Shortly before leaving work Monday, local fire chief Pete Wilkes reportedly approved firefighter Joseph Ainslie’s request to take an extra three days on a particularly tough fire, advising him to “take [his] time” with the two-story blaze. “What matters most is doing the job right, not rushing through it and getting it done fast,” Wilkes…
2012 Interactive Fiction contest we’ll be featuring text-based games in this week’s Free Game Friday roundup. Not all of this week’s games come from the competition, but they all feature the written word as their main gameplay mechanic. We also didn’t have space to feature all the great games in the competition, so here’s a…
Here’s what it sounded like at our first rehearsal, after learning the parts for about 40 minutes: Here’s how it looked opening night, two weeks later (I’m the surly guy in the white hat): Similar:Those mean fake news people at the Washington Post are at it again, this time publishing a…Those mean fake news people…
On my to-read list once I post midterm grades. As computer software has become increasingly central to commerce and creativity, lawmakers have retrofitted it into preexisting legal regimes to regulate its production and distribution. Currently in the United States, software is eligible for protection under patent law, copyright law, trade secret law and the First…
A student recorded this interaction on her Facebook wall: Me: I think I’m going to die after elections. Dr. Jerz: Well how soon after elections? We all die eventually, you know. Me: I’m going to wait til after Wednesday so I finish the online election issue. Dr. Jerz: As long as you finish. Wait… can…
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I love the Onion. “I do not understand,” reads an ancient line of pictographs depicting the sun, the moon, water, and a Sumerian who appears to be scratching his head. “A booming voice is saying, ‘Let there be light,’ but there is already light. It is saying, ‘Let the earth bring forth grass,’ but I…
What, you haven’t honored your freedom by reading a banned book this week? Banned Books Week | Celebrating the Freedom to Read Similar:Starship Down #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 7) During a battle with the Jem'Ha…Rewatching ST:DS9 An enjoyable “crisi…EmpathyFake Kitsch! Not Really the 80s! There is a part of me that misses …AestheticsSocial…
I think that should be “typefaces,” but I’m a pedantic bore. Showcase of 60 Free Horror Fonts For Graphic Designers. Similar:In November 2000, I was blogging about the US Presidential election, mirrors, Arts & Lette…In November 2000, I was blogging about …BusinessJournalism, Fake News, and "Clickbait Defamation"Sometimes when my social media contacts …CultureHere's some good…
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Stick these on a copy of your future birdcage liner if you spot any of the many sins of journalism. Be on the lookout for bias, plagiarism, poor sourcing, and hype. Journalism Warning Labels « Tom Scott. Similar:Measuring Humanities Degrees Misses Much of Their Value“I don’t see why we are fixated on the s…AcademiaSo glad…
Toddlers, multiple experiments have shown, can test hypotheses about how machines work—for example, they can figure out which blocks made a machine play when some but not all blocks trigger the toy. We have to be careful, though. This exploratory, quasi-scientific approach to the world doesn’t last if adults teach kids to do something else: Kids will let adult…
Palmer’s Kickstarter page shows her proffering a Dylanesque hand-lettered sign proclaiming, “THIS IS THE FUTURE OF MUSIC.” She may be an authority on this topic—having asked for two hundred thousand, she got $1.2 million. That is not a particularly folksy sum, but not yet the stuff of ignominy. Album in hand, Palmer prepared to tour.…
In an advanced new media class, I’m introducing technical writing to some excellent students. When I asked for a technical report, I got a lot of very well-written essays. It’s a media production studio, not a writing class, so I haven’t made the specifications of the technical report genre very central to the instruction, but…
I have a lot of memories associated with the campus mail room. As an undergrad, I wrote a lot of letters, and sent them in envelopes with stamps, and got a fair number back. But email and Facebook is so much more efficient — I’m not surprised that campuses are looking at ways to put…
When a failing high school tries to reinvent itself, it turns to writing — with amazing results. At my own high school, our science teacher was a retired nuclear submarine admiral who used to say, “Give me students who can read and write, and I can teach them to pilot a nuclear submarine.” So I’m…
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The transformation of the nation’s news landscape has already taken a heavy toll on print news sources, particularly print newspapers. But there are now signs that television news – which so far has held onto its audience through the rise of the internet – also is increasingly vulnerable, as it may be losing its hold…
The Drudge Report today features an amusing array of images — Barack Obama, Michelle Obama, Hilary Clinton, and Russian President Vladimir Putin — all of them winking. Clearly the nonverbal message is that all these people — who are unpopular with the conservative populist base to which Matt Drudge caters — are working together. The…