Eats, Shoots & Leaves

What’s your comma IQ? Mine just so happens to be awesome. Eats, Shoots & Leaves. Similar:A former student contacted me to share her thoughts.A few years ago, I told myself I would s…AcademiaThank you, frog and friends, for reminding us all what the Internet is supposed to be for.  https://twitter.com/PicturesFo…Aesthetics‘This is no longer a debate’:…

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:Why Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering FreshmenScience writer Jon Horgan writes: We li…AcademiaMe: Carolyn, are you ok? Carolyn:Just reminding myself that I am a gift.AmusingThe Crucible, Geyer PAC (Scottdale, May 16-19)My wife…

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:The Case Against High-School Sports”I’ve been in hundreds of classrooms,” s…CultureWhen Is Asking the Question Part of the News? (Rarely.) We mostly only encounter the phrase “whe…EducationWriting School Papers: Does Your First Version Say It All?My colleague Mike…

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:What's in this old box from the student newspaper…

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:I’m really enjoying the embossed labels. #Blender3D (Making props for my fantasy #steampun…AestheticsIn March, 2002, I was…

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…

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…