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:What Grammar and Style Checkers MissTeaching students to write does not mean…AcademiaIn September 1999 I was blogging about Tom Stoppard, techno-utopianism, voice-recognition …In September 1999,…
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:Rapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's "visions" complicate politic…Rewatching ST:DS9 Kira is moved by th…DramaThings…
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:The girl performed musical commercials for a fund-raiser in the Laurel Highlands (and she …The girl performed musical commercials f…CultureWhat…
The control panel. Similar:Video: Curiosity's Seven Minutes of Terror – NASA Jet Propulsion LaboratoryYes, the Mars rovers are cute and wonder…Designxkcd: Types of Editorsxkcd: Types of Editors.AmusingI'm just getting around to watching this speech from Arnold Schwarzenegger. Impressive!I really never paid much attention to Sc…AestheticsTexas lawyer trapped by cat filter on Zoom call, informs judge…
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:Go Forth and Conquer, but Postpone the Selfie“We have about 850 graduates, and we hav…AcademiaIn September, 2002, I was blogging about science writing, satire, ebonics,…
My daughter, as the wizard, with her talented castmates, in our local theater school’s preteen summer camp musical. Similar:Making movie magic with my dueling gut-shot daughterAestheticsAnother sold-out Midsummer Thursday night. PersonalJust an elegant retro keyboard for a #steampunk #cgi project. Procedural materials mean I …AestheticsPlaying with depth of field (blurring details that are closer than and…
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:Bilbo's party sociological infographic.AestheticsPsychology Today: Dreams: Night SchoolJay Dixit, in Psychology Today, surveys …GamesNASA reconnects with Voyager 1 (after months of confusion) NASA says it is once again abl…AwesomeChoose Your Own Buzz LightyearI was on the…
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…
As I understand it, some people reported seeing a man with a gun at Va Tech today. but this ABC report has an image labeled as a sketch of the “shooter.” Did I miss something? Were there reports of a shooting today? Let’s hope there aren’t, and let’s hope for accuracy in photo captions. Virginia…
Another example of how easy it is for a hoax to spread, when the content fits an esablished “narrative,” and editors are hungry for evidence supporting a story they already believe is true. I have no particular love for IE, but the truth is worth publishing.. All you diehard Internet Explorer users can relax this…