I didn’t watch the game, but I did catch the buzz about this ad. Yes, I did tear up. (Wired has details.) Similar:As part of an ongoing feud over the rights to use a particular shade of ultra-black paint,…As part of an ongoing bid to get his han…AestheticsI'd love to do a shift at these…
It is dangerous to use local weather events (such as a heavy or light winter) to make judgments about global climate. With that caveat, I’m blogging the following because I’ve noted a shift in the online discussion about “global warming,” or the more general “climate change”. This essay does a good job exploring the events…
Coming up… we’ll tell you whether you’ll be impaled by sharp, radioactive icicles hurled by mobs of rampaging robots in your neighborhood. But first, people panicking, filling up three shopping carts of toilet paper and canned food. Hear the techno-pop pulse of our theme music, and know that you’re being conditioned to think of us…
Here’s hoping I left gas in the snow-thrower. Similar:When you see a show alone often you can get really good seats. Idaspe @quantumtheatreCultureAnother day, another 10 square centimeters of #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blende…AestheticsPompeii artifacts at the Carnegie Science Center The lighting was very low, so the phot…AestheticsNASA! Mars!! Panorama!!! Video!!!! Audio!!!!!New video from NASA’s…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:When Robert Pinsky Wrote a Video Game[F]or a brief time in the mid-nineteen-e…CultureBooks vs. Kindles: The Choice No One Made Ever”I bought a Kindle. I didn’t immediately…BooksCopper Destroys Viruses and Bacteria. Why Isn’t It Everywhere? Copper is antimicrobial. It kills ba…DesignChallenger Disaster: 30 YearsI was a high…
Our first few readings in my freshman writing course were personal essays, with a clear narrative. We read an academic paper today, and there’s another assigned for Friday. A few students are already reporting feeling a little lost in the detail. I gather this is because they are used to reading textbooks, where all the…
I wish I’d seen this a few weeks ago, before my Video Game Culture and Theory class ended, but it’s still a welcome find. Similar:Pater Noster Passenger ElevatorsSome 50 years ago, my father took me to …AmusingReal college classes have writing assignments and required reading.While I can imagine teaching a course th…AcademiaUrsula K. Le Guin:…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:That gut-wrenching photo of immigrant children in a cage? First published in 2014.Don’t blame “the media” for using this p…CultureTom Bissell writes a letter to Niko Bellic about Grand Theft Auto VI haven’t played GTAV, and probably neve…CultureAdding a media project to a semester-long paper assignment is like…
“One of the deepest questions in this field,” Nass says, “is whether media multitasking is driven by a desire for new information or by an avoidance of existing information. Are people in these settings multitasking because the other media are alluring–that is, they’re really dying to play Freecell or read Facebook or shop on eBay–or…
I know, I know: Amazon relied on those $9.99 prices to give it a head start in the digital books market. And raising prices to the $12.99 to $14.99 being talked about could certainly slow sales if consumers don’t bite. But here’s the thing: it’s not as if Macmillan is only raising prices for Kindle.…
I usually carry a digital voice recorder with me. In most states it’s legal to record a conversation if all parties consent, although Pennsylvania law requires that all parties to a conversation be notified that a conversation is being recorded. “It is always legal to tape or film a face-to-face interview when your recorder or…
For the one-credit journalism class that I teach every semester, I’m teaching a unit on editorial writing. Students will take a leisurely 10-chapter journey through Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace. It’s the first time I’ve taught a whole unit focusing on sentence-level phrasing. The class meets once a week, for just one hour,…
I’ve sometimes pointed out to my students that in my generation, graduating from high school and leaving your peers behind to go to college mostly meant that you were saying goodbye. Since then, I have gotten back in touch with a couple dozen high school friends, and even some elementary school friends (including the smartest…
Personal comment, with embedded links to recent postings indicating that I’ve actually had independent thoughts about this issue and I really do have something to contribute other than just reposting something that I found on BoingBoing. A brief quote from something noteworthy or controversial, offering an opinion and inviting readers to comment. Similar:Enjoying my "Dystopia…
Studying the faked predictions was more fun than finding out the actual gadget. I’m very interested in seeing how this shakes up the competition, but I’m not going to be one of the early adopters. Plato’s Phaedrus tells the story of Theuth, inventor of the alphabet. The god Thamos said, “O most ingenious Theuth, the…
As a kid growing up in Fairfax County, just a commute away from Washington D.C., I remember often looking out the window of the family car and seeing a statute of a huge dog cocking its head at a phonograph machine. Washington Post Here we see the sculpture on top of a museum roof in…
Interesting use of pseudo-Arabian exotica that Edison used in order to communicate to the public of 1905 just what his cylinder phonographs could do, likening them to rings to place on the finger of a musical genie. “Wouldst thou have melody? Place thy ring upon my finger and I will sing for thee a tender…
I have not been ravenously following the streamed coverage of the iPad release, but I did note that the NYT was the first site Jobs presented during the demo. I really hope someone from Improv Everywhere runs up the center aisle, whirling a hammer around her head. It’s very significant, of course, that Apple is…
With its six wheels stuck in powdery sand and two wheels no longer working, the resilient little explorer will become a fixed, immobile scientific observatory — if it can survive the harsh temperatures of the upcoming winter. —LA Times Similar:There, in my morning snapshot of the kids home-schooling in the kitchen, is the cable I…
While the Bible does present Jesus as being able to read, and there is a story of Jesus drawing something unspecified in the dirt, the first followers of Jesus lived in an oral culture. The Gospel of Luke begins thus, identifying to the difference between oral culture and print culture: Since many have undertaken to…