Email (finding the right tone as a writer)

Similar:The Post-Coding Generation?I knew the command line well, and very o…CybercultureDid you share Russian fake news? Facebook, apparently unable to insert items directly in o…Did you share fake news from Russia duri…BusinessFinal Mission (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 9) Picard and Wesley bond on a Desert …Rewatching ST:TNG. The plot, such as …MediaThe Abandoned (#StarTrek…

The Out-of-Control Author

When you’re writing just for yourself, you’re in control. Of everything. You control what your characters do, what they say and think and wear, what happens to them, where their story begins and ends. Every aspect of the story is completely in your hands. It’s your book. All yours. When you work with a publisher,…

TSA Agent Confession

It was May 2007. I was living with a bohemian set on Chicago’s north side, a crowd ranging from Foucault-fixated college kids to middle-aged Bukowski-bred alcoholics. We drank and talked politics on the balcony in the evenings, pausing only to sneer at hipsters strumming back-porch Beatles sing-a-longs. By night, I took part in barbed criticism…

Alice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of Quantum Mechanics by a CERN Physicist

Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Quantum Physics is absolutely fantastic in its entirety, certain to engage the simultaneous states of entertainment and education with unequaled grace. Complement it with scientists’ answers to little kids’ questions about how the world works, then bend your mind by considering what it’s like to live in a universe…

International Studies Association proposes to bar editors from blogging

“I think it’s a really strange proposal in 2014,” said Stephen M. Saideman, a professor at Carleton University in Canada and one of many political science scholars who assailed the policy on social media. “I would have expected it in 2006.” Faculty members, several outside the field of international studies, said the proposal is simultaneously…

Facebook, really? More people liked the picture in my post than saw the post that includes the picture?

I don’t pretend to understand. Similar:Classroom Project: Students Get 1 Hour to Propose, Shoot, Edit, Publish DocumentaryStudents created this in 60 minutes. …HomeIncoming Seton Hill Students Pick Up Their MacBooks and iPads TodayI find it impossible not to be cheerful …AcademiaMemories of Toronto Yonge Street EncountersI arrived in Toronto in 1992 as a 22yo g…CultureWordPress…

I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface, but…

I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface, but I love the new ability to tie comments to rubric items. Well done! http://t.co/InHGMWpDkZ Similar:Adding random objects to the bookshelves for a fantasy #steampunk project. #blender3dAestheticsEats, Shoots & LeavesWhat’s your comma IQ? Mine just so happe…AmusingRussian trolls 'spreading discord' over vaccine safety onlineThe good news is that…

Should the AP Really Have Fired This Pulitzer-Prize War Photographer?

The original shot caught a Syrian rebel fighter moving from his position, his AK-47 in hand. It also showed something else: “a colleague’s video camera” in “the lower left corner of the frame,” according to the AP’s investigation. Before filing the image to his editors, Contreras used digital software to take the camera out of…

RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context htt…

RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context http://t.co/5HjNls404X Similar:Maybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in …CybercultureParallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesJudge: Apple conspired to fix eBook prices.Judge: Apple conspired to fix eBook pric…BooksMy Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky…

@MichaelSimsBook @mkonnikova “When a blogger uses…

@MichaelSimsBook @mkonnikova “When a blogger uses hyperbole while recommending an article on viral media, you won’t believe what happens!” Similar:Tweet: Came around the corner and saw my kids huddled on…Came around the corner and saw my kids h…TweetsClassroom collaboration marketplaceWhile I am uncomfortable with the whole …BusinessCarolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is…

The Six Things That Make Stories Go Viral Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You

Overblown Headline of New Yorker Article on Memes Will Amaze, and Maybe Infuriate, You In 350 B.C., Aristotle was already wondering what could make content—in his case, a speech—persuasive and memorable, so that its ideas would pass from person to person. The answer, he argued, was three principles: ethos, pathos, and logos. Content should have…

Not Bad for an English Major

I didn’t have much choice when it came to picking a background for some publicity shots for Stage Right’s production of a new musical, “Little Red.” At the time, this background seemed better than all the alternatives, but when it came time to design a Facebook ad, I ended up very unsatisfied. Fortunately, I have…