“What irrational person would argue against your claim that hoe is a Gothic punk?”

Dictating student feedback, I said “Would a rational person argue against your claim that Poe is a Gothic poet?” My Mac typed: “What irrational person would argue against your claim that hoe is a Gothic punk?” Similar:Hexagons Are the Bestagonshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOifuHs…AmusingAssociate Dean of What?The idea of students as customers relies…AcademiaDigital Storytelling: Empower the Multimodal Writing Classroom…

iTunes 11: It’s time for Apple’s horrible, bloated program to die.

At the head of the team is a grizzled old engineer who’s been at Apple forever. He’s surly and crude, always making vulgar jokes about iPads. But the company can’t afford to get rid of him—he’s the only one who understands how to operate the furnaces in the iTunes boiler room. Then one morning the…

Senior Tech #1: How To Master Texting

It’s funny because it’s true. Senior Tech #1: How To Master Texting Similar:I Regret to Inform You That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been CanceledI must confess to being rather blindside…AmusingDo you remember Harry Monster counting with adorable little John-John? Watch this 2 min cl…https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/status/15…AmusingI Made a Cheerful Maze Game in Scratch Well,…

What kinds of local stories drive engagement? The results of an NPR Facebook experiment

We looked at every story we geotargeted during the months of July, August, and September 2012, focusing on the ones that the localized NPR Facebook following liked, shared, and commented on at a high rate. From this group of successful stories, we identified similarities which allowed us to create nine distinct content categories. We…

Let there be light

The Irish have a weakness for puns, and this is as evident in the Book of Kells as it is in Finnegans Wake, although in the former the puns are for the most part visual, for no monk would think to tamper with the Gospel texts…. Thus on the recto of folio 180, a line of…

Author of 80s classic The Hobbit didn’t know game was a hit

The Hobbit stood out from the adventure games of the day in three ways, the first of which was its use of graphics. Many scenes in the game included a colour image that may have drawn at painfully slow speed but still offered a far richer experience than the text-only adventures of the day. The second…

What Could Have Been Entering the Public Domain on January 1, 2012?

Current US law extends copyright protection for 70 years after the date of the author’s death. (Corporate “works-for-hire” are copyrighted for 95 years after publication.) But prior to the 1976 Copyright Act (which became effective in 1978), the maximum copyright term was 56 years (an initial term of 28 years, renewable for another 28 years). Under those…

“A Mushroom at Last… A Mushroom Forever”

I asked my 10yo why she was moping. “Because I don’t want to be a dancing mushroom,” she said, in a tone that added an unspoken “duh!” Like most of her theater friends, she is on pins and needles, waiting for Stage Right to announce the cast list for next month’s production of Annie “What…

Office Hours in the Pool Hall

My favorite story comes from the week I held my office hours in the Brother Gorch Pool Hall. Named for the Congregation of the Holy Cross monk who spent decades in charge of our student center and sometimes played pool with students, it was the perfect location for office hours the week we discussed William…

The Search for IT Relevence — Featuring Seton Hill IT Guru Phil Komarny

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGh6MasSUVc The Search for IT Relevence – YouTube. Similar:Thank you, Herald Standard journalist Kelly Tunney, for visiting my class today.AcademiaWhy the Internet Isn’t Fun AnymoreI used to spend time in class teaching s…BusinessNAVY TO DROP ALL-CAPS COMMUNICATIONSCaps off to the Navy’s plan to drop all-…CultureThe barbican at Mickelgate was pulled down in the 1800s but…

I’d Pay to See This

Fan Video Win Similar:The six wives of Henry VIII, in pie chart formIf you’ve ever wanted to see the reigns …AmusingHow Exactly Do You Catch Covid-19? There Is a Growing ConsensusFrom the Wall Street Journal: At a Marc…CultureFacebook exec erroneously cites The Lord of the Rings when comparing the social network to…A Facebook executive, Andrew…

Distributing Candy at Holiday Parade

Similar:Q-Less (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 6) Shenanigans with Vash and QRewatching ST:DS9 In the teaser, Bash…DesignSondra's Garden: Butterfly Release Honors Dr. Lettrich (Seton Hill University)”Every good lesson plan has a culminatin…AcademiaI just thought of a time before you were born when I should have been kind, but I can't re… Sometimes when I’m…

Results of the 18th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition

The 18th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition has ended. Congratulations to Marco Innocenti, whose “Andromeda Apocalypse” took first place! The top three games were: Andromeda Apocalypse, by Marco Innocenti Eurydice, by Anonymous Guilded Youth, by Jim Munroe The winners of the Miss Congeniality contest were: Guilded Youth, by Jim Munroe Escape From Summerland, by Joey Jones…

At Age 11, I Named the Curiosity Rover

Wonderful story! I still remember that chilly December day, sitting in science class. I’d finished a worksheet early and decided to get a TIME for Kids magazine off of Mrs. Estevez’s bookshelf. It was the 2008 Invention Issue, but that wasn’t the only thing that caught my eye. In the magazine, there was an article…

The Myth of the Fake Geek Girl

It’s not surprising, then, that being a woman in geek culture was for a long time a profoundly gender-deviant act. “Girl” and “geek” were a zero-sum dichotomy: to claim space in one, you had to relinquish equivalent claim to the other. Recently, though, there’s been a dramatic change: a sudden surge not only in the…

What Do People Do on Mobile Devices? (Infographic)

A handful of vignettes communicating the point that mobile use of the Web is on the rise. It’s a challenge to teach students everything that will truly benefit them in a changing world, so for now all I can do is touch on how to use CSS to deliver different versions of a website for…

What a 21st-Century English Major Can Do: Screencast Demo of an Inform 7 Text-Adventure Journalism Game

Have I mentioned lately that I have some really awesome students? Here’s a narrated screencast, presenting a progress report on a term project that involves programming in Inform 7 to create a text-adventure game designed to teach student journalists how to cover a campus event. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKxPi3L6aDs This is what a 21st-century English major can do,…

Popcorn Maker

I’ll have to look into this. Popcorn Maker. https://popcorn.webmaker.org Similar:Respect the Text: Teaching Textual Primacy to Non-English MajorsIn the past, I have used the first day o…AcademiaWe ask 3 Broadway photographers: How do you turn a live show into a still image?Great story about the art of photographi…AestheticsPLS York Plays 2025 — Prof. Matthew Sergi's…

One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing Education

It’s a prototypical Silicon Valley ethos, with one exception: The Khan Academy, which features 3,400 short instructional videos along with interactive quizzes and tools for teachers to chart student progress, is a nonprofit, boasting a mission of “a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.” There is no employee equity; there will be no IPO;…

ThinkGeek :: Star Trek Enterprise Plush

Set phasers to “Squeee!” ThinkGeek. Similar:Late night set construction for The Miracle Worker.ArtAs part of an ongoing feud over the rights to use a particular shade of ultra-black paint,…As part of an ongoing bid to get his han…AestheticsThe Best Halloween Costume Is a Robot Halloween Costume – Atlantic MobileAwesome robot costume is awesome. The…AestheticsWinky Winky…