Fun With Charts: Scale Matters

At first glance, this chart makes it look like food stamp usage has gone from almost nothing at some unspecified time in the past, to some huge amount over a span of who-knows-how-long. Only a fraction of the visitors to the site will click on the chart to see the scale, which reveals that the…

Waiting for Godot Paper Dolls

Arts on the Waterfront’s Waiting for Godot Kit! Simply print and cut. Share it with the thespian in your life! Put one on your desk today. If you want take a photo of it and share it on our page. —Arts on the Waterfront. Similar:Another 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #relaxing…

Zork: The Great Underground Empire

A blogger has started chronicling a journey through the classic 1980s computer game, Zork. Before King’s Quest and its successors took the realm of adventure gaming into colorful graphics, adventure titles were solely text. Infocom specialized in these during the 80s, including the Zork series, Planetfall, and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But Zork,…

Stop Clubbing, Baby Seals

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Tolkien v. Orwell: Who understood modern surveillance best?

Interesting set of observations exploring the limits of omniscience and the sheer scale involved in watching an entire population. Failures in empathy lead to misinterpretation of anonymous rebellion in plain sight. Tolkien’s most potent and intimidating image of centralized surveillance, the Eye of Sauron atop a tower, taking in the whole world, has resonated with…

It’s Finally Ironic (You’re Welcome, Alanis)

Sample, improved lyrics: “An old man turned 98 /He won the lottery, and died the next day (from a severe paper cut from his lottery ticket).” Similar:PICT Classic Theatre presents a gritty version of Charles Dickens’ classicPost-Gazette.com – Homer, Shakespeare, C…BooksRubric for the Rubric Concerning Students’ Core Educational Competency In Reading Things I…Sadly, this only…

The Pixar Theory

Jon Negroni creates a meta-narrative to connect every Pixar movie, using Boo as the still point in the turning universe. Every Pixar movie is connected. I explain how, and possibly why. Several months ago, I watched a fun-filled video on Cracked.com that introduced the idea (at least to me) that all of the Pixar movies…

The contrast between KTVU’s treatment of its trium…

The contrast between KTVU’s treatment of its triumphs vs errors reminds us of the difference between journalism vs public relations. Similar:Overheard at Quora: "Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?"Moodle is a free course-management tool …AcademiaRT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context htt…RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #co…TweetsIt's been nice knowing…

Woman’s work : Columbia Journalism Review

Francesca Borri writes of being a freelancer and a woman covering the war in Syria. (When my life gets hectic, a story like this helps me keep some perspective.) Similar:As Mount St. Mary’s Offers to Reinstate 2 Professors, Faculty Demands President QuitThe president of Mount St. Mary’s Univer…AcademiaComputers and Writing workshop on Inform 7. (Happening…

A quick primer on semicolons

Is your Sunday feeling incomplete because you haven’t read anything about punctuation today? This explanation of the semicolon should help. You’re welcome. Similar:SAT essay section: Problems with grading, instruction, and prompts.In my freshman writing courses I work ha…AcademiaHenry Bemis waited his whole life to finally read a book. Listen to Lynn Venable’s story,…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc3DHCiz…BooksAI crawlers destroying…

What kids do when Dad won’t hand over the iPod

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