Rookie News Anchor — Fired Instantly for Dropping ‘Fing S’ On the Air

Yes, it is nerve-wracking to speak live on the air, but… wow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF6OySsPpko Similar:NYT newsroom integration memoBy integrating the newsrooms we plan to …BusinessIn Pittsburgh, science gets playfulImagine: sharing a secret with a friend …AestheticsSource: Wenner Declined Resignation from Rolling Stone Deputy EditorAccording to a source inside Rolling Sto…Current_EventsTwo Steps Down the Interactive Fiction…

Grading the MOOC University

The MOOC classrooms are growing at Big Bang rates: more than five million students worldwide have registered for classes in topics ranging from physics to history to aboriginal worldviews. It creates a strange paradox: these professors are simultaneously the most and least accessible teachers in history. —Grading the MOOC University – NYTimes.com. Similar:What Happens When…

Huge Collection of Free CC-Licensed Textbooks (2012)

2012 Book Archive. Business, humanities, writing, science. Similar:Fake News Can Be Deadly. Here's How To Spot ItWe are all vectors by which fake news ca…Current_EventsShe was nervous about the dog misbehaving during "Tomorrow," so I told her she could pract… https://youtu.be/718e4XsNvGY Leap…AmusingIf You're Getting Walled in a Cellar I Feel Bad for You SonAmusingSeton Hill's…

Police, citizens and technology factor into Boston bombing probe

In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via social media complicated the official investigation, according to law enforcement officials. Those officials said Saturday that the decision on Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant in part to limit the damage being done to people who were…

The GE Mascot That Proves They’ve Never Seen ‘The Matrix’

On a scale of 1 to 10, this definitely rates a WTF. Seriously, has no one in GE ever seen The Matrix? Literally any other robot in the history of film would have been a better choice — even RoboCop would’ve made people feel more at ease, because at least he’s a police officer. Agent…

Boston bombings: Social media spirals out of control

A thoughtful analysis. Problem-solvers in the Information Age must train themselves to ignore floods of true-but-trivial and unreliable-but-accessible information. I see this all the time with students who Facebook their way through my class presentations on the function of scholarly peer review, but then submit pages from content farms in their term paper drafts. According…

Higgs Boson Video

Great video about subatomic particles, from Piled Higher and Deeper. Similar:Twitter, Fix Your Cropping AlgorithmWhen given the chance to crop four diffe…CybercultureIn October, 2000, I was blogging about bobbed hair, Woolf, a CFP for interactive fiction s…In October 2000, I was blogging about …CultureErmahgerddon: The Untold Story of the Ermahgerd GirlDeciding against the coonskin cap, Golde…AmusingStuffed…

little drops — Why Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind of Makes Me Angry

Very insightful…. A reminder that even the much-praised Dove “we are exposing their advertising techniques” campaigns are just that — campaigns, designed to sell a product. (The parent company of Dove also owns Axe, which is blatant in its use of demeaning sexual stereotypes.) Brave, strong, smart? Not enough. You have to be beautiful. And…

FBI: ‘Exercise Caution and Attempt to Verify Information Through Appropriate Official Channels Before Reporting’

The FBI reminds journalists about a few things they should have learned in News Reporting 101. After multiple media outlets (especially CNN) wrongly reported that an arrest had been made in Boston, the FBI is urging media to “exercise caution and attempt to verify information through appropriate official channels before reporting.” “Contrary to widespread reporting,…

Boston marathon bombing: All the mistakes journalists make during a crisis like the Boston attacks.

First, do not pass on speculation. For much of the day, the New York Post was sharing unconfirmed reports, which were later proven erroneous, that 12 people had been killed in the attack. I actually retweeted BuzzFeed’s Andrew Kaczynski, one of the smartest and most conscientious journalists on Twitter, and repeated this tidbit on the official Slate account. In hindsight,…

Frodo Baggins, A.B.D.

When I had pneumonia a few years into my current job, I spent 10 days bedridden (or, having been banished to the basement, futon-ridden), and watched the extended Lord of the Rings trilogy over and over, since I needed something that would occupy my mind enough to distract me from my suffering, but I couldn’t…

Games Based Learning through Text Adventures

As I make progress in designing the class text adventure, I’ll post about my process and challenges. Right now, I’m foreseeing the following challenges: how to let students know how far to read/play at any given time (this will be a hybrid class, so there will be less in-class f2f support and motivation) students may…

The Reading Brain in the Digital Age: The Science of Paper versus Screens: Scientific American

As digital texts and technologies become more prevalent, we gain new and more mobile ways of reading—but are we still reading as attentively and thoroughly? How do our brains respond differently to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should we be worried about dividing our attention between pixels and ink or is the validity…

Richard Scarry unfinished manuscript to be published

Some of my happiest memories of fatherhood include introducing my kids to the Richard Scarry books. Featuring a huge anthropomorphised cast, with recurring characters such as Sergeant Murphy, traffic hound and pursuer of miscreants, and solid, cheerful, lederhosen-wearing Huckle Cat, Scarry’s tales of mishap, derring-do, industry and shopping always feel deeply, richly safe. Some aspects…

What about Socialization?

Sometimes, I worry that by homeschooling my kids, I’m depriving them of the opportunities to gain confidence, face challenges, and develop social skills. Just kidding. Here’s what my kids did last weekend. Similar:Teacher suspended after pro-Trump yearbook photos alteredFree speech is valuable. It’s dangerous …CultureClosing the Door on the Video Store Era (with tweets) ·…

A routine day in the life of a digital humanist

The Day of Digital Humanities always sneaks up on me. The blogstream has been pretty routine. Similar:Interior Detail of Steampunk Convertible Gazebo Spent much of Tuesday wrestling with co…AestheticsNon-Euclidean Doom, where the value of pi is not 3.14159Weirdly beautiful. Wonderful bit of game…CybercultureI sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface, but…I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin…

LucasArts’ eulogy reminds us of the inhuman cost of game development

Game development culture often involves 18-hour work days during crunch times that last for months. I remember as a teen or college student enjoying a “lost weekend” of doing nothing but playing the latest game (the X-Wing games, The Dig, and Full Throttle come to mind), but expecting the professionals who produce games to work…

30 Best Text-Adventures/Interactive-Fiction Games Over 5 Decades | Gaming Enthusiast

Nobody has to twist my arm to get me to reblog someone’s interactive fiction post. As gamers, we know perfectly well that the graphics is not everything that counts. The story, the immersion, the memorable characters – those are the things we really dig. So what would we get if we leave those and eliminate…

More U.S. Children Being Diagnosed With Youthful Tendency Disorder

Cameron’s psychological problems run even deeper. He can name every one of his beloved, imaginary Pokemon characters, but the plain realities of the actual world he inhabits are an enigma: Ask Cameron the name of the real-life city councilman sponsoring the referendum to renovate the park just across the street from his house–a park he…

New Test for Computers – Grading Essays at College Level

Imagine writing an essay for a college, and, instead of sparking personal feedback from an expert who spends five or ten minutes per page writing personalized reactions and tips for improvement, your work was never actually read by a human being who could recognize, appreciate, and encourage your accomplishments. Imagine that your essay was instead…