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:Dance of "the awkward nerd trying to act really cool" Carolyn (doing a really cool dance m…AestheticsWhat’s Lost as Handwriting FadesWhen I used a Windows XP Tablet computer…CultureThe Incredible Shrinking Ad [The Future Web Is Mobile]Is higher education ready for the switch…AcademiaThe…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Pictures from opening night of @pictclassictheatre Jane Eyre. (Show runs through the rest …PersonalTricking the eye to see 3D details in geometrically flat surfaces for my #steampunk #blend… AestheticsAs I was preparing to take this screenshot, two more papers came in.I still have odd jobs to tie up,…
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:Everyone wants…
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:RT @DDeClaudio: Who do you think controls the news…RT @DDeClaudio: Who do you think control…TweetsJuror's CreedWhile researching my obligations for #ju…CultureTweet: Came around the corner and saw my kids huddled on…Came around the corner…
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:"This Is Probably Going to Kill Us:" How First 'Star Trek' Movie Avoided DisasterThis article left out someone important!…HistorySpace:1999 design aesthetic merged detailed miniatures with curvy Euro-futurist interior d…Clearly influenced…
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:The Abomination of Ebooks: They Price People Out of Reading Random House, which jacked up its eboo…BooksSome new locations for my #neovictorian #steampunk personal project. Created in #blender3d…AestheticsSome problems bringing #Blender3D models into…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Educated, uplifted, boosted, and fed. Block party celebrating August Wilson continues thro…CultureThe Myth of ‘Learning Styles’The discourse around “learning styles” (…AcademiaMost Americans have a high opinion of the humanities, and 81% use at least one humanities-…While some survey respondents were unfam…AcademiaIn Defense Of…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:I have for some reason reached another #duolingo milestone.CultureRehearsal Rabbi-CamThis weekend, I will be playing the rabb…CultureAnd the People of the Book of Face Were Deceived “And I looked up and saw a sign, and…AestheticsThis is about half of the #steampunk control panel details I've…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Masked, vaxxed, and settling in to watch live theaterBarebones is a little black box theater,…BooksFacebook, Now You Remind Me of a Half-Drunk Cocktail Party SchmoozerLast week, Facebook asked me what sports…BusinessDrawing of Once on…
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…