Blogging this so I can find it when I teach my “News Writing” class this fall. People do like to prank journalists with fake names. In this case, the reporter did what you’re supposed to do — get confirmation — but sheesh. KTVU reports fake racist names of Asiana Airlines 214 pilots from NTSB intern…
I recently bought a new phone. since then, I have answered an incoming call in my car. It felt awesome. Similar:Habits for happiness: tips for looking on the bright side of lifeHabits for happiness: tips for looking o…PersonalJury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentTweet: Came around the corner and saw my kids huddled on…Came…
I just touched up a handout on Parallel Structure vs Faulty Parallelism. Similar:William Shakespeare, Playwright and Poet, Is Dead at 52 On this date — April 23, 1616 — the cr…CultureJournalists prefer plain language.AestheticsLimit child TV viewing to an hour each day, study urgesThe study followed about 1,000 people fr…HealthA warning to college profs from…
These comic panels cover the issue well. (Pennington Publishing) Similar:Stop Using 'Poet Voice'This article analyzes (and skewers) that…AestheticsWatching ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ with 18,000 teenagers was one of the most profound theate…The arts are vital to our lives as human…BooksWhat do students need to know about rhetoric?I love giving the “what is rhetoric” lec…AcademiaPortrait…
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:12yo Actress Carolyn Jerz on Pict Classic Theatre's Great Expectations: "Your heart will b…My daughter, who plays Young Estella in …CultureComputers and Writing 2020 Funding Request: SubmittedMy contributions this year are a worksho…AcademiaAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dartAestheticsMore…
I’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-obligated-for-jury-duty citizen. Similar:Carolyn's Theater Bio for Prime Stage's The Outsiders (Mar 6-15) Actor biography sample Program bi…BooksReally enjoyed watching Your Name with the family. Visuals hooked me, but the story kept m…AestheticsJesus Christ SuperstarI have a daughter who does things. Her n…CultureAt the chess club holiday party. Peter looks forward…
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:Accession #StarTrek…
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:Yes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalParallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesI'm no longer surprised, but still want to document.This is…
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:2001: A Space Odyssey – Discerning Themes through Score and ImageryIncredibly detailed close reading of the…AestheticsThe Quality of Life (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 9) Boxy bots start to…
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:STEM Education Is Vital–But Not at the Expense of the HumanitiesPromoting science and technology educati…AcademiaLittle Women (Thurs-Sun)PersonalShort-range #neovictorian excursion craft, now with glowing power orbs! Over the past year…https://youtu.be/-cJp-kelrL8 AestheticsAI is better at…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Learn to code? No: Learn a real languageI don’t see learning to code as a substi…CultureText Wrangler Discontinued (Free Mac Text Editor)I still miss Notepad++, a Windows tool o…Current_EventsHow America fell in love with crazy amounts of air conditioningBy the 1950s, as air conditioners…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:Captain, the Fake News Detectors are Offline! Slate has a good article about Willi…CybercultureGrumpy Gamer – Happy Birthday Monkey IslandI guess Monkey Island turns 25 this mont…CybercultureUniversities must stop presuming that all students are tech-savvyAlthough considerable resources have bee…AcademiaMuseum of Endangered SoundsImagine a world where…