I’m not kidding when I say I haven’t even thought about planning to watch a TV show since Babylon 5 concluded in 1998. I don’t say this to be an anti-TV snob — we watch broadcast TV and plenty of DVDs, and I got kind of hooked on websites devoted to Lost (even though I…
Good example of journalistic storytelling, delaying the ending of the story a bit to keep you reading, without appearing to be deliberately coy. (We know from the headline that the story ends happily.) This is a medical container. Inside is a trachea, a carefully constructed human windpipe, seeded with 60 million stem cells from a…
In November of 1964, Frank Plaskon, of McKeesport, was a 24-year-old Special Forces Ranger out of Fort Bragg, N.C. Frank was part of a team dispatched to the USS Requin now berthed on the Ohio River at the Carnegie Science Center. “And I can’t believe that 48 years later it’s right here in my hometown,”…
This is not encouraging. The scientists tested three types of soap dispenser, in both lab and real-world settings. Of the three variants, the dispensers that were refillable from a giant bottle of liquid soap were by far the filthiest, leading to a 26-fold increase in handwashers’ bacteria levels. —Health – Brian Fung – Soap: How…
I’m not reallye sure if the blogosphere works like that any more, though. I find blog posts in my rss reader or on twitter or Facebook and only rarely by following links from other blogs as I used to do. Maybe I exaggerate – but it seems to me that blogs link to each other…
Close enough is not good enough in journalism. One of those versions, which was broadcast on the ‘Today’ show, contained an erroneous repetition of a key question and answer – about whether Sandusky was sexually attracted to young boys, Nils Frederiksen, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania attorney general said on Sunday. The repetition, Sandusky’s lawyers…
See also: photos from the 2012 Westmoreland County Air Show (from the runway) Similar:The Perfect Mate (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 21) Picard fails to bore an em…Rewatching ST:TNG A fussy ambassa…AmusingI Love Books: A Campus Library EvolvesI love books. I love smelling them, t…AcademiaInverted Pyramid, #SharpieGate edition Context: Sunday, President Trump twe…Current_EventsBury Berry…
What happens to our books when we die? Many books disappear before we do, of course; they fall apart, or we put them out on the stoop for scavengers. A book like this one, however — a text that is still read and reprinted, that has played a notable role in the 20th-century imagination, and…
Traffic leaving the Arnold Palmer Regional Airport was awful. People who came late, and parked farther away from the airport, ended up with the advantage, as we sat in gridlock for 1.5 hours while people wheeled their strollers and coolers right past us, pulling out of their parking spaces way ahead of us, putting more…
From “global warming” to “climate change” to “ecosystem management,” the buzzwords have changed, but the issue remains: enthusiasm and hype are part of the PR machine that drives the public perception of science. When well-meaning activists rely on emotions as a shortcut to get the cooperation of the public, the fabric of civic discourse is…
This paper discusses the materializations of story world entities that are distributed with game packaging, here referred to as feelies, as props that support narrative elements in story-driven digital games. The narrative support is suggested to function on global and local levels, where the first one refers to the immersive effects concerning the story world,…
I won’t be showing this to my daughter. I might instead show it as part of a media studies unit, as an example of a self-made PR disaster. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZtMmt5rC6g Update: I didn’t think that would stay up for long in its original location. Here’s a copy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g032MPrSjFA Similar:Text Adventure Geeks Rejoice: Major Inform7 UpdateI have…
This summer, I’m a “CSC Insider” — meaning that I’m getting some VIP treatment, in return for blogging twice a month about the Carnegie Science Center. First off, I attended the opening night gala for Guitar: The Instrument That Rocked the World. I also went back with my family the next day. (The video shows…
A shocking video of middle schoolers verbally abusing a poorly-paid, hearing-impaired grandmother of eight hired to keep them safe on the school bus went viral on Wednesday. Over 5,700 online strangers rallied to Karen’s side, donating $110,000 to fund a vacation and maybe even an early retirement!
In character as “Pontius Pilate,” washing his hands of the fate of Jesus, Peter asked one of the kids a rhetorical question. When the kid responded with, “Duh!” my son quipped, “One does not say ‘duh’ to the prefect of Judea. I think we’re gonna need another cross here.” Similar:At the chess club holiday party.…
Similar:August Wilson Trifecta (Two Trains, Ma Rainey and Fences on the same day)Fences was performed in the backyard of …CultureWater discovered deep beneath Earth's surface The water in the mantle rock, which co…NatureNo, Running Online Classes Isn't CheaperA good response to the myth that the lab…AcademiaThis weekend! GeyerPAC.comPersonal"Oliver Twist" is a story of redemption for…
Microsoft executive Steve Sinofsky jogs to the side of the stage to replace a frozen Surface tablet computer, during an otherwise slick product demo in Los Angeles. Video: Microsoft’s Surface tablet ‘fails’ during Los Angeles showcase – Telegraph. Similar:The Child –Antoine Bardou-Jacquet –The Child…AestheticsKeeping things in the proper perspective at 4Cs: Praise for my delivery…
Have you hugged your college’s freshman writing course today? (Not the students, not the teachers—we don’t want disciplinary hearings. The course.) Like most who have worked in English departments, I was rarely excited to be assigned freshman rhetoric (as it was called where I started). The essay-grading was back-breaking and social-life-destroying, to say nothing of…
The Daly Dose I notice the photographer has filled his page with keywords designed to advance his commercial ventures, which is a little spammy, but they are still valuable photos. Similar:The Duolingo owl has been judging my German every day for the last year.EducationFall 2023 Grades: Submitted! AcademiaLet He Who Is Without Sin #StarTrek #DS9…
While signing up for some online training for work, I found this screen, which seems to ask me to grant my consent to permit the service provider to use my private information in one of zero ways. Similar:So We're Supposed to Be "Amazed" or "Surprised" That Tween Boys Won't Slap a Girl?What Happens When Clickbait…