Instead of dispensing a card like Zoltar, the Gypsy would actually speak your fortune from a hidden record player. When you dropped a nickel in the slot, her eyes would flash, her teeth would chatter and her voice would come floating from a tube extending out of the eight-foot-tall box. Word got out when the…
Until today, the understanding I had of black holes was as a spherical “event horizon” with a singularity at the centre. The event horizon is the surface of no return – anything which goes past it can never escape. The singularity is where quantum gravity kicks in, and is very handy for evading the speed-of-light…
Journalism — New Media » It’s the inevitable stain on every single college commencement, an abominable cliché that speakers use as an ice-breaker: At some point during the address to graduates, the keynote talking-head will deadpan, “And now you will all go on to rewarding careers—except for the English majors.” Hardy-har. But just because the…
Daniel Donahoo: Gamification in Education: Should We Play?. Similar:All of Your Co-Workers are Gone: Story, Substance, and the Empathic PuzzlerHowever, running parallel to the evoluti…AcademiaPoetry Stimulates the Brain's Reward-Anticipation Arousal Near Ends of StanzasI fixed the NY Mag’s clickbaity title, “…AestheticsWhy It’s So Hard For Foley Artists To Make Footstep SoundsAccording to Foley artist Stefan…
People love Apple; at best, they appreciate Microsoft (and, more to the point, grow weary of those people who love Apple). What you see is not “Apple is brilliant,” “No, Microsoft is brilliant.” What you see is, “Apple is brilliant.” “Oh, would you shut up already.” —Steve Jobs And The Cultural Apple : Monkey See…
The idea that the internet is a place that’s separate from reality has faded. People generally have online identities that map to who they really are. Outside of a few legitimate edge cases and the occasional sci-fi fantasy, who we are online is simply who we are. Facebook has done more to influence this than…
Be careful, kids, because every time you say “TV sucks,” an advertising executive loses his Lexus. Just watching TV too boring for today’s children – Telegraph. Similar:Monument Valley: Minimal story, but an engaging world and a satisfying ending.I was in no rush to finish the beautiful…AestheticsGoogle's Super Bowl Ad: A Romance in SearchI didn’t watch…
In honor of the cold I am fighting, I just adopted the word “gleimous,” meaning “slimy, full of phlegm.” —Save The Words. Similar:In April, 2001 I was blogging about interactive fiction, Roget's Thesaurus, John Lennon, H… A student newspaper article about in…BooksTwo decades of Alzheimer's research may be based on deliberate fraud that has…
Fallen Angel « AwkwardFamilyPhotos.com 04/26/2011. Similar:While searching my bag for a cable, I found an unexpected wealth of food-substitute items.AmusingWeb Literacy for Student Fact-Checkers: Four MovesThe confirmation bias describes the very…AcademiaAdobe steals your colorWhat a horrible situation. The Adobe mon…AestheticsAll of Your Co-Workers are Gone: Story, Substance, and the Empathic PuzzlerHowever, running parallel to the…
Stunning collection of thousands of hours of video clips documenting the moment our world changed. Each image in this sequence represents about 30 seconds of what CNN was airing. Clips are also available from Moscow, Paris, Baghdad, and elsewhere. Understanding 9/11: A Television News Archive. Similar:The Inner Light (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode…
Samsung notes that “the tablet disclosed in the clip has an overall rectangular shape with a dominant display screen, narrow borders, a predominately flat front surface, a flat back surface (which is evident because the tablets are lying flat on the table’s surface), and a thin form factor.” You don’t actually see the actor interacting…
Look at all these open spaces, thanks to the new employee parking lot. Similar:Dress Rehearsal for Laurel Ballet "Alice in Wonderland"My daughter is playing the “Caterpillar …HomeIncoming Seton Hill Students Pick Up Their MacBooks and iPads TodayI find it impossible not to be cheerful …AcademiaLEGO turned itself around by analyzing overbearing parents[C]hildren play to get…
Maura 331, where I’ll spend 6 hours a week teaching has been refitted with these awesome modular tables. Our great CIT folks took out the huge, blocky, immobile PC stations. Since students have their own MacBooks and iPads, there is no reason to clutter up the space. I love the freedom this setup provides. It’s…
I was amused by this little note on the production blog for Seton Hill University’s upcoming production of The Tempest. Notes From 3rd Reading | SHU Tempest. The armchair reader of the script would not have to think about this kind of detail. The production blog also includes reference photos that the designers are using…
Photo captions matter. Someone has to write them. Looking forward to the chapter in my journalism textbook. Here’s a real-world example of how captions can affect the news. In this case, the captions were themselves newsworthy; they created the news. The Weekly Standard reported Aug. 9 about a set of White House photos from Jerusalem that…
At some point, using “syllabi” as the plural of “syllabus” started to bother me. Being “correct” about egg-headed words such as phenomenon/phenomena or criterion/criteria is among the most visible markers of education and class — and insufferable pedantry. For instance, those who wear tinfoil hats while blogging from their parents’ basements are likely to wave…
The day I got my Seton Hill iPad, I put my Palm Pilot back into its box. I didn’t even bother to synch it one last time. I’d been a committed Palm user since about 1997 — longer than I’ve been blogging. If I ever noticed that Hewlett Packard bought out Palm, I’d completely forgotten…
If you watch the news, you’ve probably seen a “look live”. That news-speak term means a reporter who appears to be live in the field, but was taped doing the introduction to their story, or sometimes their throw back to the newsroom or a different type of seemingly live hit, well before the show is…
Freelance photographer Jen McKendrick won’t take pictures of “ugly people” — that is, the high school bullies who were doing what bullies do on Facebook. “If you are ugly on the inside,” says McKendrick, “I’m sorry but I won’t take your photos to make you look pretty on the outside!” A WTAE-TV article explains it thus: McKendrick…
For more on ALL RIGHT, ALL READY and ALL TOGETHER, see Grammar Girl. The slang term “alright” is always slang. Similar:Four Academic Plagiarists You've Never Heard Of: How Many More Are Out There?Stealing someone’s words isn’t the same …Academia'Nope,' He Says, Body Isn't HisThe story goes like this: A man goes to …AmusingIn September, 2003,…