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:In February, 2001, I was blogging about computer nostalgia, Napster, a horror typing game,…In February, 2001, I was blogging about …CybercultureThe Future of College Is Facebook Meme GroupsInteresting to see…
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:Log Off, You Losers! Electronic Flatulence Must Cease!”Put your hands in your laps. Close your…AcademiaFacebook's director of media tries to appease news industryFacebook’s Patrick Walker assured a room…BusinessDuet (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1,…
RT @mykidcancode: Managing Your Preschooler’s Fascination with Apps – bit.ly/lv1ZyR #parenting #technology Similar:Interactive Adventure SongIt seems YouTube will soon discontinue t…AmusingYou don’t hate millennials. You hate 21st-century technology.A favorite observation about millennials…CultureFatworld ReviewOn Jan 14, Ian Bogost of Persuasive Game…CybercultureBing's AI chatbot helped me solve a technical problem, then showed me manatees, then denie…I was…
Not kidding — 254,460 spam comments in my trash folder! Similar:Adobe Shockwave interfereres with my system, blocks my attempts to remove it, and replaces…Does Adobe Shockwave fit your definition…BusinessTolkien v. Orwell: Who understood modern surveillance best?Interesting set of observations explorin…CultureDigital literacy is different from print literacy. How do we balance the trade-off?My job includes teaching…
“Bach is not for the weak of mind.” — Miss Renee, my kids’ piano teacher. “I’m in trouble.” — Peter, my son. Similar:My 10yo Created Bookmarks to Express Her Complex Relationship with ReadingMy 10yo has a complex relationship with …BooksThis long-nelected CD-ROM case tucked away behind my monitor holds almost as many portable…PersonalThe girl will…
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…
Literature majors and students otherwise drawn to literature courses can be an introverted bunch. Students overall can at times resist course projects that fall outside the expected parameters of a given discipline. Yet my class proved my assumptions wrong. Many of the students were nervous, to be sure, but overall they seemed to enjoy the…
Let’s start at the end point: what you’re doing right now. You are pulling information from a network onto a screen, enhancing your embodied experience with a communication web filled with people and machines. You do this by pointing and clicking, tapping a few commands, organizing your thoughts into symbols that can be read and…
Feeling productive. Hammered out eight scripts for training vids (3-5min each). It helps that I had an outline & know the content well. Similar:Former student: "I remember sometimes being annoyed with all of our blogging assignments, …A third alum in the last few weeks has c…AcademiaI asked my geekling whether she was ready for bed…I asked my…
So, the correct quote from “Miri” is actually “No ‘blah blah blah’” not “No more ‘blah blah blah.’” Classic Trek trivia I did not know. Similar:RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #context htt…RT @PhilKomarny: A floppy disc… In #co…TweetsJury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentLoved seeing A Comedy of Errors @setonhillLoved seeing A Comedy…
For me, summer vacation means spending hours modeling shelves full of antique books in Blender-3D, so that the library adjacent to the bridge in my steampunk ship-of-the-line looks more lived-in. Similar:Annoyed and Bored by Lazy Anachronisms in The Great Gatsby MovieI just watched the recent Great Gatsby m…AestheticsAlice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of…
Came around the corner and saw my kids huddled on the couch, reading an Iron Man comic. http://t.co/S3xPQoZh1o Similar:She doesn't have keys or a phone or an ID. Why does my tween need a purse?To stash her Lemonheads and Smarties. ht…AmusingOverheard at Quora: "Why after all these years is Moodle still so ugly?"Moodle is a…
I am reading to my daughter the fourth book in “Heck: Where Bad Kids Go,” and have recently finished reading her the fourth Oz book. But not too long ago I read her The Snow Queen, and once last year she asked me to read “Goblin Market” again. A mixture of kid-friendly classics and popular…
The search for what went right might take a hard look at the job market for our graduates. One recent survey, by the Web site payscale.com, paints a somewhat depressing picture of salaries, with humanities majors typically earning from $5,000 to $15,000 less than those with undergraduate professional degrees. Fifteen years after graduation, however, the…
Because apparently I am not already nerdy enough, the universe presented me with this version of Star Wars, written in the style of a Shakespeare play. William Shakespeare’s Star Wars® | Quirk Books : Publishers & Seekers of All Things Awesome. Similar:Really, WCCC? AcademiaThe Ongoing Obsession with Shakespeare’s True IdentityI’ve never been all too keen…