By comparing the specimens’ ages and degrees of DNA degradation, the researchers calculated that DNA has a half-life of 521 years. That means that after 521 years, half of the bonds between nucleotides in the backbone of a sample would have broken; after another 521 years half of the remaining bonds would have gone; and…
Throw toast at the actors and get spaced out on sensation at the Stage Right Theatre Company’s Halloween show, The Rocky Horror Show — Live. I put this promo together from video I took at the yesterday’s first rehearsal. Clips include Science Fiction Double Feature, The Time Warp, Dammit Janet, and more. Similar:Fake Kitsch! Not…
An intelligent, thoughtful, well-written review of the best of the Star Trek movies. And kudos to the headline writer — amazingly nerdy and appropriate for this story. We know that “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982) is the best of all of the “Star Trek” movies. I am not stating anything new here.…
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:Son took out trash w/o being asked; daughter wore papercraft tophat to grocery store. Life…I took my daughter to an Alice-in-Wonder…ArtThirteen…
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:iTunes 11: It’s time for Apple’s horrible, bloated program to die.At the head of the team is a grizzled ol…AmusingEncyclopedia Smithsonian: Star-Spangled Banner and the War of 1812 When he saw “by the…
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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:Shakespeare did not leave his wife Anne in Stratford, letter fragment suggests It has long been assumed that…
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…