The Great Gatsby for NES. Similar:Liking Everything He Saw on Facebook for 24 Hours Turned Him Into a Marketing MachineI like everything. Or at least I did, fo…BusinessScript: Prospero Makes a Circle on the Beach. Scene Designer: "How?"I was amused by this little note on the …Amusing80 Days review80 Days was my go-to game over…
That whole thing should be a link — the underlining shouldn’t stop at the tilde. Similar:Journalism by the Numbers (a pedagogical play in one scene) #math (Lights up on a college journa…CultureLoved part 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest (live videoconference play from @ThePublic…AmusingMy journalism students just gave me this wristband: "What would Jerz…
To meet Apple’s guidelines, Amazon must remove its “Shop in Kindle Store” link from its Kindle application. That link, which opens the iOS browser and displays Amazons Web-based e-bookstore, is currently the easiest way for Kindle app users to purchase new books. via Apples new App Store rules affect Amazons Kindle – Computerworld. Similar:4 writing…
Quick Cite, which costs 99 cents and is available for both iPhones and Android-based phones, uses the camera on a smartphone to scan the bar code on the back of a book. It then e-mails you a bibliography-ready citation in one of four popular styles—APA, MLA, Chigaco, or IEEE. via Smartphone App Makes Book Citations…
While there’s an instrumental theme from Civilization III that’s even catchier, I was happy to run into an old friend. For the first time ever, a music score from a video game has won a Grammy Award, as Christopher Tin’s “Baba Yetu” from Civilization IV won the Grammy for “Best Instrumental Arrangement Accompanying Vocalist(s)”. While…
I think we make a huge error of judgment if we assume that just because a 14 year old takes a lot of photos with their phone and sends 300+ texts a month that they have some sort of innate “native” status. We seem to assume that because they use tools like Google to find…
The shipwreck lies off French Frigate Shoals in the blue waters of Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii. Melville completed “Moby-Dick” in 1851, drawing on an Essex crew member’s account of the remarkable event. The twice-cursed Pollard retired from whaling, became a watchman and lived to be almost 80. Melville met him in Nantucket shortly…
In this photo from the front page of today’s Latrobe Bulletin, my daughter explains her “Endangered Art” science project for the judges. She created numerous identical paintings, kept a control in a safe place, and exposed the others to various threats (sunlight, temperature change, the grubby fingers of children). Similar:Bad Doggy — practicing "Tomorrow" with…
I’ve heard very little about the Borders Kobo e-reader, probably because I was a fairly early adopter of the Kindle (with my school library having purchased a first-generation Kindle, and my school providing me with a Kindle DX) and also because of the role the iPad has taken at my school. We do shop at…
I recently learned that my kids have the habit of turning this hectopus (a toy they’ve each played with since babyhood) away from the screen when they play Half-Life 2. Similar:80 Days: "1872, with a steampunk twist. Phileas Fogg has wagered he can circumnavigate the…I stayed up way too late last night play…CybercultureStories from the…
The F. Scott Fitzgerald story “Head and Shoulders” features this unfamiliar phrase, spoken by a young actress who, through an unimportant plot contrivance, invades the study of a bookish progeny: “I knew a girl,” said Marcia reminiscently, “who went on the ten-twenty-thirty when she was sixteen. She was so stuck on herself that she could…
Tomorrow I will be teaching some Harlem Renaissance poets in my American Literature class, so this reflection on the function of poetry is welcome and timely. Poems are first and foremost to be experienced—sensually, imaginatively. Of course, learning more about form and structure, the words and historical contexts of a poem may make that experience…
It’s comforting to know that I’m not alone. Like many writing teachers, I put a lot of effort into asking students to integrate their quotations, but being a logos kind of guy, I emphasize the efficiency of MLA style. From the ethos perspective, I point out that college asks for a different, more concise pattern,…
I threw a muscle in my shoulder while furiously blogging a record of a committee meeting. Similar:What the ‘Grievance Studies’ Hoax Means As the hoaxers explained in Areo, they …AcademiaWriting, Coding and Education: Why They MatterBack in my grad school days, I was calle…AcademiaA Message from Hester Prynne (Student Video)Have I mentioned lately that I have awes…AcademiaI'm Gradually Losing My…
A happy apple cyclops, with a marshmallow eye and banana teeth. My daughter’s creation. Update, 12 Feb: Carolyn, noting the condition of her apple creation, asked for “a good-bye picture of Poli-yumyum.” Similar:Monument Valley: Minimal story, but an engaging world and a satisfying ending.I was in no rush to finish the beautiful…AestheticsPR Pop Quiz: Intro…
This term, I teach two sections of “Seminar in Thinking and Writing,” the second course in our two-course freshman writing sequence. My sections both meet MWF, nicely bookending my lunch break. Since Seton Hill usually schedules committee meetings for Tue/Th, that means on MWF I usually have nothing else to do but prepare for, and…
Looking forward to a good discussion of a complex story. via Fitzgerald, “The Ice Palace”. Similar:One of my undergrad lit papers. Dot-matrix printed, with hand-written instructor annotatio…AcademiaAdvising incoming majors.AcademiaThe Girl Wins the Upper Division Monologue in the 25th Annual Pittsburgh Public Theatre's …CultureNew NASA Astronaut Wrote a Limerick to Get Hired “There was a lot…
I work so closely with words that I sometimes have to force myself to remember that there are other ways to learn. I saw a DVD of Annie Get Your Gun for the first time, and was sort of struck by the lines sung by the backwoods sharpshooter, “Folks are dumb, where I come from,…
An unexpected and unwanted text message from a wireless company prematurely exploded a would-be suicide bomber’s vest bomb in Russia New Year’s Eve, inadvertently thwarting a planned attack on revelers in Moscow, according to The Daily Telegraph. via Would-Be Suicide Bomber Killed by Unexpected SMS From Mobile Carrier | Threat Level | Wired.com. Similar:Actually, this…
#BuckRodgers was fun. Looks like The Music Man is next. Shirley Jones, Robert Preston, Buddy Hackett.#TheMusicMan Cash for the merchandise, cash for the button hooks… Love the traveling salesman opening number. #TheMusicMan It’s like rap, but it’s white guys rhyming about credit and sales territories. #TheMusicMan Hats! Hats and bow ties. Go ahead, surprised and angry salesmen,…