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:"If It's Not Baroque, Don't Fix It" Cogsworth Broadway Supercuthttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx6t-pef…AmusingMy crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing my coding skil…AestheticsDonald Trump's chilling escalation of his war with the mediaA journalist’s response to President Tru…Current_Events'Jane Austen, Game Theorist' by Michael Suk-Young Chwe…

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:Tin Man (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 20) Sad telepath bonds with starshi…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….CulturePOV: You are coding the automatic doors on your fantasy neovictorian cruiser personal proj…  POV: You are…

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:Feature: History Lesson: the treasured past of LucasArts point and clicksI played more of the Sierra point-and-c…CultureMoving from Debate to EmpathyIn my freshman writing class, my…

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:My virtual army of grey capsules is just barely smart enough to follow my avatar around. #…My virtual army of grey capsules…

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…

Obama Warns Grads of iPad Perils

The Crackberry-addict-in-chief warns graduates about a bunch of different, non-Crackberry gadgets, that are bad, apparently because they aren’t Crackberries. “With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than…

The Marshmallow Challenge

The task is simple: in eighteen minutes, teams must build the tallest free-standing structure out of 20 sticks of spaghetti, one yard of tape, one yard of string, and one marshmallow. The marshmallow needs to be on top. —Marshmallow Challenge Kindergartners regularly beat business school graduates, in part because the suits spent time jockeying for…

Cognitive Bias Song

I spend a lot of time asking students to keep bias out of their writing, and I remind students that the adjectival form of “bias” is “biased.” But it occurs to me that I haven’t really spent that much time explaining what bias is, or talked about the numerous different ways that people can be…

Facebook's Latest "Zuck" Up

Facebook’s increasing breeches of user trust have even spawned a new term, “zuckering,” as in “That user-interface totally zuckered me into sharing 50 wedding photos,” inspired by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who once used private Facebook data to access email and other accounts of classmates while at Harvard. —NBC Bay Area Similar:"Look for the helpers"…