Dickens is so brilliant a stylist, his vision of the world so idiosyncratic and yet so telling, that one might say that his subject is his unique rendering of his subject, in an echo of Mark Rothko’s statement, “The subject of the painting is the painting”—except of course, Dickens’s great subject was nothing so subjective…
Fantastic series of photos, showing sci-fi spaceships digitally inserted into photos that appear to have been taken at real airshows. To be more believable, we probably need to see more poorly-framed, snapshot-style “here’s my kid standing in front of a Moonbase Alpha Eagle,” but this was still a lot of fun. Sci-Fi Airshow: Guided Tour.…
Fascinating… asking test subjects to think more globally (in terms of the relationships between the parts that make the whole) reduced the bias that makes people think of women as body parts. People were also better at discerning women’s individual body parts than they were at men’s individual body parts, further confirming the local processing,…
Focusing on the materiality of writing, this page offers a brief but fascinating overview of how design and culture affect the act of writing (and vice-versa). Just as we find laptops essential for writing, researching, and storing valuable information, the Victorians found their writing desks indispensable for storing writing materials; valuables, including money and jewelry;…
As tablets, smartphones, and microportables of various sorts become more common, this is not a surprise. It’s really only a question of when. Newsweek will eventually transition to an online publication, owner IAC/InterActiveCorp (IACI) said today, marking the beginning of the end for the magazine’s 79-year run as a print weekly. —Bloomberg. Similar:Why Even Try…
Sal Khan has done something remarkable in creating such a vast and varied library, and he deserves to be recognized. His commitment to making the site free is a rare and selfless act, and he deserves to be praised. Sal Khan is a good guy with a good mission. What he’s not, though, is a…
The other day, my wife suggested a Carnegie Science Center-related post. Only once before — in 2003 — has she volunteered a topic like that, so I took her up on the offer. I’ve noticed that, on every trip to the CSC, my wife slips away to browse the museum store while I’m watching the…
I love the WordPress Social plugin, which grabs Twitter and Facebook responses to a WordPress post, and compiles them as comments along with the original post. But I get plenty of social media attention on the stand-alone pages on my site — that is, instructional handouts that I use year after year, so it’s posted…
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Imagine writing a letter of reccommendation for one of the hundreds of students in your money-saving Massive Open Online Course: I’m pleased to recommend the person who identifies herself as Amy Clayton in my MOOC of 11,389 students, Education and Society. I have known Ms. Clayton since she began the course on May 16, 2012…
Why don’t states require students to take four years of English and math, and three or four years of science? Why isn’t there a class dedicated to teaching the fundamentals of writing? For that matter, why don’t we require more than two years of history or social studies and foreign language? The students want it—69…
“I think this is a clear example of the fact that sensitivity matters as a photojournalist,” says Gutierrez. “If you can’t feel and if you can’t approach this like a human being you’re not going to make pictures that mean anything.” That sense of care works its way up the chain of command at newspapers…
On the topic of massively open online courses, an academic says what many of us who teach online are thinking. Do you really WANT TO SAVE SOME MONEY using INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY? Ok, try this one on for size. Why weren’t you blathering on asking why the heck we all bought Blackboard or if you really…
My wife confiscated my preteen daughter’s blush. To protest the injustice, my daughter tied herself to a pole and wrote this protest note. Similar:Defunct Web Pages are Not Dead Ends to JournalistsIn my “News Writing” class, I first warn…AcademiaSorry, not sorry. I don't want such friends. Back in 2003, shortly after I moved …CultureUnvaccinated dad…
Social media networks like Twitter and Facebook have become part of the fabric of news stories — or the story itself — in recent years, notably during the Arab Spring. But in the hours after the Aurora shooting, the abundance of eyewitness journalism and conversation on Reddit turned the news aggregator into a surprising source…
July 20, 1969: astronauts from Apollo 11 visited the lunar surface. The Atlantic. Similar:Background for Trump's remarkable pivot to a pro-mask stance; via right-leaning Forbes and…Background for Trump’s remarkable pivot …CultureDarkest Hour (2017)I’m not a huge fan of war movies, but my…CultureFake Kitsch! Not Really the 80s! There is a part of me that misses…
I’ve taught an online “Video Game Culture and Theory” course about four times now. This fall I’m getting ready to teach my first online section of an American literature survey that I’ve taught multiple times before. Because Seton Hill is a very high-tech school, I have few technical worries, but it will be different teaching…
This book explores the relationship between living, code and software. Technologies of code and software increasingly make up an important part of our urban environment. Indeed, their reach stretches to even quite remote areas of the world. Life in Code and Software introduces and explores the way in which code and software are becoming the…
A certificate of debt, found in a regional archive, attests that Mittenwalde lent Berlin 400 guilders on May 28 1562, to be repaid with six percent interest per year. According to Radio Berlin Brandenburg (RBB), the debt would amount to 11,200 guilders today, which is roughly equivalent to 112 million euros ($136.79 million). —Reuters.com. But…
Because, as we all know, headlines spring suddenly into existence, like Athena from the brow of Zeus. It can’t be the journalists who choose certain stories that fit the public’s desire to read about family tragedy. —MISSING IN IOWA: Grandmother: ‘It’s absolutely no family’ – CNN iReport. Similar:2020, In One Photo. ("Come join us!")AmusingHeadlines: Why…