I just touched up a handout on Parallel Structure vs Faulty Parallelism. Similar:Homage to PoeMichael Dirda offers a thoughtful assess…BooksFlipped Classes: Omit Housekeeping Mechanics from Recorded Lectures to Lengthen Their Shel…When a Facebook friend asked for tips on…AcademiaWhat Causes the Smell of New & Old Books?Generally, it is the chemical breakdown …AestheticsThe Decline of Wikipedia:…
These comic panels cover the issue well. (Pennington Publishing) Similar:Infrared photo confirms Munch wrote "madman" inscription first noticed in 1904“Kan kun være malet af en gal Mand!” (“C…AestheticsWhy I Was Wrong About Liberal-Arts MajorsIt’s a little bit shallow and solipsisti…AcademiaComputer scientist Leslie Lamport to [Brandeis] grads: If you can’t write, it won’t comput…I like introducing…
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:Frozen opens tonight. (All shows have been sold out for over a month.)DramaFact Check: No, an NPR story on the Trump supporters' attempted coup dated January 6, 2021…A conspiracy theory featuring a news sto…CultureThere's No Substitute for FictionWhat do Peskin and Astington…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Cat-sitting. Hello, Blue.PersonalTheatre Crowd Mustn't Be Bitter The entertainment industry seem…CultureTeaching the First Amendment FreedomsIn an opening lecture, I briefly listed …CultureIn one small prairie town, two warring visions of AmericaGreat writing and great photography in t…CultureProper commenting is an important part of coding any project, especially in…
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:The Myth…
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:Hello, there, mini.Hello, there, mini. Let’s restore you fr…TweetsParallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesDesert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever CreatedPenn and Teller are involved with this…
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 American Scholar: Celebrity ProfilesPhllip Lopate writes a good essay on the…EssaysBrother Stuck in the BathroomThe girl posted this story on Instagram …AmusingIn August, 2001 I was blogging about… Broken…
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:Facebook shrinks fake news after warnings backfireIn its efforts to combat the spread of f…BusinessSomeone seems to have slipped this over my transom. Thank you, #foodsubstitutefairy whoeve…PersonalHarvard revokes admission of several students for…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Turnitin.com UI Woes: One-click, No-confirmation Deletion of QuickMark SetsIn general, I find Turnitin.com’s GradeM…AcademiaThe Supreme Court could soon change the internet forever — here’s what you need to know There’s a history of case law protecting…CybercultureBooby Trap (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 6) When…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:Loved part 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest (live videoconference play from @ThePublic…Amusing"The Machine Stops" by E.M. Forster (a reading)https://youtu.be/mppsaL4MEXU https://…BooksAll the world’s an appA review of three books — The App Gener…CultureTeachers finding games give a leg up on learningThanks for the link,…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Enterprise-D Blueprints As a newlywed, when my in-laws were …BooksDogmeat and I may yet win this game. Yes, this was the decisive moment. I…GamesRussian Grand Ballet Swan Lake.PersonalMany familiar faces in this cast…
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.…