017“In the past, people fabricated content….CultureBook geyser. My latest #Blender3D practice.In a peaceful grassy setting, a geyser o…AestheticsBing's…

Updating Journalism Handouts

Jerz > Writing > Journalism I’ve spent the afternoon touching up some older journalism handouts, seeing which are still in good shape, which need some work, and which new ones I’ll need to create from scratch. I realize I’ve never actually written a handout on the inverted pyramid, writing leads, writing headlines, punctuating quotes from sources… of course there…

No girl wins: three ways women unlearn their love of video games – Offworld

Several times I assigned Brenda Laurel’s Utopian Entrepreneur, which described the rise and heartbreaking fall of her girl-centered, girl-positive gaming company, Purple Moon during the 1990s. My own daughter (who is 13) has enjoyed man more opportunities to be both girly and nerdy — something that seems to have been a lot harder 20 years…

A salute lost to history

History is complex and baffling and fascinating. Reading this (an explanation that the stiff-arm salute that we now identify with the Nazis was a general gesture that was common in America before WWII) made my head spin almost as much as reading about the myth of 8 unbroken hours of sleep. A group of about…