I just touched up a handout on Parallel Structure vs Faulty Parallelism. Similar:Advice to a recent journalism graduate* The best stories are the ones you find…EthicsHappy retirement celebration to two dear colleagues.AcademiaEmily Short's advice on writing great game protagonistsAt GDC 2015, noted interactive fiction g…CybercultureCulture Desk: My Life in PencilsDevotees of the Blackwing had been…
These comic panels cover the issue well. (Pennington Publishing) Similar:Study confirms that ending your texts with a period is terrible.Language evolves, so oldsters like me sh…CybercultureBob Dylan's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speechhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TlcPRla…CultureThey grew up in a mostly analog/paper world and squirmed with joy the first time they clic…Today’s students have many strengths. Th…AcademiaAbout that Cough,…
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 Masterpiece Society (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 13) Space Thing Threate…Rewatching ST:TNG When a Space Th…CultureMy wife reports: “There was one smart aleck walking along the street who exclaimed: “Look,…PersonalTeaching the First Amendment FreedomsIn an opening lecture, I briefly listed…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Obamacare's broken website cost more than LinkedIn, Spotify combinedMuch of the criticism of Healthcare.gov …CultureWooden document holders. Pretty routine, but practice is practice. #Blender3DPersonalCharlie Brown has his kite-eating tree. I have my keys-eating chair. #foundthem PersonalHappy Easter 2019 Current_EventsThank you, 1993 Dennis, for documenting this low-resolution (the background image…
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:Fact check:…
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:Habits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of lifeHabits for happiness: tips for looking o…PersonalAnd the girl has succeeded in getting me to wear t…And the girl has succeeded in getting…
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 woman and the car: a chatty little handbook for all women who motor or want to motor (…Great piece of history, from 1909. Dorot…AmusingThe girl asked me to read R.U.R.…
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:My daughter who sometimes does things will be singing & swinging August 16 – 25 with @fron…My daughter who sometimes does things wi…CultureBroken on Purpose: Why Getting It Wrong Pays More Than Getting…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Commentary: What My Struggling Students Wanted Me to UnderstandI haven’t taught a developmental course …AcademiaGoogle's Super Bowl Ad: A Romance in SearchI didn’t watch the game, but I did catch…AestheticsNASA has flown a drone on Mars. A tiny robot. A flying robot. On.…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:The secret police: Cops built a shadowy surveillance machine in Minnesota after George Flo…Many of the same people who reject maski…Current_EventsLego TimelineThe Lego brick system was patented 50 ye…AestheticsThey Smiled Too!Victorians had to stay still for 3 secon…AestheticsIn Defense Of Metaphors In Science WritingWe live…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Oh the Overthinks You Can Overthink: Horton the Elephant, the Wickersham Brothers, and Mas…Yesterday, I performed in a school matin…AcademiaIn July 1999, I was blogging about Dante's ashes, Apollo 11, gender-neutral language, and…
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.…