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…
My 15yo son’s Christmas wish list: “An iPod case that fits, and a letter opener. I hate to tear an envelope.” Similar:Parallel 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 foam pig at art…
Did all these stories spring from a common source? To resolve that question, Tehrani took 58 variants of the X-eats-Y tale and classified them based on 72 plot variables: For example, are the protagonists human children or animals? Male or female? What kind of creature plays the villain? Do the protagonists escape, and if so,…
“I am endeavoring, ma’am, to construct a mnemonic memory circuit, using stone knives and bearskins.” #StarTrek Similar:Proto iPads and Paper Coexist in Classic Star TrekRewatching the classic Trek episode “The…CybercultureIn Defense Of Metaphors In Science WritingWe live in an elegant universe. The c…CultureMy Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky foam pig at art camp. Next up:…
Introducing my kids to the classic #startrek episode “The City on the Edge of Forever.” They don’t make TV like this anymore. Similar:Parallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesOverheard at Quora: "Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?"Moodle is a free course-management tool …AcademiaJury Duty UpdateI’m…
What inspires my awesome journos to meet their deadline? The “Empire Strikes Back” soundtrack. (Editor: “I love you.” Reporter: “I know.”) Similar:What kids do when Dad won't hand over the iPod So I’m not being selfish… this is …EducationDesert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever CreatedPenn and Teller are involved with this s…BooksI asked my…
Hey, Tony. See this photo of Shrek? Here, stand by this window, with the light on the left side of your face. Now, give me a closed-mouth smile. And tilt your head a little. Okay, that looks good. But I’ve got a spare hour or so. As a child of the 70s, I fondly recall…
RT @ProfJeffJarvis: Hey @DeltaAssist, do you honestly feel that “tapas box” is a suitable meal for a thinkfluencer? Similar:It's been nice knowing you, iPad3 It’s been nice knowing you, iPad3, but…TweetsCarolyn Gombell Is Not a Real Person: #JusticeforCarolyn Is a Campaign Against Twitter Ref…Fascinating use of social media. To be c…Current_EventsTweet: Came around the corner…
The vast majority of Americans remember it as the day that an American president was assassinated. Only a few also remember it as the day that television news grew up. One of them was the young reporter seen carrying the camera on rare videotaped footage of the Channel 8 newsroom just minutes after the president…
It was a new, shocking, traumatic thing for Americans — who were used to getting their bad news from kindly gentlemen who filtered it for them and helped them digest the worst bits — to watch reporters, live on air, learning new details and reacting as they happened. First CBS Bulletin (at 10:45 into a…
Journalists will be allowed to use Instagram, Twitter and other social media to post still photos and news from the Sochi Olympics, International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams confirmed to For The Win in an email on Monday. “Please take as many photos as you like!” he wrote. “Sharing pix on social media positively…
My daughter spends a lot of time with her theater friends, who thrive on community and love giving and getting attention. Every so often she reports being puzzled by kids who don’t respond well to what she intends as overtures of friendship. Even kids who, as far as I can tell, are confident and outgoing,…
The devices are not really valued as portable screens or mobile gaming devices. Teachers I talked to seemed uninterested, almost dismissive, of animations and gamelike apps. Instead, the tablets were intended to be used as video cameras, audio recorders, and multimedia notebooks of individual students’ creations. The teachers cared most about how the devices could…
RT @dancohen: I finally figured it out. iOS 7 is supposed to be like Zork. “Put finger on the northeast corner of the slab.” “A secret pa… Similar:Tweet: For an anatomy project, my #geekling made a Vulcan…For an anatomy project, my #geekling mad…TweetsJuror's CreedWhile researching my obligations for #ju…CultureMaybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF…
RT @jcmeloni: Cultural highlight of my life, achieved: spent 2.5 hours 100 feet from very funny & amazing @SirPatStew & Sir Ian, at Waiting… Similar:Former student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …A third alum in the last few weeks has c…AcademiaJuror's CreedWhile researching my obligations for #ju…CultureLoved seeing A Comedy of…
Come see me as the Captain of the Guard, Leigh as the Fairy Godmother, and Carolyn (Sunday only) as Young Fiona. We’re running Act 1 all the way through for the first time tomorrow. Post by Stage Right. Similar:Detailed Articulation of Feet in Unity3DI’m following a lot of tutorials, and co…AestheticsMinnesota authorities can't arrest or…
For the first time in 159 years, Philadelphians have elected a Whig to public office – specifically, putting a member of the Modern Whig Party into a spot as judge of elections in Northeast Philadelphia’s 56th Ward, in the Rhawnhurst section. Robert “Heshy” Bucholz, 39, a software engineer with four children and a fifth on…
Salon has an interesting essay on multimodality in the wild. I know, I know: To some of you the idea of using a GIF (for the uninitiated: a small, soundless animated image on a repeating loop) in a book review sounds bizarre. But the practice does flourish, if controversially, in some sectors of Goodreads’ universe…