Transformation of e-mail is under way

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…

Abandoned Six Flags New Orleans Tour

  Similar:The Fantasticks (Oct 18-27, Theatre Factory)  https://youtu.be/SYp1jQaSwjo …CultureIf you like bloody, singing, punning demons you will love this show.If you like bloody, singing, punning dem…AmusingThe Mom From The Cat in the Hat Finally SpeaksAs a toddler, my son once methodically s…AmusingCredible case that a lost Shakespeare sonnet has been identified A dedication in the…

Dying on Facebook

“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…

Vanity Post

My entry in the IMDB, as viewed on my iPod Touch. Similar:Excessive Copyright Strikes Again in 2016Current US law extends copyright for 70 …BusinessTeaching Composition with Interactive FictionI’m on a committee that is exploring a m…AcademiaYou don’t hate millennials. You hate 21st-century technology.A favorite observation about millennials…CultureThe daughter is performing now Twin Lakes Park.The daughter…

Uniforms

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,…

Writing with the iPad

Seton Hill English major Theresa Conley describes capturing poetry inspiration with her iPad, and my colleague Laura Patterson describes how she uses the iPad to help students plan their writing. From a collection of clips on the website iPad on the HIll.   Similar:Okay, please stop droolingIt perfectly pulls together four importa…CybercultureDr. Bobby Teaches Ferris…

Writing in the Age of Distraction

There is never perfect silence, or happiness. Until my kids have gone to college and are out of the house, I will never get a full weekend of unbroken time to concentrate on writing (or reading, or coding, or whatever). I used to be able to bang out a blog entry or mark a few…

Livetweeting Buck Rogers: Planet of the Slave Girls

Soon I’ll start livetweeting the first episode of the 1970s #BuckRogers series. I livetweeted the series-opening movie a few weeks ago.http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/2010/10/livetweeting_the_1970s_buck_ro_1/ Remote battery died. Crisis! #BuckRogers Planet of the Slave Girls. Clearly they are going for high concept SF. Still, Buster Crabbe and was that Jack Palance? #BuckRogers Nameless, sweaty extra under attack by pirates……

Interactive Fiction Projects

Recently I noticed a cluster of student blogs on interactive fiction. Interactive Fiction: Literature or Not? My Experiences with Interactive Fiction IF Can Be Quite the Process Similar:Move Along Home (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 10) Hopscotch Cringe Shenanigan…Rewatching ST:DS9 I was kind of dread…CultureDear Jacksonfish.com: Please contact me to discuss your plans for…

blender.org – Blender 2.55 beta

Must… mark papers… must resist downloading Blender 2.55. The Blender Foundation and online developer community is proud to present Blender 2.55 Beta. This release is the third official beta release of the Blender 2.5 series, representing the culmination of many years of redesign and development work. This version is called a “Beta” because it’s now…

Preparing my Pre-teen Readers

I vividly remember the day I got bored with the juvenile section of the library. I had read all the Encyclopedia Brown books, all the Lester Del Rey books (about moon rocket pilots and such), and the entire shelf of astronomy books. Walking around the corner to the adult stacks was a powerful epiphany. (For…

Group Work that Works (Even in Large Classes!) – ProfHacker – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Bottom line: effective group assignments do not require students to collectively author a paper or make a presentation. Writing and presenting are often individual tasks, and charging a group with these tasks, without special guidance on how to perform them, is to set up yourself (and your students) up for frustration and mediocrity. On the…