Filing this for the next time a student proposes a paper that uses “The Yellow Wallpaper” to “prove” something about postpartum depression. Here’s Google’s Ngram for “postpartum depression, “rest cure” and “Yellow Wallpaper” from 1870-2000. Similar:Len Deighton’s Bomber, the first book ever written on a word processor.The talented and insightful scholar Matt…BooksU.S.S. Requin — Extended Tour…
In 2003, when I chose MovableType for a institutional weblog, WordPress was a plucky but under-powered alternative. Until very recently, WordPress was only able to manage a single blog per installation, which meant that each blog user would also be a blog administrator.  Since I was trying to form a blogging community, not training blog…
The grammar/punctuation flames from not-all-that-well-informed posters at the end of this article are quite interesting for he or she who likes such things. Four years ago, I wrote an essay for The Chronicle Review cataloging “The Seven Deadly Sins of Student Writers“–the errors and infelicities that cropped up most frequently in my students’ work. Since…
Great little story from robohara.com. This morning for Christmas, I got a box from Dad. Inside the box was a treasure chest. The treasure chest was wrapped twice with a chain, and the chain was fastened with a combination lock that uses letters instead of numbers. Also inside the box was this: A map. Similar:Inside…
I stayed up until the wee hours of the morning today, teaching myself something called “normal baking” in the computer modeling program Blender. I did it because I had nothing else pressing to do, I was too wound up to sleep, and too tired to do anything really productive. I wouldn’t say it was boring,…
Restricting access to content doesn’t work. Someone else’s content will get filtered and curated instead of yours. Scarcity is not a viable business model on the Internet. —Fred Wilson, AVC Similar:A Mind Forever Voyaging reviewWhen it comes to gameplay, A Mind Foreve…CybercultureWhy You Hate Google’s New LogoThe new logo retains the rainbow of colo…BusinessHow to…
The very last roll of Kodachrome film will be delivered today in Parsons, Kansas. Kodak has slowly phased out the materials needed to make and develop the film. Only a single operation in the world — Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons — had continued to develop Kodachrome. First introduced in 1935, the death of the film…
“We love to hear what kids think of our books, and this is a great way to see what they’re reacting to,” said Suzanne Murphy, vice president and publisher at Disney Book Group, one of two dozen publishing houses that send advance copies to the young Bethesda readers. The Bethesda group is one of 16…
For more than a century, writers have made the fabled pilgrimage to New York, offering their stories to publishing houses and dreaming of bound editions on bookstore shelves. Publishers had the power of the purse and the press. They doled out advances to writers they deemed worthy and paid the cost of printing, binding and…
0 Similar:Steve Strauss: Why I Hire English MajorsDoing things correctly earns you points …AcademiaYou're Doing It for the Exposure!! The Oatmeal on working for “exposure…BusinessDon’t patronize older adults by calling them ‘the elderly’In English grammar, we use the definite …CultureStudent: “Just wanted to let you know that your class has benefited me outside of just…
Similar:The Importance of Writing Skills in Tech-Related FieldsGood writing skills are valuable, even i…AcademiaLawsuit Against Warner/Chappell Music Claims Happy Birthday Belongs to Public Domain20 years ago, I chose for my dissertatio…AcademiaTook the whole day off and spent part of it making #greebles with #Blender3D because reaso…AestheticsFacebook Fallen Angel « AwkwardFamilyPhotos.c…AmusingWhy We Dug AtariGame collectors have…
As my 12-year-old son gets ready to surpass my six-foot height any day (his lip needs a third shave, but he’s apparently in no rush to graduate away from calling me “Daddy”) and as my 8-year-old navigates a peer community that includes mean girls and true friends, gallant young gentlemen (thank you, little boy who…
Hidden? Sure, but certainly not accidental. I didn’t notice it when I was a kid, but it sure jumped out at me when I watched the Schoolhouse Rock videos with my kids. And even small details are pro-girl. The nameless character who shows up in a mini-skirt and platforms in “Interjections!” is unbelievably excited not…
What’s a well-written, gripping, yet breezy novel (something that will engage students who would otherwise be distracted by late April weather)? A colleague has chosen The Virgin Suicides. What about The Secret Life of Bees? The Hunger Games? Little Brother? (Yes, I know Cory Doctorow is Canadian) I’ll likely need to trim some of these…
Beginning journalism students often need some practice giving the best lines to their sources. Here are the first two paragraphs in a story about missing tailgates. It’s just a routine story, but the writing makes it inviting and personal. Luke Himler said employees at Hollywood Cars near Greensburg were moving vehicles on the lot Saturday…
I have been reading a lot more in the past few years, in part due to the text-to-speech capabilities of my Kindle, in part due to the convenience of having a collection of Emily Dickinson poetry or a Sherlock Holmes anthology on my iPod Touch when I find myself in a line somewhere, and in…
Similar:Prepare for the Ultimate GaslightingThoughtful essay from Julio Vincent Gamb…BusinessI create five color variations of each #blender3d building I #design, and each of those ha…I create five color variations of each #…AestheticsWhen the Bough Breaks (TNG Rewatch: Season 1, Episode 16)Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CultureFacebook Ad Refreshes Interrupt the Composition ProcessSo I’m trying…
Fascinating discussion of the evolution (and violation) of the emerging blogosphere convention for citing links, in the late 90s. A few years ago, I was exploring what happened to the canonical first blogs, a short list of frequently updated web pages that Jesse James Garret identified as weblogs, and I mentioned in passing that I…
Similar:AnniePersonalHappy birthday to the son.PersonalMy buddy JTK helps me make a key point in my slideshow. #4c18 #b29Putting speaker notes on an iPad is alwa…Academia5 Fun Ways to Help Your Kids Learn Math OnlineMy son has finally found a math textbook…CybercultureAnother visit to downtown Pittsburgh with my history-loving son.CultureHi, I’m the St Joe’s basement…
Informative story of an entrepreneurial self-published author. We all dream that the publishers will do this work for us, but they won’t. So, budding novelists recovering from NaNoWriMo, take a break from sharpening up those HTML and blogging skills, and learn from John Sundman: So this is how it goes. I travel to the conference,…