Designed exclusively for Amazon Prime subscribers who own a Kindle (sorry, iPad users – the Kindle App alone will not suffice), the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library allows consumers to borrow one book per month without any due dates. Amazon can only offer this option because the books are digital; the company isn’t loaning consumers much…
Testing out the new WordPress iOS app on my iPod Touch. Improved authoring tools, very much appreciated. Similar:The Days of Microsoft Internet Explorer Are Numbered—But Its Sorry Legacy Will Live OnStarting today, Microsoft will no longer…BusinessThe Offspring (StarTrek:TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 16) Data Experiences FatherhoodRewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CybercultureWe Need to Talk about…
One of the most popular pages on my site — a single page that earns about 20% of my hits — started out as a class assignment for a technical writing student whose project for a real-world client ran into a snag. In Fall 2002, I showed my student Kathy Kennedy a model of a…
Similar:GIFs, memes and liveblogs: The controversial new language of book reviewingSalon has an interesting essay on multim…AestheticsTheatre Crowd Mustn't Be Bitter The entertainment industry seem…CultureWriting Tips for Critical Thinking Critical Thinking Matters Pers…AcademiaHappily masked in center row C. (The daughter is dance captain.)DramaThe Surprisingly Savvy Weird Al Internet Machine When he talks about his business…
I believe I feel like a pribbling idle-headed mumble-news. (Thanks for the link, Jessica!) Tastefully Offensive | Premium Funny: Shakespeare Insult Kit – StumbleUpon. Similar:How are you holding up? What difficult choices have you made? How can we all help each oth…Carolyn and were recently cast in a hist…CultureThespian robot doesn't let stiff acting stop…
My 13yo son plays through chapter 2 of my 2001 Interactive Fiction Competition entry, Fine Tuned. Similar:It appears there may be some audience participation in this outdoor production of Richard …PersonalGo not to the elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes.First runner-up for the girl’s Halloween…AestheticsThough I have marking and prep…
The local paper’s headline spins the news a bit more negatively than it probably deserves. I rather enjoy the opportunity to look at some familiar words in a fresh light. Introduction to the Lord’s Prayer: (Current Text) Priest: Let us pray with confidence to the Father in the words our Savior gave us. (New text)…
[poll id=”2″] Similar:Serving at midnight breakfast.PersonalNo, This Beach Photo Doesn't Prove The Media Is LyingHave you seen this image mashup being ci…Current_EventsMeridian (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 8) Dax falls for a man from a Bridgado…Rewatching ST:DS9 Kira tells Odo about …Empathy"Wolf!", cried the shepherd boy. (The whole thread is worth reading.) https://twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/statu…CultureHalf a…
While teaching Richard II in a Shakespeare class, I had to get up to speed on the rules and customs of succession, as Shakespeare knew them, so that my students and I could understand and explore the political issues that Elizabethan audiences would find in the play. News from England today bears word of some…
Students collaborate on a breaking news journalism assignment. I wrote a mock police report, an official statement from a university official, and some personal info from various simulated sources, and gave students 45 minutes to churn out a news story. Here, students collaborate on a Google doc while consulting their textbook on a iPad. My…
In the mid-1950s mathematician John McCarthy issued a call for research on “Automata Studies,” but the phrase was so bland that few people understood what he meant. So he came up with a more provocative description of the idea he was promoting. He called it artificial intelligence. via John McCarthy, the father of artificial intelligence,…
A fantastic series of photos exploring the world as it was. The photo of Louie Armstrong playing his trumpet in front of the Egyptian pyramids is pretty cool, but I’m going to call out this one. NASA’s Project LOLA or Lunar Orbit and Landing Approach was a simulator built at Langley to study problems related…
The problem is that Google is killing off the current crop of social functions from Reader – and in doing so, they’re fundamentally altering the way most of us use Reader, and in the process they’re sending a huge archive of curated posts and shares and comments down into the void. And this is a…
Similar:For Two Months, I Got My News From Print Newspapers. Here’s What I Learned.Farhad Manjoo says he’s a better, more-i…CultureSlate: "Police Erupt in Violence Nationwide" | Notice how writing style frames a story? Gr…The ongoing protests following the killi…Current_Events[E-Mail is for Old People] –[E-Mail is for Old People] (User Frie…AmusingFlipped Classes: Omit Housekeeping Mechanics from Recorded…
Of Archimedes, he who allegedly popularized the word “Eureka!”: “His cleverness is beautiful. Understanding Archimedes is like understanding the most elegant joke in the world.” The researchers paid their respects to the 10th-century scribe who copied down works by Archimedes of lasting importance. The palimpsest contains the only version of “On Floating Islands” in Greek…
The value of this essay is not specifically in the nostalgia for ye goode ole days of bloggynge, but rather the combination of work-ethic angst and the recognition of the value of investing effort in long-term projects, as opposed to seeking immediate rewards for clear-cut, predetermined actions. The philosophical reflections of the shovel-wielding ditch-digger are…
The greatest abstract for a journal article ever – 22 Words. Similar:Don't call it "social distancing" or you just might get a polite correction from the admin…AcademiaOpinion: Don't link video games with mass shootingsContrary to Dr. Bushman’s suggestion, vi…AcademiaAnother social media post attacks journalists for doing their jobs — Updated Elijah McCla…If you’ve been following…
[J]ournals ceased being a means of communication a long time ago – more than 20 years ago for sure. New research would be unveiled in seminars, circulated as NBER Working Papers, long before anything showed up in a journal. Whole literatures could flourish, mature, and grow decadent before the first article got properly published…. The…
“It’s always the end of the world,” said Russell Grandinetti, one of Amazon’s top executives. “You could set your watch on it arriving.” He pointed out, though, that the landscape was in some ways changing for the first time since Gutenberg invented the modern book nearly 600 years ago. “The only really necessary people in…
Caves and sandboxes are some kinds of game spaces I’ve explored in conversations (and an unpublished manuscript) with David Thomas, so I was very interested in these musings from Not Your Mama’s Gamer. In a landscape polluted by smog and litter, box stores, fast food chains, more subdivisions and ever more streets–it becomes harder and…