I’m fine-tuning my WordPress multisite blog installation. A blog is designed to look into the past, not the future. While it was a simple matter to turn MovableType into a rudimentary course management system by simply post-dating blog entries, WordPress goes out of its way to hide future content. I use the plugin “No Future…
My kids really enjoy the classes they take at Stage Right, a performing arts school in Greensburg. Its first class opened in 1998 with 12 students. Now the studio in Greensburg has as many as 180 students at a time, stages several student productions a year and has a professional season in which students work…
When the Huffington Post launched in 2005, I wondered, “What will be the contributions of a large bunch of people, who could have blogged on their own if they wanted to, but were motivated to do so by the Arianna Huffington brand name?” On launch day, Many of the celebrities-turned-writers wrote initial entries that amounted…
Respecting the privacy of an employee who is the victim of a heinous crime is a laudable motive. And using the criminal actions of some small part of the crowd to characterize the whole crowd is irresponsible. Still, CBS News knew of a public sexual assault in the wake of Mubarak’s downfall, yet its reporters…
Life is too short to muck about with electronic news sources that don’t let me save text, email annotations, and blog excerpts. I can understand restricting the free stuff that’s given away on web sites, but punishing paid subscribers by taking away the flexibility and mash-up-ability of etext? This is all rather amusing, not unlike…
The Great Gatsby for NES. Similar:NASA Calls It A Mission As Curiosity Rover Fills Up Whole 2-Gigabyte Memory CardMore great satire from The Onion. PASAD…AmusingAcademics want to preserve video games. The game industry is fighting them in court.For decades, champions of the video game…BusinessThe Staying Power of "A Christmas Carol" — Dennis Jerz, for WAOB…
That whole thing should be a link — the underlining shouldn’t stop at the tilde. Similar:The Writer Will Do Something by Matthew S. BurnsA hypertext choose-your-own adventure na…CybercultureFun With Charts: Scale MattersAt first glance, this chart makes it loo…CultureOminous Darkness Descending On Webpage Portends Grim Age Of Autoplaying Ad To ComeFortune’s fool, I wagered I…
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:''The Balloon…
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:It was Mrs. White with the…
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:Leveling up my skills in #blender3D. Using invisible shapes to cut holes …DesignOverwhelmed? Start a new to-do list with "1) Breathe; 2) Make 'to-do' list"…
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:Day of Dennis Jerz » Today, a Hand-written Letter about a Stack of Books Trumped a Databas…My first contribution to the Day of Digi…AcademiaNew handout: "The Shape of an Academic Paper"I’ve given an in-class presentation on “…AcademiaPrice History Chart…
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:#setonhill remembers 9/11/2001.AcademiaA quick primer on semicolonsIs your Sunday feeling incomplete becaus…CultureThe girl will be performing as the Dew Drop Fairy in the…