Commonly Misused Words: ITS and IT’S

Similar:Mother 3: My Mom, and MeThoughtful, powerful, personal analysis …AestheticsThings Past #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 8) Odo confronts his reputation as a…Rewatching ST:DS9 Sisko, Dax, Odo and…AmusingThe Toulmin model for analyzing arguments came up at a faculty pedagogy workshop today. I … AcademiaAnti-Semitic Times Square Elmo admits to Girl Scout extortion attemptThe headline…

Correlation is not Causation

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…

In 10 Years Our iPads Will Be Here

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:BREAKING: British Burn Washington … 2 Centuries AgoTwo hundred years ago this week, during …AmusingThe six wives of Henry VIII, in pie chart formIf you’ve…

Ian Bogost – Gamification is Bullshit

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…

Apple, publishers conspired against $9.99 Amazon e-books, says lawsuit

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…

Students aim for Broadway in musical with true-life focus

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…

Books Without Borders

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…

Karel Capek Slighted

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:Reuben Klamer, designer of Trek's "phaser rifle" and Milton-Bradley's "The Game Of Life" d…Although more modern-looking rifles appe…AestheticsSet Phasers to…

Carnegie Science Center Model Train

The control panel. Similar:Smac McCreanor – HydraulicPress Series compilationhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWqB6UxE…AestheticsShort-range #neovictorian excursion craft, now with glowing power orbs! Over the past year…https://youtu.be/-cJp-kelrL8  AestheticsBird flight simulator. The boy goes for altitude and distance, the girl does stunts.In the bird-flight simulator at the Pitt…CybercultureMany things in the world are awful right now but my latest section of a…

USS Requin

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:Battle of New Orleans Ended 200 Years Ago TodayThe Battle of New Orleans was a series o…CultureSchisms (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 5)Rewatching ST:TNG Riker is…

Stage Right Greensburg Wizard of Oz

My daughter, as the wizard, with her talented castmates, in our local theater school’s preteen summer camp musical. Similar:Franz Joseph and Star Trek’s Blueprint CultureIn 1977, when I was about nine, I saw th…AestheticsThe Sword of Kahless #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 9) Kor invites Worf and Dax…Rewatching ST:DS9 Kor (the charismatic …AmusingMy 10yo…

Bluejay Catching a Bug

My friend and colleague, Balázs Tarnai, shared these pictures of a bluejay catching a bug on his garage roof. Similar:Toasty Warm Bed (designed by drunk AI neural net)AestheticsNo interior yet. Getting there. Gotta start somewhere. Low-poly background detail for a me…No interior yet. Getting there. Gotta st…AestheticsMany things in the world are awful, but my…