Blogging this so I can find it when I teach my “News Writing” class this fall. People do like to prank journalists with fake names. In this case, the reporter did what you’re supposed to do — get confirmation — but sheesh. KTVU reports fake racist names of Asiana Airlines 214 pilots from NTSB intern…
I recently bought a new phone. since then, I have answered an incoming call in my car. It felt awesome. Similar:It's been nice knowing you, iPad3 It’s been nice knowing you, iPad3, but…TweetsRT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context htt…RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #co…TweetsJudge: Apple conspired to fix eBook prices.Judge: Apple conspired to…
I just touched up a handout on Parallel Structure vs Faulty Parallelism. Similar:The Curtains Were Blue: In Which I Fix Another Meme. Above is my response to a meme that …AcademiaMy journalism students just gave me this wristband: "What would Jerz do? / Verify or duck…. AestheticsThis is How Literary Fiction Teaches Us to Be…
These comic panels cover the issue well. (Pennington Publishing) Similar:Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering FreshmenWisdom from science writer John Horgan.[…AcademiaUnless Buzzfeed-style Clickbait Replaces all Forms of Human Communication, or Republicans …I love some good meta. I wrote a dialogu…AmusingThe real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for…
A thoughtful reflection on religion in Star Trek. While Humans aren’t depicted as participating in any form of organized religion (there is a reference to a Christmas party here, a nod to monotheism there), the series also includes a distrust of science and technology, regularly depicting mad scientists, societies over-dependent on technology, etc.) that insists…
If you’re legally present on a public street or sidewalk, you can legally photograph anything in plain view. (This includes children and crime victims… but just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s always a good idea.) If law enforcement engages you, ask whether you are free to go; if so, then move out of the…
Standardized testing rewards standardized thinking, while excluding creativity, resilience & other “soft” skills. I have started gong out of my way to remind students in my classes that I am not comparing their papers to a “correct answer” in the back of my book — I want them to learn a habit of mind that…
It’s a good day when one’s nerdiness is an asset to a colleague. Similar:In January 2000, I was blogging about dancing paperclips, the transience of literary judge… In January 2000, I was blogging abou…BooksThe heir to the throne of Gondor and and a scruffy looking nerf herder are handing out can… PersonalDespicable Me 2 "Bottom" gag…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Auditioning in Pittsbugh (flanked by shots from recent performances).CultureBryan A. Louiselle, 1966-2022 (musician, composer, orchestrator, musical director)I was Mayor Shinn to Bryan’s Harold Hill…CultureMy meme about the distracted boyfriend memeAmusingSnape and Ginny at the Hogwarts Club event.PersonalProgress.PersonalMy laptop hard drive is full & my comfort-food shelf is emptyMy…
Keep a local backup of anything important you’ve entrusted to online services. There’s no guarantee that, years from now, those services will honor the terms you agreed to. Backed by new investors, including singer Justin Timberlake, Myspace (after dropping the capital ‘S’) has been rebranded as a music-streaming service, with a new sleek interface, and…
Penn and Teller are involved with this story. Worth a read. The only record of the game’s existence was a handful of review copies that had been sent out to journalists in the weeks before the publisher went bust, in 1995. The game remained a curious rumor until September, 2005, when Frank Cifaldi, a freelance…
Judge: Apple conspired to fix eBook prices. #ethics #books The Federal lawsuit claimed that Apple, led by then-CEO Steve Jobs and senior vice president of Internet Software and Services Eddy Cue, conspired with HarperCollins, Hatchett, Macmillan, Penguin and Simon & Schuster to drive e-book prices up from the $9.99 price point Amazon had established. –readwrite.com Similar:Bloomberg's Jennifer…
RT @spj_tweets: How TV could suffer the fate of newspapers: @alanmutter shares the second installment of his two-part blog – http://t.co/l… Similar:Former student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …A third alum in the last few weeks has c…AcademiaI'm no longer surprised, but still want to document.This is really noteworthy. Today the…
RT @DepressedDarth: Dear J.J. Abrams, If the new Star Wars is bad, you will forever be known as Jar Jar Abrams. Sincerely, Star Wars fans Similar:The Measure of a Man (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 9)Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CulturePast Tense, Part 2 (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 12) Sisko must channel socia…Rewatching…
I really like MailChimp’s “Social” plugin, which not only publishes a WordPress blog entry to Twitter and Facebook, but also collects responses from Twitter and Facebook users and collects them as WordPress comments. Today I installed a different plugin, Twitter Tools, which is really just a single tool — it lets you create a WordPress…
Habits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of life. At bedtime, in order to avoid a nightly litany of complaints, I ask my glass-is-half-empty-and-I-hate-the-pirate-glass-and-there’s-a-bug-in-it tween to list three good things, two neutral things, and one sad thing about her day. Sometimes if she needs to share more than one sad thing, I…
While researching my obligations for #juryduty Thursday, I came across this “Juror’s Creed.” The gender-specific reference to men, the instruction to reflect upon the virtues of democracy, and the instruction to respect the judge’s education all hint at a historical context for the creed. Institutions never put their creeds into writing unless they feel those…
Spent a productive work day doing nothing but optimizing my blog. Added a very nice plugin for displaying thumbnails of related posts. Similar:Christmas 1970. I was feverish and it was unseasonably warm outside. One of my favorite pi…Personal‘Broken Age’ ReviewThis will be my self-reward when I finis…CybercultureI can’t fix this broken world but I guess…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:New CarWednesday morning my resourceful brother…BusinessHow Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”I remember the first meeting where I ac…BusinessStandardized-test robo-graders flunk“According to professor of theory of kno…AcademiaNotes on Teaching August Wilson's Pittsburgh CycleI first taught Wilson’s Pittsburgh Cycle…AcademiaBother…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:English Teacher Re-Titles Classic Poems As Clickbait In Last-Ditch Effort To Trick Student…Funny and clever. Via Excuse the Bananas…AcademiaNo, Trump's tweet about "Heritage, History, and Greatness" is not a quote from a speech Hi… Trump really did tweet “This is a ba…EthicsIn October, 2002, I…