Aja Hannah's Dinosaur Dig Chronicle

One of my students, who is double-majoring in new media journalism and creative writing, is spending a few weeks on a dinosaur dig in Wyoming. She’s turned her academic blog into a travel journal. So far she has written: Thermopolis in Black and White What’s in my Dino Pack? dinoTravel Time dinoTaxi-ing dinoTravel I like…

New British Petroleum Logo?

http://i.imgur.com/P0qkj.jpg Via Jason Scott’s Facebook page. Similar:Bias is a noun.  CultureI MacGyvered myself a heat sinkI’m getting ready to record about 18hrs …DesignNo I didn’t exactly *plan* to spend my Sunday evening tweaking the pedestrian access to th…AestheticsTrying something a bit different for today's 10 sq cm of #steampunk #blender3d control pan…AestheticsBroken on Purpose: Why…

The Humanities Go Google

Authors and publishers have besieged Google’s plan to digitize the world’s books, accusing the company of copyright infringement. The legal limbo that has tied up a settlement of their lawsuits is hanging a question mark over universities’ plans to build centers for research on the books Google scanned from their libraries. Another complication: Worrisome questions…

Pardon my micro-textual emotional leakages

“We’re trying to detect a crime before it has occurred.” OK, roll the sci-fi thriller “Minority Report,” in which Tom Cruise and other “pre-crime” cops use psychic visions to arrest murderers before they kill. Or maybe “The Men Who Stare at Goats,” a George Clooney comedy inspired by real military experiments with supposedly psychic soldiers.…

eBook Readers in a Literature Class: Reflections on Kindle DX, Kindle for iPad, iBook for iPad

I’ve been using a Kindle DX for about a year, and an iPad for about a month, with both Amazon’s Kindle app and Apple’s iBook app.  (Update, June 2: I posted about the Barnes & Noble iPad app, as well.) I’m excited that all full-time SHU students will have iPads next year, though I’m frustrated that…

ProfHacker on Evernote

Reblogging this excellent set of ProfHacker productivity tips on Evernote. Similar:Theory Trading CardsThis set of 21 Theory Trading Cards, pub…AcademiaWhy It’s So Hard For Foley Artists To Make Footstep SoundsAccording to Foley artist Stefan Fratice…AestheticsElementary, Dear Data (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 3) When a holodeck bet spawns a fict…Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…AmusingThirteen…

Copernicus

After hearing that the 16th-century astronomer Copernicus was to be reburied with honors in a Polish ceremony, I checked the Wikipedia entry. Woah! Among the great polymaths of the Renaissance, Copernicus was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot, classical scholar, translator, artist,[3] Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Among his many responsibilities,…

We Think in Public

Using my iPad, I can’t seem to copy and paste an excerpt, so I’ll just recommend Ian Bogost’s essay. http://www.bogost.com/writing/we_think_in_public_1.shtml Similar:The Pope's Prayer for Countering "Fake News"Today is the feast of St. Francis de Sal…CultureI love my students enough to teach them the difference between passive voice and past tens…If a goggles-for-brains Lego character c…EducationNASA…

Things That Made Me Put Down My iPad This Weekend

Attending a memorial service for my wife’s aunt, Julia Young, whose backyard and swimming pool were the heart of my wife’s extended family. Visiting Bushy Run Battlefield with the family. My daughter falling in love with the Drawing Pad app, which costs about as much as a package of cheap markers. Waking up Sunday morning…

First day with an iPad

I’m still learning the quirks of the iPad, which has turned out to be mostly fascinating, and a little frustrating. Mike Arnzen sent me a link to Jakob Nielsen’s recent column on iPad usability. Yes, the iPad works intuitively, but each designer’s intuition is just a little different. With my brand new gadget, I don’t…

Diaspora

I just donated the cost of a cafeteria meal. I’d rather have my stomach be grumbling a little over a missed lunch than sick over the latest Facebook shenanigan. Similar:The Xplor Store: The Forgotten Carnegie Science Center Exhibit? (Guest Post by Leigh Jerz…The other day, my wife suggested a Carne…BooksTeaching with iPads: Motivation, Inspiration and…

THERE ARE MANY COINS HERE!

Jason Scott continues teasing us all as we await the delivery of Get Lamp (and the inventory of goodies to be found within). Coin 0001 is about to be shipped to Don Woods. Similar:Finland's Museum of Contemporary EmotionsA history of the beginning of the pandem…AestheticsIn October, 2000, I was blogging about bobbed hair, Woolf, a…

How to Save the News

Burdened as they are with these “legacy” print costs, newspapers typically spend about 15 percent of their revenue on what, to the Internet world, are their only valuable assets: the people who report, analyze, and edit the news. Varian cited a study by the industry analyst Harold Vogel showing that the figure might reach 35…

The Random Pulp Science Fiction Title Generator from Cornelius Zappencackler’s DERANGE-O-LAB

From Thrilling Tales (where the future is retro). Ambushed in the Unknowable Vacuum Tube Preserved in the Ultimate Star The Women of Pohl’s Meteors The Satellite from the Equation Hovering Artifact The Poisonous Cat of Space The Comet of Gernsback’s Pool Captives of the Eldritch Behemoth Creature that Blasted Phobos Men of the Unlikely Doctor…