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…
From the day he and his wife brought their son home five years ago, the family’s every movement and word was captured and tracked with a series of fisheye lenses in every room in their house. The purpose was to understand how we learn language, in context, through the words we hear. MIT Scientist Captures…
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:At the…
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? :…
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:Auditioning in Pittsbugh (flanked by shots from recent performances).CultureChecking out of @frontporchtheatricals Grand Hotel. What an experience!My…
Let’s see what the peer review process does to this claim. In what he calls “a very simple process,” Dr. Hoover fractured the meteorite stones under a sterile environment before examining the freshly broken surface with the standard tools of the scientist: a scanning-electron microscope and a field emission electron-scanning microscope, which allowed him to…
I’ve redesigned my site a little. If you are looking for a course website, please click the “Teaching” menu item. Similar:Stage Right spreads the gospel of music with 'Godspell'The Tribune-Review is very dependable in…Current_EventsWest Side Story to play out on Geyer Performing Arts Center stageCarolyn Jerz is playing the lead role of…CultureTopical Satire Is Not…
I’ve been blogging in a shadow location for a month, while trying to get the kinks out of the system. This site now uses the WPTouchPro plugin to deliver iPad and mobile-friendly versions. What do you think of the design? What do you think of the WordPress features? Similar:I sometimes snark at the @Turnitin interface,…
A Marion County judge has ruled, for the first time in Indiana, that news media outlets can be ordered by the court to reveal identifying information about posters to their online forums.
3/2/11 8:48:24 About to start livetweeting the musical #AnythingGoes. 3/2/11 8:51:09 Bing Crosby, Donald O’Connor. #AnythingGoes 3/2/11 8:51:56 I saw the Gonzaga High School production in the 80s. Haven’t seen is since. #AnythingGoes 3/2/11 8:52:58 Any excuse for a song. Plot? We don’t need no steenkin’ plot. #AnythingGoes Similar:Shutting the Door on the Hard-Knock LifeIn…
I detect no lack of seriousness or ambition in these students. They believe they are exceptionally well-educated. They have jumped expertly through every hoop put in front of them to be the top of their classes in our country’s best universities, and they have been lavishly praised for doing so. They seem so surprised when…
Practice scholarship interviews for tiger cubs typically close with the interviewee stating in frustration, “I didn’t know what answer you wanted.” She cannot imagine a question to which no ‘right’ answer exists and for which she therefore cannot prepare by memorizing it. I have to teach the cubs to answer based on what they know,…
When the smoke cleared, Key could see the American flag still aloft over Fort McHenry. “He was really taken when he saw the flag was still flying,” Kummerow says. “It was one of those incredible, magnetic moments.”Key wrote the poem that became The Star-Spangled Banner the night he was released, Kummerow says.”He obviously had it…
When the platform opened to everybody, Army Accessions Lt. Gen. Benjamin Freakley told the Belvoir Eagle, “Soldiers should join Army Strong Stories for a number of reasons. … Online and in the media, the negative stories are always given a platform. Soldiers, every one of us, have some of the best stories to tell.” The…
I finished reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn this afternoon. I had never read it before, but on its reputation as a wildly popular autiobiographical novel, i put it on my syllabus. I wanted something that would cover urban literature, class & gender, and also be a good test case for New Historicism. The last…
My blog title is from a comment on this story: The estate of JRR Tolkien is embroiled in a fierce legal battle over an American novel that uses the author of The Lord of the Rings as a central character. via JRR Tolkien novel Mirkwood in legal battle with author’s estate | Books | The…
I just subscribed to this guy’s YouTube channel. Similar:West Side Story — 50 Years AgoWhen West Side Story opened on Broadway …CultureBurgh to Burg, episode 2.AcademiaCopspeak, "the past exonerative" tense, and punching NazisIn the Constitution, any suspect is inno…CultureHere's some good writing from The New Yorker: "Seattle’s Leaders Let Scientists Take the L… If you…
What’s your favorite backchannel tool? A backchannel is a live electronic conversation that happens in the margins, while an event is taking place center stage. I really like the low entry barrier of TodaysMeet.com, but the auto-refresh does not work. Users must refresh manually. Further, TodaysMeet.com also shows an error message each time I post.…
If Apple forces the iOS Kindle app has to change to a Safari-based system (requiring web access) that would seriously damage the value of the ebooks I have purchased. Of course, that is part of Apple’s strategy, since Apple is not getting its cut of the income Amazon makes by selling books within the Kindke…
Somebody controls Facebook, and makes decisions about what Facebook will be like, and how Facebook will make money. Same goes for Twitter. Blogs are different, because no single company decides what blogs will be. Now that people who want to express themselves online have many different choices, and blogs are just the more writerly of…