Email (finding the right tone as a writer)

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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?

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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:Adobe steals your colorWhat a horrible situation. The Adobe mon…AestheticsGet ready for Generation ZStudents continue to change… I’m doing…CultureReading Literature on Screen: A Price for Convenience?Because all of my Seton Hill students ge…AcademiaClickbait…

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:She doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties. ht…AmusingJury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentHow hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweetOn Sunday night, President Donald Trump…

@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:Classroom collaboration marketplaceWhile I am uncomfortable with the whole …BusinessHabits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of lifeHabits for happiness: tips for looking o…PersonalTweet: For an anatomy project, my #geekling made a Vulcan…For…

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…