About – The Great Gatsby for NES

The Great Gatsby for NES. Similar:The grandmaster diet: How to lose weight while barely movingFascinating article about how the extrem…CultureIn January 2000, I was blogging about dancing paperclips, the transience of literary judge… In January 2000, I was blogging abou…BooksWhy Tetris is the 'perfect' video gameRather than wanting to make a film about…AestheticsModular low-poly medieval…

Bother (a minor Turnitin.com grademark bug)

That whole thing should be a link — the underlining shouldn’t stop at the tilde. Similar:IN-ZOOM (A world-premiere 10-minute play)A very current short play by Bill Irwin….CultureTwitter changes strategy in battle against internet 'trolls'Reducing the reach of abusive tweets is …BusinessA Liberal-Arts Education for Business MajorsThe world needs well-rounded leaders. A …AcademiaYes, it's happening here…

Civilization IV song wins Grammy Award

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…

Shipwreck that inspired Melville’s Moby-Dick found

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…

Science Fair Victory

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:How We ReadI feel a little…

Discretion in First-Person Shooters

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:Gil Gerard (1943-2025) I built a model of the two-pronged Sta…CultureThe Pointlessness of UnpluggingWhat sex was for the Puritans, technolog…Current_EventsStop trying to figure out if…

On the Ten Twenty Thirty

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…

Poetry, the First Milk

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…

How To Get Students To Integrate Quotations

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,…

Liveblogging Injury

I threw a muscle in my shoulder while furiously blogging a record of a committee meeting. Similar:Liberal Arts Majors Are the Future of the Tech IndustryMy sister the computer programmer benefi…AcademiaBottled Authors: the predigital dream of the audiobookThere was no way to preserve sounds befo…AcademiaChoiceScript tutorial for making casual, phone-friendly, stats-driven storygames. Choice o… https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis…AcademiaI…

Apple Cyclops

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:They Smiled Too!Victorians had to stay still for 3 secon…AestheticsMore Adventures in Suburban AdultingAbout four years ago I bought an electri…CultureSpring 2023 Grades:…

Remediate a slideshow via whiteboard? When the techno-awesome video projector won’t start, I draw the line.

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…

Glad to see so many thoughtful responses.

Looking forward to a good discussion of a complex story. via Fitzgerald, “The Ice Palace”. Similar:Ma Rainey's Black Bottom ( #AugustWilson #CenturyCycle, 3 of 10)August Wilson’s Century Cycle > …BooksTo meme, or not to meme.AestheticsI had a grand time recording this little story about a misunderstood genius who just wants… The Cask of Amotillado (read by…

Learning Beyond Words

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,…