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…
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:Reuben Klamer, designer of Trek's "phaser rifle" and Milton-Bradley's "The Game Of Life" d…Although more modern-looking rifles…
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…. Similar:A Book Itself Is a Little Machine: Emily Short's Interactive FictionWords do some things much better than pi…DesignHow to Use the Feynman Technique to Identify PseudoscienceSimon Oxenham quotes physicist Richard F…CultureMesmerizing Video of a Printer Terminal Running "Adventure" on a PDP-11/45After spending several days…
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…
I periodically get emails from former students who thank me, several years after a class is over, for challenging them in a way that prepared them for life after college. I don’t get so many grateful comments while the students are still in college. I don’t blame my students, but a certain proportion does seem…
Yes, the NYT multimedia “Snow Fall” was wonderful, and my new media colleagues are excited by it. But it took 11 staff members 6 months to publish. Is this really what new media journalists should emulate? How can I scale this down to the classroom? The future of journalism is about speed, volume, rough and…
The New York Times debuted a new multimedia feature Thursday so beautiful it has a lot of people wondering — especially those inside the New York Times — if the mainstream media is about to forgo words and pictures for a whole lot more. Unlike a standard words-on-page article that doesn’t diverge too much from print in the design department,…
The population of e-book readers is growing. In the past year, the number of those who read e-books increased from 16% of all Americans ages 16 and older to 23%. At the same time, the number of those who read printed books in the previous 12 months fell from 72% of the population ages 16…
After Hours – Why The Star Trek Universe is Secretly Horrifying Similar:Trump’s war on the media is driving students to journalismTwenty-one-year-old political science st…AcademiaReflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an “In…CultureGenesis (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 19) The crew de-evolve into hominids, a… Rewatching ST:TNG After Worf lose…DesignMy 13yo…
A touching bit of balanced storytelling, without editorializing, via selection of quotes and telling descriptive details. “I know dads that say they ain’t their kids. I see dads being disrespectful of the mothers. And I see ones who take other men’s kids to football games because they know their fathers aren’t around,” said Mr. McManus,…
My friend Anastasia gave me a home-made lip-balm kit for my 10yo daughter. A blizzard the day after Christmas was the perfect opportunity to stay home and try it out. Similar:Given a chance to explain his support for a YouTuber who warns about alien DNA, Trump abru…After mounting a half-hearted defense of…Current_EventsWhy We Fall for…
So, late Friday, we reported on how the Republican Study Committee (the conservative caucus of House Republicans) had put out a surprisingly awesome report about copyright reform. You can read that post to see the details. The report had been fully vetted and reviewed by the RSC before it was released. However, as soon as…
30 Web Designs Featuring Vintage Style Typography. Similar:Empathy in a Downtown Sub ShopSitting in a downtown sub shop. A half d…CultureBlood & Laurels : Emily Short's Versu launches iPad GameEmily Short (Galatea, First Draft of the…Current_EventsApocalypse Rising #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 1) Sisko Infiltrates a Klingon…Rewatching ST:DS9 Worf and O’Brien wa…MediaLiberal Arts Leaders:…
Art Prints by Genis Carreras | Society6. Similar:I have a daughter who does things. Here’s what she’ll be starting on next week. @frontporc…I have a daughter who does things. Here’…CultureTurnitin's slick new iPad app almost erases years of web-based GradeMark traumaI have in the past griped on Twitter and…AcademiaWTAE-TV's Wendy Bell fired over racially inflammatory…
Performers Ali Kidder-Mostrom (L) and David Coupe perform a fight scene as a translation of their dialogue is projected on a screen during a performance of “A Klingon Christmas Carol” in Chicago, December 20, 2012. —A Klingon Christmas Carol Similar:Here are some real statements from Pope Leo that many people who have been sharing fake…
Something else has changed, too, beyond the proliferation of screens. Today, I don’t think—and I’m almost afraid to write this, because it’s like the tolling of some great bell—today I don’t think the amateur’s best effort is good enough. We as internet users have less patience and less charity for janky, half-broken experiences. (Which is…
Unexpected consequences, when a developer slims the size (in terms of data) of the YouTube video-watching page from 1.2M down to under 100kb. Having just finished writing the HTML5 video player, I decided to plug it in instead of the far heavier Flash player. Bam! 98KB and only 14 requests. I threaded the code with…
Reaction to the cover: – Newsweek’s last print issue has just a hashtag on the cover. Like using your final breath to ID the killer. @sacca – Newsweek’s last cover: one more flippant stunt. Ooh! A Hashtag! I’m proud to have worked there 1985-93. @jswatz – Glad to see @Newsweek going all digital! Love the…
My 10yo daughter Carolyn played Annie in a Stage Right! Greensburg production Sunday. I was delighted to play President FDR. Here is a clip from our longest scene together, the Annie Cabinet Scene. Similar:My mom’s Lionel train set (a gift from her father in 1948) had been in storage for 35 year… My mother wants…