Parallel Structure vs. Faulty Parallelism

I just touched up a handout on Parallel Structure vs Faulty Parallelism. Similar:ChoiceScript tutorial for making casual, phone-friendly, stats-driven storygames. Choice o… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…AcademiaJimmy Maher's Appreciation of Infocom's Classic Sherlock Text AdventureI learned a lot while reading this enjoy…BusinessHypertext as a Teaching Tool — Brown University Poetry Classroom 1974This short film documents an early attem…AcademiaMy 4Cs…

Parallel structure in writing: Use it!

These comic panels cover the issue well. (Pennington Publishing) Similar:Let there be light The Irish have a weakness for puns, …AestheticsCertainty vs. uncertainty: "In which are we more likely to be deceived, and in which has r…I’ve taught Plato’s Phaedrus before, but…CultureI Made My Friends Test the 19th Century’s Hottest Dating Tactic: Reading AloudThere…

In Space as on Earth

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…

Ben Franklin Sings about Your Rights as a Photographer

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, excludes soft skills

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.

It’s a good day when one’s nerdiness is an asset to a colleague. Similar:Still shot from a flyover video that's been taking about 3 minutes to render each fra…Aesthetics"The threat is no longer simply from government censorship."After using examples from Warsaw and Pra…Culturefrom “The Poet” by Ralph Waldo EmersonThe poets made all the words, and…

Jury Duty Update

I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Shrek: The Musical (Nov 22-24; Stage Right! Greensburg)Come see me as the Captain of the Guard,…Current_EventsText, Speech, Machine: Metaphors for Computer Code in the Law : Computational CultureOn my to-read list once I post midterm g…BusinessPolice, citizens and technology factor into Boston bombing probeIn addition to being almost…

No space for over-30s as relaunched MySpace erases its past

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…

Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever Created

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.

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:Man Infected…

RT @spj_tweets: How TV could suffer the fate of newspapers

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:Loved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhillLoved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhi…TweetsRT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context htt…RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #co…TweetsRT @DDeClaudio: Who do you think controls the news…RT…

RT @DepressedDarth: Dear J.J. Abrams, If the new Star Wars is bad…

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:Playwright #AugustWilson Takes Center Stage on U.S. Postal Service Commemorative Forever …https://twitter.com/USPS/status/13548292…CultureShe’s wearing a shirt with a frog. We are in town to see the Frog and Toad musical. This…

Feeling a bit puzzled by the “Twitter Tools” plugin

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

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…

Juror’s Creed

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.

Spent a productive work day doing nothing but optimizing my blog. Added a very nice plugin for displaying thumbnails of related posts. Similar:My schedule every Friday this term. (Payback for teaching a course over Christmas break.) PersonalAnd so it begins: the unmarked assignments counterThis little icon will control my life fo…AcademiaUpdating a handout I originally wrote…

RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fasc…

RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Desert Bus: The Worst Video Game Ever CreatedPenn and Teller are involved with this s…Books"Do Date" vs "Due Date": Do Profs Really Have to Explain the Difference? If there really are teachers who lis…AcademiaFact check: DeVos never said 'only' 0.02% of children will…

Maybe I’ll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.

Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:The Strangest, Most Spectacular Bridge Collapse (And How We Got It Wrong)At a glance of the edited footage, it’s …DesignShipwreck Diary of a Content MarketerDay 1 Today was my first full shipwre…AmusingThe AI Mirror Test: Why Even the Smartest People Keep Falling ShortWhat is important…

“Bach is not for the weak of mind.”

“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:Maybe I'll just delete these QUARTER OF A MILLION spam comments.Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in …CybercultureForward is the officers' wardroom. To the right is an airlock. Left leads to the on-call…

Classroom collaboration marketplace

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.…