I just touched up a handout on Parallel Structure vs Faulty Parallelism. Similar:No, Dr. Seuss is not being "banned" or "censored" — but Dr. Seuss Enterprises is voluntar…It’s nothing new that Theodore “Dr. Seus…BooksReflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an “In…CultureLiberal Arts Majors Are the Future of the Tech IndustryMy…
These comic panels cover the issue well. (Pennington Publishing) Similar:That 'Useless' Liberal Arts Degree Has Become Tech's Hottest TicketWhat kind of boss hires a thwarted actre…AcademiaHow Trump Is Making Journalism School Great AgainThis is an important time to teach peopl…AcademiaTurnitin's slick new iPad app almost erases years of web-based GradeMark traumaI have in the…
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:Letter to the editor: Why our English department deserves more respectI came very close to accepting an offer …AcademiaAnother very rough day. Students are cheerful and patient, obviously happy to be here.Another very rough day. Students are che…AcademiaShakespeare Popularized Falconry TermsEnglish is…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:On the Virtues of a Dadsplained Literary ChildhoodThe last book I read to her was Wutherin…BooksHow Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”I remember the first meeting where I ac…BusinessPrime Stage Theatre to end 2018-2019 season with Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night, May 3–1…2019 Pittsburgh…
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:A Brief…
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:Tweet: For an anatomy project, my #geekling made a Vulcan…For an anatomy project, my #geekling mad…TweetsI'm no longer surprised, but still want to document.This is really noteworthy. Today the Pre…Current_EventsMy Minecraft-obsessed tween made 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:Predatory Journals Hit By 'Star Wars' StingI’ve been contacted by editors who would…AcademiaSecret Mouthwash Dance Exposed as FraudRecently, while getting the kids ready f…AmusingOne Man's Mission To Keep AOL's Legacy…
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:Scratch 3.0 beta is available. Try out the text-to-speech blocks!PersonalThis was a rough term. Still have a winter term course to publish before midnight but time…AcademiaFather-daughter bonding between takes.That’s a prop knife in…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Memorizer (Memorization Tool)A Midsummer castmate shared a link to th…CybercultureThe 7 things new college students don’t know that drive professors crazy While secondary schools pour the…AcademiaI didn't mark a single paper or set foot in a classroom. Here's why this prof is tired fro…I submitted…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:Memorizer (Memorization Tool)A Midsummer castmate shared a link to th…CybercultureStudy finds AI tools made open source software developers 19 percent slowerCoders who used AI self-reported that th…BusinessBig Calculator: How Texas Instruments Monopolized Math ClassMy math education predated the widesprea…BusinessOpinion: Don't link video games with mass shootingsContrary to…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Hi, I’m the St Joe’s basement doorstop. Let me start your three-day weekend by wrapping my…PersonalHow 15 minutes I spent with a laptop in 1991 created 2 FT jobs and a promotionIn a…
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.…