Eats, Shoots & Leaves

What’s your comma IQ? Mine just so happens to be awesome. Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Similar:The Religious Origins of Fake News and "Alternative Facts"A good exploration, in the light of curr…CultureComputers and Writing workshop on Inform 7. (Happening now. In an asynchronous way.)https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa8nP…AcademiaCollege student makes masks for the deaf & hard of hearing Other than…

4 Copy Editors Killed In Ongoing AP Style, Chicago Manual Gang Violence

I’m particularly tickled by the MLA reference. 4 Copy Editors Killed In Ongoing AP Style, Chicago Manual Gang Violence | The Onion Similar:Thespian robot doesn't let stiff acting stop it from applying for Screen Actors Guild cardA clever little stunt, getting a little …AmusingJohn Dewey: Portrait of a Progressive Thinker: His ideas altered the education…

Pheromone – A hormonal substance secreted by an individual.

Really helpful definition from a “Pinkalicous” children’s theater study guide. That’ll clear everything right up for the kiddos, won’t it? Similar:While at Sadecky's Puppets to record the role of Heidi, Carolyn met a new friend.We spent Sunday afternoon at the Sadecky…AestheticsPICT PROUD: PICT actress Carolyn Jerz takes on Viola in Shakespeare’s Twelfth NightPICT PROUD: She’s…

Study shows college students think they’re more special than ever…even those that can’t read or write and barely study

A hype-heavy treatment of a recent study (named vaguely as the “American Freshman Survey,” in the article, but not actually cited or dated… I found a copy of a 2011 report). While students are much more likely to call themselves gifted in writing abilities, objective test scores actually show that their writing abilities are far…

Wikipedia hoax about a war that never happened deleted after 5 years

My first-year writing students generally know they aren’t supposed to use Wikipedia as a source in a research paper, but many can’t quite articulate why. A willingness to trace a citation to its source and evaluate the source, rather than accept the source uncritically, is crucial to intellectual competence in the Information Age. An article…

BBC Four – Shakespeare Uncovered

I’m slated to teach Shakespeare this fall… blogging this for future reference. Six Shakespearean actors and directors go in search of the greatest dramatist who ever lived by revealing the stories behind and the wonders within some of his greatest plays BBC Four – Shakespeare Uncovered. Similar:There are more museums in the US than there…

Neil Gaiman’s Journal

This is great advice for everybody. I hope that in this year to come, you make mistakes. Because if you are making mistakes, then you are making new things, trying new things, learning, living, pushing yourself, changing yourself, changing your world. You’re doing things you’ve never done before, and more importantly, you’re Doing Something. So…

How To Gain or Lose 30 Minutes of Life Every Day

If you smoke two cigarettes, you lose 30 minutes of your life. Exercise for 20 minutes, and you gain two units of microlife. Over time bad habits accelerate your aging, and good habits slow it down… — Scientific American. Similar:Two Steps Down the Interactive Fiction RoadWonderfully detailed analysis of two gro…AestheticsHow Facebook – the Wal-Mart of…

Lost Treasures of Infocom Review [Mobile App]

Someone’s put a lot of time into ensuring the games play exceptionally well on mobile. The on-screen keyboard is a necessary evil, one that’s ameliorated by a great little auto-complete feature. It’s context-sensitive, so if you want to whip something from your inventory out in a pinch, the game will probably predict it by the…

Explore – Laconic history of the world in a typographic map…

Explore – Laconic history of the world in a typographic map…. Similar:Where is the comma in "God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen" supposed to go?https://youtu.be/sxfxy-3dGz0AmusingUnearthing a Long Ignored African Writing System, One Researcher Finds African History, by…Not only is this a fantastic story about…AcademiaI’m still teaching journalism and my usual courses, but after 21 years I’ve…

Tenth Grade Tech Trends

My high school experience was very analog. I had been word-processing most of my school papers and doing some recreational coding/hacking since I was in middle school (around 1982), but didn’t start using email until I went to college (1986), and then only sparingly until I left the country for grad school. So it was…