Over the past five years, print-on-demand technology and a growing number of self-publishing companies whose books can be sold online have inspired writers of all ages to bypass the traditional gatekeeping system for determining who could call himself a “published author.” They include hundreds of children and teenagers who are self-publishing books each year —…
I did not include the very best part of the story, which is the very last few lines, but you have to read the whole thing to appreciate the writing. The little boy didn’t want to say goodbye, but his mom told him, “Batman needs to go fight the bad guys.” The little boy cried.…
I often have a gentle chuckle to myself at some of the random combinations that are generated by our bot chums. Vaksman Innes, Hoaglin Little, Marylou Freas – surely the names of previously anonymous guests from one of Jay Gatsby’s parties? Tanisha Hendricks, Lee Buffet, Tish Dreith – straight from a Jilly Cooper novel? Tia…
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A Princeton physics professor tries to get all rational over climate change fears. I am fascinated by the way this plays out in public, among non-scientists trying to make sense of it all. It is easy to be confused about climate, because we are constantly being warned about the horrible things that will happen or…
I’m preparing to teach this foundational work of hypertext theory. On the surface, this short story is a spy thriller, in which a subversive protagonist relies on intellect to match wits with a worthy, authority-wielding foe. Originally published in Spanish in 1941, this story takes the form of a conventional narrative, but its plot features…
War On Words: NYC Dept. Of Education Wants 50 'Forbidden' Words Banned From Standardized Tests « CBS New York. The article presents a list of what the headline described as “banned words,” and we see whole concepts and topics, including “Children dealing with serious issues” and “Computers in the home (acceptable in a school or…
Thanks for the link, Kary. To subscribe to the New Yorker, Wired, Vanity Fair, GQ, The Atlantic, Details, New York, and Time, you’ve got to have seven different apps, many of which are bloated. Some issues of Wired, for example, have weighed in at 500MB each. And what do you get inside? Aside from the…
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“We think it’s a terrific time to be making investments in the leading brands behind providing Moodle services,” [Blackboard’s] Henderson told Inside Higher Ed on Monday. In a blog post, he called the growing popularity of open source “the most important new dimension shaping the LMS market today.” Henderson acknowledged that some advocates might look upon Monday’s news…
If you were to draw a Venn diagram including fans of They Might Be Giants and those of interactive fiction (“text adventures” to the layperson), chances are there would be some significant overlap. From that overlap springs Apollo 18+20: The IF Tribute Album, which is in fact not an album, but a collection of interactive fiction commemorating…
“If you strip out marketing and advertising from the Internet, nothing would be left,” says a worried suit, who seems to have forgotten about, you know, all that content. —New FTC “Do-Not-Track” Recommendations: Clueless? | PCWorld. Similar:A news site used AI to write articles. It was a journalistic disaster. Artificial intelligence has been deplo…BusinessSomewhere Nearby…
Space seems like a fitting locale for the casual gaming franchise Angry Birds, considering its meteoric rise in popularity since launching 2009. —Review: Angry Birds Space out of this world. Excuse me, but do meteors actually rise? Similar:Courage Wolf: Write "Could Of" or "Would Of." I Dare You.AmusingWhy is Elon Musk attacking Wikipedia? Because its…
To find the best academic sources for your paper… Close this web page. Walk, drive, skateboard, ride your unicorn, or otherwise physically go to your library. Talk to a reference librarian. You’ll save yourself time and aggravation, and you will get better results. Maybe your unicorn is tired, and you can’t get to a library just now.…
Since its November release, Skyrim has won award after award and led reviewers to call it the “greatest role-playing video game ever made.” In its first month, it made $650 million, almost double the entire year’s gross in the United States for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the bestselling movie of 2011.…
After taking a whole bunch of new high-quality images, I found myself running out of space on my production machine. I briefly toyed with the idea of uploading a big chunk of files to The Cloud — thinking I could just get it back if I ever needed it — but then the voice of…
A Twitter friend made a critical comment about homeschooling that I thought warranted a reply. I won’t repeat his comment here — after a brief reflection, he modified his statement, and suggested that people who are doing homeschooling right have a too-low profile. While I don’t pretend my kids are perfect, or that they don’t…
why aren’t there more women in technology? Hmm, let’s see if Twitter can help us find out.
I blogged about this controversy the other day, so it’s only fair that I follow up. A Schofield Middle School teacher embroiled in a controversy after reportedly reading to his students from a science fiction book that one parent described as “pornographic” will not face criminal charges, police said. —Schofield teacher won’t face criminal charges…
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