Similar:What Critics of Student Writing Get Wrong [T]o improve as writers, student…AcademiaUpdated Syllabus for Journalism 101By the end of the semester you will be a…AmusingMom’s Fears About Daughter Leaving For College Channeled Into Fight About Storage BinsImpatiently scanning store shelves while…AmusingThe Declaration of IndependenceI recorded a recitation of the Declarati…CultureShall I Encode Thee In DNA?…
According to a somewhat dry AFP article (posted on a URL that will probably expire soon), “The researchers estimated that in 2008 Australian adults aged 25 and older spent 9.8 billion hours in front of the small screen, and that this time was associated with 286,000 years of life that ended prematurely. | Every single hour…
Our iPads will one day be stacked on a pallet, like these old PCs. They’ll be retro curiosities, having done their jobs — empowering us to build even better tools. Similar:In February, 2002, I was blogging about…In February, 2002, I was blogging about …ArtI created about a dozen basic building shapes, with textures to add…
The business of journalism is changing. The approaching anniversary of the 9-11 terror attacks is an occasion to reflect on how we received news in the days when newspapers updated their web pages once a day, and Google did not constantly monitor newspaper home pages looking for fresh stories. For journalists thinking about the future,…
A popular handout from my site, Short Stories: 10 Tips for Creative Writers, includes a phrase uncommon enough that Googling for it (“practiced scream therapy“) leads me to short story exercises that develop an example into more detailed studies, or pages that remix the content of my site in order to make a similar point.…
There is a lot to like about Google+, and getting to 25 million users so quickly certainly seems promising for the Google social network. But, it doesn’t bode well if the excitement is already fading. Google needs to not only create a capable social network, but it needs to make that social network compelling enough…
This rhetorical power derives from the “-ification” rather than from the “game”. -ification involves simple, repeatable, proven techniques or devices: you can purify, beautify, falsify, terrify, and so forth. -ification is always easy and repeatable, and it’s usually bullshit. Just add points. Game developers and players have critiqued gamification on the grounds that it gets…
I was doing a lot of impulse buying during the $9.99 days, but since then, on occasions when I’ve seen the ebook offered at a higher price than a paperback, I have just turned to interlibrary load instead. “Terrified” by Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and discounted e-book pricing, five major publishers allegedly acted together to increase…
David Mahokey of Dunbar, a senior at Point Park University, and Greg Kerestan of Greensburg, a senior at Seton Hill University, wrote the 20-song score and script, respectively, for ″In Control,″ a musical that focuses in part on Mahokey’s real-life battle with bone cancer. Two free performances of ″In Control,″ directed by Anthony Marino, artistic…
Which is cooler? That my 13yo son was just sitting at the kitchen table singing lyrics to MC Frontalot’s “It Is Pitch Dark,” or that my 9yo daughter was chiming in with corrections? It Is Pitch Dark Similar:The Ship #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 2) Sisko defends his claim to salvage a…Rewatching ST:DS9 The…
The heartbreaking thing is that this fall, over 10,000 bookstore employees across America will be out of work. The way the publishing industry is going, many of those people won’t be able to find jobs that are even tangentially related to books anymore; they’ll go on to work in movie theaters and grocery stores and…
The layout of this display at the Carnegie Science Center almost makes it look like the Maria duplicate in Metropolis came before Karel Capek’s play RUR (which was written in 1920, first performed in 1921). Similar:In praise of the sci-fi corridorCorridors in science-fiction movies. I l…AestheticsEnjoying more live theater.CulturePinkalicious — "Buzz Off"My daughter plays the…
The control panel. Similar:What is Technical Writing?I noticed an uptick in traffic to an old…AestheticsOminous Darkness Descending On Webpage Portends Grim Age Of Autoplaying Ad To ComeFortune’s fool, I wagered I would be spa…AmusingShort-range #neovictorian excursion craft, now with glowing power orbs! Over the past year…https://youtu.be/-cJp-kelrL8 AestheticsHow Americans DieFantastic data visualization. How Ameri…CultureToilet paper isn't…
Images from an extended tour of a cold war submarine. (We liked the tour we took last year so much, my son and I came back.) [portfolio_slideshow size=medium trans=scrollHorz ] Similar:The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy – About the game30th anniversary refit of the cruel, cru…AmusingNot a #carguy but I pried open the hatch of…
My daughter, as the wizard, with her talented castmates, in our local theater school’s preteen summer camp musical. Similar:Support the arts in your community!PersonalCarnegie Science Center's Guitar ExhibitThis summer, I’m a “CSC Insider” — mean…AestheticsMaking movie magic with my dueling gut-shot daughterAestheticsI had some unexpected downtime today, so I filled out another span of my…
As for Starbucks, the decision to pull the plug is reportedly up to individual stores thought to be only in New York. —Many New York City Starbucks Locations About To Put An End To Squatters « CBS New York. Awkward phrasing… Who is doing the reporting if this fact is “reportedly” so? Who is doing…
In 2008, when her scientific publication, the Journal of Zhejiang University-Science, became the first in China to use CrossCheck text analysis software to spot plagiarism, Zhang was pleased to be a trailblazer. But when the first set of results came in, she was upset and horrified. “In almost two years, we find about 31 percent…
Interesting story about a performance artist who bought what was once high-tech military gear, but ended up sold as scrap on eBay. A glimpse into the hardware and software suggests some interesting critiques of the industrial-military complex. There was no password on the gear that was supposed to be outfitted on the robot, so he…
My friend and colleague, Balázs Tarnai, shared these pictures of a bluejay catching a bug on his garage roof. Similar:Typeset In The FutureWhile watching classic science fiction f…AestheticsJust a #steampunk captain inspecting the æther power orbs. #Blender3D #Unity3D #design #ae…AestheticsMore details in the powder room of my villain's lair. #Blender3DAesthetics50 Years Ago: The World in…
LEGO figurines representing the Roman god Jupiter, his wife Juno and Galileo Galilei are flying to Jupiter. (NASA/LEGO) August 4, 2011 — They have launched aboard the space shuttle, visited the space station, and flown to Mars. Now, three more “very special” LEGO figurines are set to fly to Jupiter with NASA’s Juno spacecraft. The…