Yes, it is nerve-wracking to speak live on the air, but… wow. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HF6OySsPpko Similar:7 web design trends you’ll actually see this year and how to survive themContent is often finalised many months a…Cyberculturelittle drops — Why Dove's "Real Beauty Sketches" Video Makes Me Uncomfortable… and Kind …Very insightful…. A reminder that even…AestheticsOpinion | Fake…
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:Advice for My…
2012 Book Archive. Business, humanities, writing, science. Similar:‘People are rooting for the whale’: the strange American tradition of Moby-Dick reading ma…When I went off to college to be an Engl…AcademiaIn January, 2002 I was blogging about… A 20-something former CEO takes a fa…BooksThe Media Pyramid: “Any content where ideology leads to falsehood is bad for…
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…
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…
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…
Great video about subatomic particles, from Piled Higher and Deeper. Similar:Edward Gorey illustrates H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds, 1960 Edward Gorey illustrates H. G. Wells’s…Aesthetics‘Broken Age’ ReviewThis will be my self-reward when I finis…CybercultureSomeone I know very well is in the trailer for Midnight (2020)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5BczlGs…CultureGawker Media Files for Chapter 11 BankruptcyThis is fallout…
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…
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,…
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,…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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:Little green owl, if your emotions depend this much on how often I practice, that’s defin…Little green owl, if your emotions depe…PersonalPeter vs.…
The Day of Digital Humanities always sneaks up on me. The blogstream has been pretty routine. Similar:The Writer Will Do Something by Matthew S. BurnsA hypertext choose-your-own adventure na…CybercultureWARNING: Picasso, Van Gogh, Gauguin have been stolen in UKOne of several paintings that were, acco…ArtMy meeting was cancelled, so I spent the morning assembling a cabinet…
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…
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…
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…
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…