RT @wilw: Cable News Presents: Rampant and baseles…
RT @wilw: Cable News Presents: Rampant and baseless speculation so you won’t change the channel during a breaking news event. Now with more…
SHU Community Lines Up to Honor JoAnne Boyle’s Final Trip Up the Hill
JoAnne Boyle liked talking about tradition — from the Latin meaning “handed over.” One of her favorite traditions involved lining up with the administrators to shake hands with each incoming freshman, and again with all the faculty to hand off the new graduates to the world. Now, members of the SHU community are repaying both…
Stop trying to figure out if screentime is good for students
Pro-technology response to the NYT “No Child Left Untableted,” skewing almost as much in the opposite direction. Conducting device-focused research makes as little sense as doing research on pens, papers, folders, book-binding, and three-ring notebooks. Where are the papers, studies and statistics on the negative impact of chalk dust, calling for blackboards to be limited?…
Mourning a great leader and role model. Pres. Emerita JoAnne Boyle, RIP
Mourning a great leader and role model. Pres. Emerita JoAnne Boyle, RIP. (Email sent to SHU community a short while ago.) #setonhill
Students Produce Breathtaking 3D Simulation of 17thC London
The haze effect lying over the city is brilliant, and great attention has been given to key features of London Bridge, the wooden structure of Queenshithe on the river, even the glittering window casements. I’m really pleased that the Pudding Lane team was able to repurpose some of the maps from the British Library’s amazing…
Ever done a “host your own murder” party? My journ…
Ever done a “host your own murder” party? My journos acted out a campus incident. I game-mastered, emailing updates as they wrote. #LARP
RT @chriscobler: @ap editors tell #apme13 to refus…
RT @chriscobler: @AP editors tell #apme13 to refuse to use White House press release photos. On way home I see this in @Quill_Mag. http://t…
White House photo access controls public image
Rather than permit photojournalists to shoot in the White House, the Obama administration prefers to issue official pictures taken by its own photographers. News organizations looking to illustrate events of national and global importance usually have no choice but to use the official photos, but the Associated Press says those photos are so staged and…
Proposal for #cwcon submitted. Not the one I initi…
Proposal for #cwcon submitted. Not the one I initially thought I would submit, but there you go. On to the next agenda item.
“I don’t know how that Jerz guy thinks he’s going to procure an entire library in the middle of the ocean.”
“I don’t know how that Jerz guy thinks he’s going to procure an entire library in the middle of the ocean.” –student who didn’t listen closely to my speech (where I mentioned both a shipboard library and my iPad) in the “Vote to Drown Professors Representing Disciplines That Threaten Your Worldview Lifeboat Debate.” (Not the…
A Book Itself Is a Little Machine: Emily Short’s Interactive Fiction
Words do some things much better than pixels and polys. You can shoot a dozen identical aliens in a first-person shooter and not feel annoyed; but if you read the same identical description of shooting aliens, you would probably feel bored and cheated. In a game of words, there is therefore a pressure either to…
RT @betajames: “I know of no English department in…
RT @betajames: “I know of no English department in any institution that requires its majors to take a course on the ethics of literary stud…
Orson Welles Radio Play “War of the Worlds” at 75
The New York Times reported “Many Flee Homes to Escape `Gas Raid From Mars’–Phone Calls Swamp Police at Broadcast of Wells Fantasy” and the story of the hoax is firmly embedded in the history books. But the reports of streets full of panicked citizens don’t hold up to scrutiny. There’s only one problem: The supposed…
@ZCharisma On my blog I said my wife usually gives…
@ZCharisma On my blog I said my wife usually gives me nerdy DVDs (e.g. Mazes & Monsters), so I expect she’ll give me Zero Charisma one day.
My student journos were given one class period to…
My student journos were given one class period to film, edit, and publish a 2-min TV news story. Speed journalism! blogs.setonhill.edu/el200-2013-fa/…
@ZCharisma Oh, now I feel bad.
@ZCharisma Oh, now I feel bad.
Halloween Candy Poisonings, School Shootings and Human Psychology
What can parents do to minimize their children’s risk of being hurt or killed by poison or sharp objects in Halloween candy? How many children would you say die each year from eating poisoned candy (or candy with razor blades and such) each Halloween? Just two or three? Maybe only one every few years? In…
D&D-Themed movie Zero Charisma pits Nerds vs. Hipsters
My wife usually gives me nerd-themed DVDs as gifts, so I probably won’t make any effort to see this movie on my own. Still, I’m glad to know someone has made a movie that touches on the hipsterization of nerd culture, and I enjoyed reading the well-written review. Like lots of apologists and upholders of…
xkcd: Headlines
It: nailed. xkcd: Headlines.
My geekling is not just pretending to be Spock…
…she’s pretending to be “Spock in a Tree on Omicron Ceti III.”