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:The girl told me to post this with the caption, “The Addams Family Goes to the Big League….PersonalAnother section of a #steampunk control panel, made in #blender3d for a personal project. …AestheticsThe girl will be Mrs Lovett in Stage Right's Sweeney Todd…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Independence of the press: the "essential ingredient of liberty" (Alexis de Tocqueville)CultureSesame Street Is Moving to HBO, and the Symbolism Is CrushingI’ve been fascinated by the rhetoric of …BusinessCarolyn as Hodel and Peter as Lazar in the Stage Right homeschool Fiddler on the Roof.PersonalDaily 10sq cm of control panel…
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:NYC sent…
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:Proto iPads and Paper Coexist in Classic Star TrekRewatching the classic Trek episode “The…CybercultureJuror's CreedWhile researching my obligations for #ju…CultureParallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesI'm no longer…
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:Anti-globalism Is Common Factor in Social Media Conspiracy Theories, says UW ProfFascinating academic effort to find a pa…AcademiaTime’s Arrow, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 26) Data's head…
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:I made some progress.PersonalProper commenting is an important part of coding any project, especially in an educational…Proper commenting is an important part o…PersonalI voice the role of Electron Jones in this audio detective…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Adam Savage’s 10 Commandments Of MakingAdam Savage took a few minutes today at …AestheticsRare find discovered amid town's Old West kitschInstead of dispensing a card like Zoltar…AestheticsThe bots are coming. And they have poems. Yet in a circle pallid as it f…CybercultureWhy did…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:Musician uses computer algorithm to compose every melody possible in C, releases them for … A lawyer and hobbyist musician…AmusingBlind-accessible audio adventure Grail to the Thief seeks crowdfundingGrail to the Thief stars a thief from th…CultureThe super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Facebook Announces $300 Million Project, Allegedly to Support Local JournalismOnce upon a time, local newspapers could…BusinessAll About Soap — Why Washing Your Hands Fights the CoronavirusPeople typically think of soap as gentle…CultureWhat Miley…
While I am uncomfortable with the whole “classroom as marketplace” metaphor, since it’s pretty much gamifying without the fun, I am nonetheless interested in this strategy for encouraging students to collaborate by having them attach a value to the artifacts they present to the class for sharing.. We shop for everything from apps to ideas.…
The researchers found that each singer’s heartbeat was linked to the song’s melody – i.e. the speed and structure of the music. They also found that when the choir sang together, their heart rates tended to increase and decrease at similar times. “As soon as the singing begins, (the hearts) start following each other,” Vickhoff…
We live in an elegant universe. The cosmos is like a string symphony. Genes are selfish. There is an endless battle between thermodynamics and gravity. Do you love these statements, or hate them? The reading world gets pretty divided over whether or not it’s okay to apply metaphors and similes to descriptive science writing. It…