Steampunk Submarine Room

Yes, please, I would certainly like one of those. Thanks for asking. Steampunk Submarine Room » Geeky Gadgets. Similar:I feel juvenile enough today that this headline made me snicker.AmusingAs Twinkle Twinkle is to Suzuki musicians, so is a wooden shipping crate to CGI modelers. …https://youtu.be/diQF9buONqY I ha…AestheticsThe Complete Deaths: all of the Bard's 74 scripted…

NASA prepares a Mercury probe for orbit

NASA’s Messenger probe is about 10 days away from parking in an elliptical orbit around Mercury, the innermost planet of our solar system. Messenger has been en route since 2004, making a crazy Spirograph-looking series of orbits around the sun, taking the craft past Venus, and past Mercury three times, and finally heading for orbit…

Define “Digital Humanities”

Digital Humanities is the deliberate, critical application of emerging technology to the study of traditional subjects such as literature, art, philosophy, and language, often (but not always) with a focus on how those traditional fields are now using emerging technology. We are deliberate and critical when we foreground the study of our own digital tools…

Will future generations understand “The Simpsons”?

“Krusty Gets Kancelled” is one of the greatest of all “Simpsons” episodes, but if it were a poem, it would need to have nearly as many footnotes as “The Waste Land” — and the further away from its original air date we get, the truer that’s going to be. "Krusty Gets Kancelled" is one of the greatest…

Doctorow’s take on HarperCollins self-destruct ebooks

What if each ebook came with a black box with wires and a red LED.. Or maybe a computer voice intoning a countdown… HarperCollins has informed libraries that henceforth, ebooks will be sold on the condition that they can only be circulated 26 times before they self-destruct. HarperCollins argues that this reflects the usage characteristics…

Why Twitter’s Quick Bar on iPhone Doesn’t Work

Twitter started out, years ago, as a social service for a common techno-clique who all attended the South by Southwest music conference, so trending topics made sense. But since then, it’s expanded and fragmented into a mass medium made up of non-overlapping micro-communities. Everybody uses Twitter differently, but almost everybody consciously or unconsciously cultivates their…

Sledding in Spring Break Snow

My wife suddenly decided I should be a Good Dad (TM) and take the kids sledding. (I said okay, as long as she was coming along, too. There she is at the bottom of the hill, way in the background.) Our hilly campus was almost deserted, since we’re starting our three-day spring break. Similar:Thoughtful Gestures…

Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites? : Pharyngula

I’m looking forward to the publication next year of the discovery of an extraterrestrial rabbit in a meteor. While they’re at it, they might as well throw in a bigfoot print on the surface and chupacabra coprolite from space. All will be about as convincing as this story. Did scientists discover bacteria in meteorites? :…

Feeding a Neighbor’s Lambs

A neighbor invited us over to help feed the lambs they are raising in their garage. (The mother sheep died, and her lambs needed more care than the owners could manage.) The lambs are Piccolo and Brown Sugar. Similar:I’ve finally started to create female uniforms for the #neovictorian fantasy #steampunk æt…PersonalThoughtful Gestures Sometimes Speak Louder…

Students Looking for Course Pages

I’ve redesigned my site a little. If you are looking for a course website, please click the “Teaching” menu item. Similar:Crime coverage on Fox News halved once US midterms were over In the weeks leading up to the US midt…Current_EventsJames Comey: Trump won’t be removed. But we’ll be fine.Here’s an editorial by someone who feels…CultureAP…