One in a Billion: email tips – Google Search

In the grand scheme of things, this means very little… but still, it’s kind of cool to be one in a billion. —email tips – Google Search. Similar:Economics in Early Computer Games(First published 27 May 2020, when I fou…BusinessPolice, citizens and technology factor into Boston bombing probeIn addition to being almost universally …Current_EventsFacebook’s Instant Articles…

The Pulse: Seton Hill’s iPad Experiment

This month’s edition of The Pulse podcast features a conversation with Mary Ann Gawelek, provost of Seton Hill University, discussing how her institution’s iPad experiment — begun in 2010 — has fared. RPP_102_iPads-in-Education.mp3 via The Pulse: Seton Hill’s iPad Experiment | Inside Higher Ed. Similar:Restoring the first websiteVery important bit of history. For a st…CybercultureWho…

Youngest-ever National Spelling Bee competitor says fatigue, stress led to misspelling onstage

“Overall, it was just boring. Really boring! Really boring!” —The Washington Post. Similar:William Zinsser: What Is Good Writing? (Clarity, Simplicity, Brevity, and Humanity.)Most of the students in my “News Writing…CultureTo Learn More, This High-Schooler Left The ClassroomNick Bain, 17, was in class one day when…CultureHow Poetry Helps You Improve Your WritingWhile I’d rather see a…

National Headline Contest 2011

Great headlines from winner David Bowman. National Headline Contest 2011. Similar:How Technology Has Changed The Way We WriteSocial media services have put writing t…CultureFormer Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed [a Certain Political Slant] NewsOne day when I was an undergraduate work…Business"Shakespeare in Love" with the Westmoreland Symphony Orchestra and Stage Right!When I teach Shakespeare, I…

Reading in the Morning

To qualify for a day at the local water park, my daughter woke up early, and is now happily reading. Similar:Trees (an "Interpretive Travesty")A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed Ag…AestheticsPast Tense, Part 2 (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 12) Sisko must channel socia…Rewatching ST:DS9 After the recap of …Culture'The Meatball: Not a Funny…

Updated Journalism Handouts

I updated the journalism portal of my online writing site, and touched up some existing handouts: News Story vs. English Essay Your English instructor carefully reads your essay to evaluate the depth of your knowledge, the breadth of your vocabulary, and the loftiness of your ideas. Joe Sixpack glances quickly at your news story to…

Stage Right! Homeschool Musicals

My daughter was recently in the Stage Right! Greensburg homeschool preteen production of Once Upon a Mixed-up Fairy Tale, playing Little Red Riding Hood. Here the girls are singing “Astonishing.” My son played Marshal Cord Elam in the teen production, Oklahoma. He’s wearing the vest and white hat. Similar:Another 10 sq cm of #steampunk control…

The Evolution of Adventure: Make Game – Asio City

In the early 1970s William Crowther worked for the high-tech R&D company BBN Technologies as part of a team developing the ARPAnet; a computer network predecessor to the Internet. Crowther has never shown any desire to court celebrity for his achievements. Aside from a couple of interviews from books, Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Genesis II: Creation and…

How and Why to Make Your Digital Publications Matter

My intuition is that, even for the wary, recalcitrant, or skeptical, the ways individuals connect now online and learn from one another’s connections no longer represent the pathological or aberrant (i.e. the shallow, distracted, lonely, asocial, unprofessional digital generation:  you know the litany!), but “the future.”  Since many are worried about “the future,” those who…

Choosing Our Own Adventures, Then and Now

If you were a kid during the ’80s and read any books at all, you probably read at least one Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA), probably by either R.A. Montgomery or Edward Packard. And if you read one, you read more than one. They were addictive, candy for our brains, but also, they empowered us…

Is it time for a text game revival?

It’s also a cultural climate where audiences are increasingly used to thinking of books as media companions — popular film series like Harry Potter, Twilight and The Hunger Games, or TV series like Game of Thrones, all feel richer to fans if they read the books as well as enjoy the films. Designers of text-based…