Overheard at Quora: “Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?”

Moodle is a free course-management tool that many schools (including mine) use to manage the online components of courses (including computer-graded quizzes, discussion forums, and the submission of online papers). The tool is powerful, but the interface offers a bewildering array of options, so that casual users are often dismayed by how many checkboxes it…

An Evening with a Board Game and Grandma

By the way, I won. Similar:8 (Short Halloween film by Josh Reardon)My daughter and I appear in this short f…AestheticsMaking progress.Personali trained an ai chatbot on my childhood journal entries – so that i could engage in real-t…I kept a journal from Feb 3 1983 (the da…CultureThe grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely…

Mavens Advice On Digital Influence [INFOGRAPHIC]

Seton Hill’s CIO is one of the experts cited in this infographic. The world’s best business and leadership experts share their insights to help CMOs, CIOs, and CEOs bolster their digital influence. This interactive infographic is a high-level summary of their advice. Similar:The overlooked masterpieces of 1922In literature the response to the challe…BooksHow Common Core…

Yes, I do feel rather awesome right now.

Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocket of freshly-washed pants & found old earbuds. (They work!) Looked down & spotted new earbuds. #win Similar:If I don’t stock the officers’ pub on my #steampunk #fantasy #CGI flagship, who will? (All…PersonalAnother random background control panel for a #blender3d #steampunk project. I wish all us…AestheticsAnother section of a #steampunk…

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:Heard any good stories lately?My daughter has a terrible time settling…BooksThe…

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

Similar:The Myth of the Unemployed Humanities MajorStudents who work their way up to leader…AcademiaHeadlines matter. Were they migrants, people who happened to be at a migrant center, pedes…Do the headlines encourage empathy, or d…CultureSports Meant So Much to Me. Why Wouldn’t My Son Play?I heard the boy tell Raffi that all his …CultureOne Child, One…

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…

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…