I was briefly excited that Turnitin.com’s new app works in a park with no WiFi

Then I realized… I’m a guy who gets excited about grading papers in a park. Similar:Hamlet. #tobePersonalEmily Dickinson Manuscript for "The Chariot"A new Emily Dickinson archive is online….CultureOkay, please stop droolingIt perfectly pulls together four importa…CybercultureFamily ( #StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 2) Picard Retreats to Family Vineyar…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….DramaThou shalt…

14 Machines That Were Brilliant in 1985

I used something very similar to this shoulder-bag mobile phone when I interned at a radio news station my junior year in college. —14 Machines That Were Brilliant in 1985. Similar:Letter to the editor: Why our English department deserves more respectI came very close to accepting an offer …AcademiaFranz Joseph and Star Trek’s Blueprint CultureIn…

Can the multiverse explain human history?

Where did this idea of parallel universes come from? Science fiction is an obvious source: in the 1960s, Captain Kirk met his ‘other self’ in a Star Trek episode called ‘Mirror, Mirror’, while Philip K Dick’s novel The Man in the High Castle (1963) imagined an alternate world in which the US was a Nazi…

Word to describe the sorry state of the MLA Job In…

Word to describe the sorry state of the MLA Job Information List: “@QSlobodian: @pannapacker Jöbberdämmerung.” Similar:I asked my geekling whether she was ready for bed…I asked my #geekling whether she was rea…AmusingHello, 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…

My son just scoffed at Kirk’s infamous “One to the…

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The “Monsters, Inc” company play helped me teach Shakespeare

Today the awkward but delightful “Monsters, Inc” company play helped me explain why Shakespeare put the awful “Pyramus and Thisby” play after the main plot has resolved in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. http://t.co/WSXD943LpG Similar:Melissa Terras Reports Her Success in Making Digital Humanities More InclusiveA pleasant little success story. “TEI” i…AcademiaDance Nation @barebonesblackboxCultureToday I didn't save…

Insipidest. Play. Ever. –Pepys, on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Sort of.

After attending a performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, Pepys wrote in his diary: “Insipidest. Play. Ever.” (Or words to that effect.) Similar:Modern Masterpieces of Comedic Genius: The Art of the Humorous Amazon Review, Part DeuxI love me a good Amazon mock review. Her…AestheticsSocrates envisaged a time when we would forget how to remember.From Daisy Dunn’s…

Club Fair at @setonhill Griffins, get involved! (F…

Club Fair at @setonhill Griffins, get involved! (Free Starbursts at the @SetonianOnline table.) http://t.co/aAFylsl425 Similar:Former student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …A third alum in the last few weeks has c…AcademiaIt's been nice knowing you, iPad3 It’s been nice knowing you, iPad3, but…TweetsRT @DDeClaudio: Who do you think controls the news…RT…

The Hidden World of the Typewriter

When I was interning at a radio station in the late 80s, the power went out. A generator kept the station on the air, but with no computers or phones, we had no news to report. As it happened, I had brought a copy of the university paper with me. The news director pointed me…

The iPhones of Fall

For Apple, “change” no longer refers to revolution. It refers to fashion. Apple is becoming more like Prada and less like Edison. This has been the case for some time, it was just harder to notice as the iPhone was undergoing large-scale adoption. But in retrospect, Steve Jobs’s keynotes functioned more like catwalks than like…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu

I told them to put their name on both pages.

I told them to put their name on both pages. 6 of 22 forgot. I had to do handwriting forensics to match the orphan pages. I hate quizzes. Similar:Transfigurations (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 25) Injured Humanoid Charm…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….MediaHad a rough day. Designing another 10 sq cm of #steampunk control…

F-16 pilot was ready to give her life on Sept. 11

She was a rookie in the autumn of 2001, the first female F-16 pilot they’d ever had at the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard. [….] She had her hand on the throttle of an F-16 and she had her orders: Bring down United Airlines Flight 93. The day’s fourth hijacked airliner…

@setonhill Fall Honors Convocation receiving line….

@setonhill Fall Honors Convocation receiving line. #tradition http://t.co/Wg7D9DaEx4 Similar:Tweet: Came around the corner and saw my kids huddled on…Came around the corner and saw my kids h…TweetsIt's been nice knowing you, iPad3 It’s been nice knowing you, iPad3, but…Tweets10 Rules of Internet – Anil DashA very useful, concise summary of web-en…BusinessHabits for happiness: tips for…

Curious George and the Twin Towers

On 9/11/2001, I was remote enough from the tragedies that I managed to hold together pretty well, until that night, when my son, who was 3, asked me to read him this book. I recently noticed that the cover has been redesigned. Similar:News report from 1981 about the Internet.A human interest story about an early…

The Falling Man — 9/11 Suicide Photograph

Powerful, painful essay. Worth revisiting. In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears…

The effects of September 11 on the leading search engine

On October 2001, this thoughtful article appeared in the journal First Monday. This is a fascinating glimpse of the world before YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, before most people carried around digital cameras, when the home pages of Fox and CNN advised readers to turn on their TV sets for the latest news. Just as the assassination…

My working theory: the @sramsay departure is a Jim…

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RT @nowviskie: @tcarmody @amandafrench @jenhoward…

RT @nowviskie: @tcarmody @amandafrench @JenHoward @kfitz @rgfeal Hey, Tim. @sramsay is sharing today’s last sequence here. http://t.co/YTjs… Similar:My Minecraft-obsessed tween made this blocky foam pig at art camp. Next up: Stage Right summer musical th…AestheticsFormer student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …A third alum in the last few weeks has c…AcademiaJury…

@nowviskie I feel strangely culpable, since the la…

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Roadside Sobriety Test Gone Wild

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