Commonly Misused Words: ITS and IT’S

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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:And Now for This Breaking News Report “Police have cornered the suspect wh…AmusingEvita in Zelionople CultureRebooting “Rossum’s Universal Robots” for the 21st century“It is over…

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:Trump and JFK: Masters of New MediaI didn’t use Newsweek’s clickbaity headl…CultureAwesome 1935 Soviet Movie Deploys Saxophone-Controlled Robots to Crush…

Carnegie Science Center Model Train

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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:Proto iPads and Paper Coexist in Classic Star TrekRewatching the classic Trek episode “The…Cyberculture'Atari Dump' Will Be Excavated, After Nearly 30 YearsThe New Mexico landfill…

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:Drumming Kid Is Epic. That Is All.https://youtu.be/MRvHI8tgx8A AestheticsBeautiful. No Data / Lore opposition required. AestheticsAppreciating the production values and so-stupid-it-might-be-brilliant comedy in Avatar: T…The daughter is showing my wife and me “…AestheticsTake a look at the moon…

Bluejay Catching a Bug

My friend and colleague, Balázs Tarnai, shared these pictures of a bluejay catching a bug on his garage roof. Similar:Another section of a #steampunk control panel, made in #blender3d for a personal project. …AestheticsLighten Up (an illustrator explores the racial politics of skin color in comics)Lighten Up — The Nib — Medium.AestheticsFaces the girl makes…