Annie: A Study in Contrast and Complement

I enjoyed using clips of Renata with the little girls in her life, to contextualize her role as the child-hating Miss Hannigan. Showing the kids singing “Happy Birthday” not one but three times amplifies her comments about patience and growing up. This video was the most fun to edit. http://youtu.be/WEQQoAta8Uo Similar:R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) Full…

The Tempest, According to My 9yo Daughter

She’s 10 now, but here is her response to seeing The Tempest at Seton Hill University last year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcxnHUQf5rk&sns=em Similar:Lessons from the Covington Catholic FlashpointMy social media network includes people …CultureYou aren’t doing it wrong… if no one knows what you are doing.PersonalThe Begotten #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 12) Kira and Odo face…

Peter’s Evil Overlord List

Peter Anspach posted this list. Here are some of my favorites. My Legions of Terror will have helmets with clear plexiglass visors, not face-concealing ones. My ventilation ducts will be too small to crawl through. My noble half-brother whose throne I usurped will be killed, not kept anonymously imprisoned in a forgotten cell of my…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu

When the Reporter Becomes Part of the Story (Aggressive Reporter Covering Pittsburgh Zoo Death)

Students who are new to journalism often introduce a quote like this: When asked about a habit he’d most like his journalism students to break, Dennis Jerz said, “Usually when I see the phrase ‘when asked about,’ I look for things to throw.” We only encounter that phrase in reporting, so when students start writing…

Seton Hill Student Journalists Launch Local Election Coverage

Students in my journalism class are publishing short articles on the U.S. election, starting with advance stories today, then continuing with live updates on Election Day and afterwards. This year, students have already started publishing articles online as soon as they are ready, rather than waiting until after the print edition has been sent to…

Why ‘Gangnam Style’ Is Actually a Study in Mind Control

I’m not sure “thank you” is the right way to acknowledge this painful link from Paul Crossman. “Oh, come on,” you’re probably saying. “It’s not the music that’s addictive. It’s the dance, from the goofy video. That’s what went viral.” (There’s that word again.) Well, it turns out that this programming effect could be embedded…

Shatoetry iPhone app lets you put… words… in… William Shatner’s… mouth

William Shatner and technology go way back, but it’s taken him until today to get his own smartphone app. Then again, he is a man known to take long pauses. Dubbed Shatoetry, the new app (iPhone-only, for the moment) lets you string together a variety of pre-recorded words — each with three different versions —…

Canada’s Stratford Festival losing ‘Shakespeare’ from its name

Attending this was one of the handful of cultural treats my wife and I splurged on during our grad student days. LA Times – Canada's Stratford Festival losing 'Shakespeare' from its name. Similar:Kittenwar”May the cutest kitten win…” –Kittenw…AestheticsHow cult leaders brainwash followers for total controlWith each other as validation, we began …CultureNASA! Mars!! Panorama!!! Video!!!!…

Cover your Backside with B-roll on Vimeo Video School on Vimeo

Great resource. Cover your Backside with B-roll on Vimeo Video School on Vimeo. Now consider this:   Similar:Enjoying my "Dystopia in American Literature" class.After a kind of prelude in which we look…AcademiaThe first officer's office adjoins the officers' pub, because of course it should. Working… AestheticsThe magic of words opens a whole new world of…

Addis, LA: Little Orphan Annie stopped for speeding

  Addis, LA: Little Orphan Annie stopped for speeding | #Beet’s B.O.O.T.. Similar:As White Evangelical Vaccine Refusal Reminds Us, Sometimes Religion is the ProblemWhen reality contradicts the truths that…CultureThe 1982 Tron Holiday SpecialSides: split. Gut: busted. Milk droplets…AmusingBooby Trap (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Three Episode 6) When LaForge gets absurd with a hologr…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year…

FDR in Annie

I’ve accepted the role of FDR in the upcoming Stage Right! Production of Annie. Auditions for the little ‘uns are Friday afternoon. My 10yo daughter and her tweeny friends are sticking out their chins and grinning and singing “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow / Creeps in this petty pace from day to day” or whatever…

Google Trends: blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook (2004-2012)

I rather expected this — popularity of the search term “blog” from 2004-2012. And this, too, was not a big surprise — Similar:While searching my bag for a cable, I found an unexpected wealth of food-substitute items.AmusingToasty Warm Bed (designed by drunk AI neural net)AestheticsEmpok Nor #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 24) Horror-themed visit…

Quidditch Comes to Seton Hillwarts

Visitors often remark the campus reminds them of Hogwarts, so it’s fitting to learn that a Quidditch goal has been assembled at Seton Hill University, in preparation for a charity tournament Monday. Similar:Physics simulation demo: crate made up of mostly loose boards. #Blender3d #design #practic… https://youtu.be/OqqlWZvWaqM Physic…AestheticsThe Value of Truth: We are living through an epistemological…

Monsters are People Too

Study used D & D characters to test how subjects responded to eyegaze in human, humanoid, and monster characters. Observers were presented with images selected from the popular fantasy game Dungeons and Dragons (D&D; figure 1a). The images could be of humans, creatures with eyes in the centre of the face (humanoids), and creatures with…