The tldr version: The iPad has is very useful for brainstorming, and a resource to consult during class discussions, Yes, they are good ereaders, but they are also good for collaboration and sharing (one looks at the text while another takes notes; students start a project, then swap iPads, to comment on each other’s work,…
After observing children on playgrounds in Norway, England and Australia, Dr. Sandseter identified six categories of risky play: exploring heights, experiencing high speed, handling dangerous tools, being near dangerous elements (like water or fire), rough-and-tumble play (like wrestling), and wandering alone away from adult supervision. The most common is climbing heights. “Climbing equipment needs to…
NPR.org » Going, Going, And Gone?: No, The Oxford Comma Is Safe … For Now. Similar:Mizzou professor who pushed reporter away from protesters is fired“The board believes that Dr. Click’s con…AcademiaLego signs multi-million-pound deal with BBC to create Dr Who setThe concept for a Doctor Who set came fr…BusinessHow reading fiction can help improve our…
Great example of how a reporter can take a press release and turn it into human story by adding an anecdotal example that demonstrates why the reader should care. David J. Loehr, a playwright who lives in southern Indiana, was taking his car to the dealership when a story on the radio gave him an…
In an occurrence which became somewhat of a tradition for shuttle crews and those of the International Space Station expeditions, the Expedition 28 crew and the STS-135 Atlantis astronauts formed a microgravity circle for a portrait aboard the orbiting complex’s Kibo laboratory of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. This image was taken on July 15,…
Borders, which employs about 10,700 people, scrapped a bankruptcy-court auction scheduled for Tuesday amid the dearth of bids. –via Borders to Shut Down – WSJ.com. Similar:19 Book Cover ClichésThis one is #3, “Man Lurking by Fence.” …AestheticsBroken on Purpose: Why Getting It Wrong Pays More Than Getting It RightI have recently started managing the Fac…BooksRolling…
Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbusiness reporter who was the first named journalist to allege that Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead. Hoare, who worked on the Sun and the News of the World with Coulson before being dismissed for drink and drugs problems,…
It’s good to see some activity in this area. I liked holding onto my college textbooks, in part for the notes. (A few weeks ago, I passed two of my college physics textbooks to my science-geek son.) It’s nice that Amazon stores your notes for you in the cloud, but it appears you have to…
Then the researchers handed over the instructions and taught the PCs a “machine-learning system so it could use a player’s manual to guide the development of a game-playing strategy.” They didn’t teach the PC how to play Civ, but they taught them how to read about it. The system had no pre-programmed notion of turn-based…
Google+ has beautiful photos and videos. Twitter? Just page after page of mind-numbing 140 character items. Now, Flipboard demonstrated to all of us that photos and videos CAN be added into the display, and the new Twitter UI does do some of that, but it just isn’t enough. Google+ is blowing Twitter away here. —Google+…
This painting, of two impish children taking advantage of a moment of unsupervised freedom as their mother naps, is one of my favorites from the Westmoreland Museum of American Art, here in Greensburg. The pun in the title intrigues me, as does the amazing complexity of the children’s clothing. The painting was not there when…
We’ve all seen how Ken Burns brings old photos to life by panning and zooming. This clip demonstrates a striking effect of mapping a 2D photo onto a 3D surface. The animator has to clone in order to create the missing data — the background details that are hidden by foreground objects. But the end…
Yay, me. I got the MouseLook script to work in my Blender Game Engine work-in-progress. Thanks to [2.5] FPS MouseLook Script. Based on models I had already created for one reason or another, the game currently involves donuts, paneled walls, tables, and iPad projectiles. Oh, and you’re a little bot. You may have guessed that I’m not…
I love this piece, on display at the Westmoreland Museum of Art, as part of “They Practice What They Teach: Artist Faculty of Carnegie Institute of Technology.” Similar:Avoid static, wordy nominalization. Prefer compelling verbs.New graphic for a handout I first posted…EssaysHappy retirement celebration to two dear colleagues.AcademiaHumans are being hired to make AI slop look…
On July 8, I went on the Google+ Diet, using Google’s new social network for all my online communication. As part of the diet, I stopped using Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare, and several other services. I even stopped using e-mail. As I explained in my column last week, the purpose of the experiment was to see if…
Men are into Google+; ladies, not so much. Google confirmed yesterday that over 10 million people have signed up for the new social networking site, but they didnt mention that men make up three quarters of those early adopters. Instead, Mashables Jolie ODell did some digging using sites that compile these sorts of stats, and…
Predictably, Wired celebrates the freedom that comes from depending on computers instead if your own memory. (The story includes a link to Nicholas Carr’s opposing view.) By sharing and comparing our memories, we can ensure that we still have some facts in common, that we all haven’t disappeared down the private rabbit hole of our…
The personal use of the internet by BBC staff must be tempered by an awareness of the potential conflicts that may arise. There should be a clear division between “BBC” pages and “personal” pages. On Social Networking sites, you should be mindful that the information you disclose does not bring the BBC into disrepute. For…
The virtual server Seton Hill has set up for me needed some attention before it was ready for the upgrade to WordPress 3.2.1. Luke from our IT department did all sorts of techno-magic, hampered briefly when a big data transfer yesterday was interrupted by a power outage. So my site’s been down for about a…
The water table in the lobby has been redesigned since our last visit. Great big Tesla coil, in a great big Faraday cage. Similar:The girl continues her exploration of Scottish history.Carolyn: “Does no one have a kind word f…PersonalA familiar performer choreographed and dances the "Canaan Days" tango in Stage Right's Jos…AestheticsShe feels pretty at…