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:The Incredible Shrinking Ad [The Future Web Is Mobile]Is higher education ready for the switch…AcademiaBREAKING: British Burn Washington … 2 Centuries AgoTwo hundred years ago this week, during …AmusingDo you remember Harry Monster counting with adorable little John-John? Watch this 2 min cl…https://twitter.com/ValaAfshar/status/15…Amusing4 writing lessons from the comedy of Joan RiversAll writers can learn…
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:Something to Ponder — Let Me Fix That Meme For YouArtMany familiar faces in this cast but this one is my favorite. Sold out opening of Grand Ho…PersonalDelightful #steampunk #neovictorian control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #design #aesth…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsJury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentMy big acting moment in this…
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,…
That should be “Twenty-Five More” Similar:Journalists call out White House claims on terror reportingThe easily-disproved surface-level claim…CultureMy Polish grandmother used to bake these cookies, which my wife picked up at a Ukranian fe… My grandmother shaped …AestheticsSTEM Education Won't Solve the World's ProblemsI love STEM. My SAT score for math was e…AcademiaHow to Disagree Academically:…
If you like highlighing, you can pass on Google Books. The press coverage I’ve seen is mostly about how Google’s new ebook store will likely threatens Amazon, but Google’s reader software is just meh. All politics about Google’s digitization of library archives aside, I love the ready access to full-page scans from out-of-copyright titles. The…
Fascinating exploration of the relationship between official responses to torture and official responses to file-sharing, and possibly a useful way to introduce a big-picture concept (the issue of justice and its relationship to power) to students who have a strong opinions about the importance of their own file-sharing activities. [P]owerful perpetrators commonly use many or…
E-mail may not totally disappear, but experts say in five to 10 years, it may look far different than it does today. “Within five years, we think the questions about social networking versus e-mail will be largely moot, as the two elements will have been fused together,” said the report by Gartner analysts Matt Cain…
I give this article an 8/10. Oh, look over there, an explosion! Cool! “Well, personally I feel that gaming journalism needs a big shake up,” Walton said. “Much of the current ‘journalism’ consists of re-worded press releases. Essentially, the publishers have most of the power and control the flow of information to the press. Given…
Medill faculty members voted earlier this month in favor of changing the name of the Medill School of Journalism to “The Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications,” professors confirmed last week. The change, approved by a 38-5 vote, will now be sent to the Board of Trustees for approval this spring. Conversations about…
A bacterium discovered in a Californian lake appears to be able to use arsenic in its molecular make-up instead of phosphorus – even incorporating the toxic chemical into its DNA. That’s significant because it goes against the general rule that all terrestrial life depends on six elements: oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, sulphur and phosphorus. These…
What happens when an industry concerned with the production of culture is beholden to a company with the sole goal of underselling competitors? Amazon is indisputably the king of books, but the issue remains, as Charlie Winton, CEO of the independent publisher Counterpoint Press puts it, “what kind of king they’re going to be.” A…
It might be a stretch to call “The Poseidon Adventure” science fiction. It was part of the all-star disaster genre, thus giving Nielsen impeccable credentials when it came to his most famous movie roles, in the Airplane! series. I actually prefer his role in Forbidden Planet, but that’s just me. Nielsen along with co-star Anne…
Similar:Diamonds Are Bullsh*tI did propose with a diamond ring, for w…BusinessA 40sq cm section of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dartAestheticsSharing a root beer float with your dad doesn't fix everything that's wrong in the world, …AestheticsMore details in the powder room of my villain's lair. #Blender3DAestheticsHow it feels to watch a user test…
“Last week, his cousin announced on his Facebook wall that he was missing and asked everybody to contact her if we’d seen him,” my friend told me. “The next day she wrote that they’d found him, dead. Just like that.” We’re finally getting used to learning about our friends’ and acquaintances’ lives through Facebook. Will…
My entry in the IMDB, as viewed on my iPod Touch. Similar:As I was preparing to take this screenshot, two more papers came in.I still have odd jobs to tie up, but I’m…AcademiaTelevision is Now the Second Screen for Kids with TabletsOf course, not all kids have tablets, an…CultureMy Latest Classic Tales Online PurchaseJust finished…
The second and, sadly, last of Douglas Johnson’s play-a-day experiment. (The three open the box and rummage in it, and pull out shirts with the Starfleet insignia.) DARNELL: Mine’s blue! TOMLINSON: Mine’s yellow! RAYBURN: Mine’s red! (DARNELL and TOMLINSON cough uneasily, and sidestep away from RAYBURN.) RAYBURN: Oh, very good. Top notch observational comedy there,…
Journalists are coping with the rising information flood by borrowing data visualization techniques from computer scientists, researchers and artists. Some newsrooms are already beginning to retool their staffs and systems to prepare for a future in which data becomes a medium. But how do we communicate with data, how can traditional narratives be fused with…