I love me a good Amazon mock review. Here are several. From scientific miracles to literary criticism, by way of bodily functions and failures of common sense. Many moons ago, I wrote about the art of the humorous Amazon review as a modern masterpiece of parodic genius, embodying Arthur Koestler’s seminal “bisociation” theory of how…
I would never have chosen to watch “Cowboys and Aliens” but it was surprisingly enjoyable. Similar:Overheard at Quora: "Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?"Moodle is a free course-management tool …AcademiaLoved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhillLoved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhi…TweetsHello, there, mini.Hello, there, mini. Let’s restore you fr…TweetsFormer student:…
RT @dloehr: 12yr: “Those Muppets are lip-synching.” Similar:Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever CreatedPenn and Teller are involved with this s…BooksClassroom collaboration marketplaceWhile I am uncomfortable with the whole …BusinessYes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalI asked my geekling whether she was ready for bed…I asked my #geekling…
RT @mkirschenbaum: Can’t see them well enough to read, but guy sitting next to me is typing out short, broken lines of text. Tempted to ask… Similar:I'm no longer surprised, but still want to document.This is really noteworthy. Today the Pre…Current_EventsCarolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Ref…Fascinating use…
Faculty who need to publish for professional reasons can be motivated for reasons other than a royalty check, so this sounds like a good idea. The Affordable College Textbook Act, introduced by Durbin and Franken this month, aims to lower book costs by promoting the use of open-source textbooks. Open books, as defined by the…
Once, someone really cared about these old periodicals. The bound copies have been weeded out of my school library. Post by Dennis G. Jerz. Similar:Perspective | How NPR’s Steve Inskeep cracked the code for interviewing Trump The role of mainstream journalists i…Current_EventsWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer PrizeFormer Washington Post cartoonist…
I expect my English majors not to balk when I ask them to learn new software. One good way to learn is to shadow someone who already knows it well. Even better, work with a classmate who’s just a step or two ahead — that way they can both learn together. In my “News Writing”…
“Goddammit, I don’t know what to do!” Obama said, banging his hands in frustration against a wall of binary as the entire healthcare.gov mainframe suddenly froze, forcing all previously flowing lines of code to come to a complete standstill. “I can’t fix this! Get me out of this place!” “Please! Just get me out of…
Descriptive grammarians rejoice. Formal written English is not the only legitimate form of the language, and the rules of formal written English don’t apply in all situations. Sure, it’s useful to know when to use who and whom, but it’s probably more useful to know that saying To whom did you give the book? in…
On the Civil War battlefield where President Abraham Lincoln gave a speech that symbolized his presidency and the sacrifices made by Union and Confederate forces, thousands gathered Tuesday, historians and everyday Americans alike, to ponder what the Gettysburg Address has meant to the nation. —The Washington Post. Similar:Thirteen seconds. Dozens of bullets. One explosive photo.Forget…
Grr! That “15 Xs who did Y” link looked interesting, but on the first page I saw it was broken up into 63 parts. Bad meme. No link for you. Similar:I asked my geekling whether she was ready for bed…I asked my #geekling whether she was rea…AmusingJudge: Apple conspired to fix eBook prices.Judge: Apple conspired…
The construction is more versatile than “because+noun” suggests. Prepositional because can be yoked to verbs (Can’t talk now because cooking), adjectives (making up examples because lazy), interjections (Because yay!), and maybe adverbs too, though in strings like Because honestly., the adverb is functioning more as an exclamation. The resulting phrases are all similarly succinct and…
Wow… what a drab, unquoteworthy, unsoundbiteable, graphics-free presentation of findings that will be of tremendous interest to the general public. TV but not electronic games predicted a small increase in conduct problems. Screen time did not predict other aspects of psychosocial adjustment. Further work is required to establish causal mechanisms.. Similar:Employers unhappy with new generation…
RT @avantgame: 11,000 kids tracked for A DECADE to see if videogames lead to negative attention, behavioral, mood impact. Result: NO http:/… Similar:How hate and misinformation go viral: A case study of a Trump retweetOn Sunday night, President Donald Trump …AcademiaAnd the girl has succeeded in getting me to wear t…And the girl has succeeded…
@JustJoshReardon Excellent work from the whole cast & crew. A great night of theater @setonhill #biglove Similar:Tweet: For an anatomy project, my #geekling made a Vulcan…For an anatomy project, my #geekling mad…TweetsHello, there, mini.Hello, there, mini. Let’s restore you fr…TweetsMy Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky foam pig at art camp. Next up: Stage Right summer…
Setting out to take my teen to see #biglove at #setonhill Similar:Maybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in …CybercultureDesert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever CreatedPenn and Teller are involved with this s…BooksI'm no longer surprised, but still want to document.This is really noteworthy. Today…
My 15yo wanted to show me Terminator 4, but he opted to watch T3 w/ his little sister (her first time). Nerd siblings are awesome siblings. Similar:Maybe Star Wars 7 won't suck, but I'm not holding my breath.I was burned in 1999 when I saw The Phan…HomeClassroom Project: Students Get 1 Hour to Propose, Shoot,…
Suddenly, something that had been unthinkable–that the Internet might put a free, Ivy League–caliber education within reach of the world’s poor–seems tantalizingly close. “Imagine,” an investor in the Professor’s company says, “you can hand a kid in Africa a tablet and give him Harvard on a piece of glass!” The wonky term for the Professor’s…
Now that Blockbuster Video has officially closed, I welcome Chuck Tyron’s Storify aggregation, which turned up this goodie: When I was a kid, movies like The Wizard of Oz were aired on TV once a year (usually during Thanksgiving weekend). At school the next week, everyone would be singing the songs and quoting the lines.…
Update in a legal battle that’s been going on for 8 years. A long-running copyright lawsuit between the Authors’ Guild and Google over its book-scanning project is over, and Google has won on the grounds that its scanning is “fair use.” In other words, the snippets of books that Google shows for free don’t break…