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:Educated, uplifted, boosted, and fed. Block party celebrating August Wilson continues thro…CultureThis actually happened the other day when I was offline.This actually happened the other day whe…PersonalOn my fantasy #steampunk capital ship, every uniform is a full dress uniform. #blender3d #…AestheticsThe storage shelves of my fantasy steampunk CGI starship will…

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:'Little Mermaid' brings new music to the Andersen fairy tale – Pittsburgh Tribune-ReviewThe story line is similar to the Disney-…Current_EventsStill in her make-up from her scene as Marley's ghost, with script in hand…

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…

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:Spot of sunlight seems to be sliding down an escalator.   View t…AestheticsBen Franklin Sings about Your Rights as a PhotographerIf you’re legally present on a public st…AmusingThree challenges for the web, according to its inventorA letter, published a few weeks ago, in …BusinessQuotations: Integrating them in MLA-Style PapersI touched up an older handout on…

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…