Where a nerd can be a nerd. (Thanks for sharing the photo, Jill Morris.) Similar:The Dadliest DecadeThe eighties, at least, were drenched in…HomeVerizon Forced Me to Remove Parentheses, Quotation Marks, and Apostrophes from a Customer …When I finally found a way to contact Ve…HomeMemories of Toronto Yonge Street EncountersI arrived in Toronto in 1992 as…
“More people will learn about your institution from Wikipedia than from your own site,” the panelist said. “And in a crisis, more people will learn about what happened from Facebook and Twitter than from your own press releases.” That was a sobering assessment to many of us in the room. —It's Not What You Say;…
Millions of high-school students might wish math did not exist, but, alas, it does, at least as a human creation. The question, however, of whether math exists independent of humans is a much deeper one, and PBS’s Mike Rugnetta gives a fun, brief overview of the age-old philosophical debate in the video above. via Does…
A fascinating text from an alternate history. “Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops,” Eisenhower wrote. “My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery…
The Learning Games Network, a non-profit spin-off of the MIT Education Arcade and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Games+Learning+Society Program, today launched Quandary, a unique game that encourages players to think ethically as they lead a human colony struggling for survival on fictional planet Braxos. The game’s goal is to provide an engaging experience for players aged 8-14…
Picture books are so unpopular these days at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline, Mass., that employees there are used to placing new copies on the shelves, watching them languish and then returning them to the publisher. “So many of them just die a sad little death, and we never see them again,” said Terri…
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Set phasers to “nerd”! This summer I’ll be schooling the kids on classic Star Trek and Babylon 5. Similar:The Search, Part 1 (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 1) Sisko takes the Defiant o… Rewatching ST:DS9 Although the se…PopCultNational Dance DayIn the restaurant parking lot after dinn…CultureF-16 pilot was ready to give her life on…
Similar:Why 'Gangnam Style' Is Actually a Study in Mind ControlI’m not sure “thank you” is the right wa…CultureComputers and Writing 2020 Funding Request: SubmittedMy contributions this year are a worksho…AcademiaSo this is Pi DayMy wife says she bought the pies intendi…AmusingDr Jerz I think your microphone glitchedhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPqnXF7A…Academia''Uh…''And yes, Liz’s face registers the shift …AestheticsMy wife…
[W]hen Japanese and American fourth and fifth grade children were asked why they shouldn’t hit, gossip or fight with other kids, 92 percent of the American kids answered “because they’d get caught or get in trouble.” Ninety percent of the Japanese kids asked the same question responded, “because it would be hurtful to someone else.”…
Teens often work on laptops with track pads, making interactions that require precision — such as drop-down menus, drag-n-drop, and small buttons — difficult. Design elements such as rollover effects and small click zones are also problematic, if they’re usable at all. Small text sizes and dense text make reading difficult. Combine these elements with…
As a plucky new faculty member I wrote a critique of an early design for the online journal Kairos. My article was snarky in form (I invoked Mystery Science Theater 3000) but serious in intent (“The overdesigned Kairos site perpetuates the myth that online rhetoric is necessarily complex and arcane,” with the earnest bold text in the original). They hypertext…
It’s rather hard to believe it took them so long. DC Just Announced Plans For Choose Your Own Adventure Style Digital Comics. Similar:In June, 2002, I was blogging about… a female autistic scholars lament, Dr. Seuss, Ortho…In June, 2002, I was blogging about …AcademiaBirthright, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 16) Worf learns…
Chris Person posts a link to this very clear critique of news reporting that blames violent video games and movies for real-world violence. One Author Breaks Down the Reality of Violent Games in the Media. Similar:The Decline and Fall of the English MajorThis essay is yet another reminder of ho…AcademiaThat's not an argument. (Yes it…
It’s your resume, only better: Everyone has a resume. But a blog allows you to highlight the skills on your resume, times ten. For example, if you’re a writer, you can flex your writing muscles and post examples of your creative writing. Even if you’re a tax accountant, you can write your thought-provoking opinions on…
The iPad Mini and the ChromeBook are just loaners, but it was fun to arrange them this way. Similar:Take that, grass! Eat rotary analog steel.HomeMemories of Toronto Yonge Street EncountersI arrived in Toronto in 1992 as a 22yo g…CultureThe Rule of Capek's Robots: A public lecture, in which the word “robot” is traced, precurs… …
Last year, NASA announced that the Curiosity rover had found preliminary evidence of an ancient streambed, indicating that water once flowed freely on Mars. After a few more months of study, that preliminary announcement has been confirmed – Curiosity has found the remains of an ancient stream. —Forbes. Similar:In February 2000, I was blogging about…
The New Mexico landfill or “Atari Dump” where the game console maker buried its mistakes — the biggest being the game E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial — will be dug up by game developer Fuel Industries, which hopes to make a documentary about the project. Also known as the “Atari Graveyard” or the “E.T. Dump”, the desert…
Below is a snippet from “Texty Cloak of Darkness,” which aims to use prose conventions to emulate game-state changes and alternate endings (in a medium designed to be linear). Since our encounter, such as it is, has already begun, it may as well happen in a place. The foyer of the opera house is where…
Earlier this week, the Computers and Writing folks discussed the decline in the use of the word “computer” in MLA job ads. The decline is more than offset by a rise in related terms, so the discussion appropriately focused on the value of “computers” as an umbrella term. (In our daily lives, we increasingly use…