Google’s FastFlip is the newest media toy. The service is meant to duplicate the look and feel of perusing a printed publication. The stories are displayed on electronic pages that can be quickly scrolled through by clicking on large arrows on the side instead of a standard Web link that requires waiting several seconds for…
In his Inside Higher Ed blog, Joshua Kim writes: A transformative step that learning technologists can participate in proposing, pushing, guiding, leading, managing and maintaining would be providing a campus-wide blogging platform and institutional aggregation site. Here are some guidelines for what this could look like… Here is the text of a comment I posted:…
I’m not sure many people really care that today marks the 10th anniversary of the date that the moon was supposed to have blasted out of Earth’s orbit in the British sci-fi show Space: 1999, but here’s a YouTube clip that presents an alternate opening of Star Trek, redone in the style of Space: 1999.…
Factual errors in live TV reports led to a security incident on the Potomac river today. Erroneous live cable news reports on CNN and Fox had said that the Coast Guard was firing shots on the river. CNN reported the Coast Guard had fired 10 rounds at a suspicious boat, and showed vessels circling in…
Assistant Professor of Composition/English Institution: Seton Hill UniversityLocation: Greensburg, PACategory: Faculty – Liberal Arts – English and LiteraturePosted: 09/09/2009Application Due: 11/13/2009Type: Full TimeNotes: included on Affirmative Action emailSeton Hill University seeks specialist in Composition/Writing Studies for tenure-track, Assistant Professor of English, beginning fall 2010. The faculty member will teach composition and related courses in the…
The Seton Hill registrar describes how her devotion to mathematics and logic has helped her serve her community. “Nearly everything I need to know, and that I currently believe, I think I’ve learned at school board meetings…. I’ve survived seven elections, I’ve been beaten up by the press, made deep friendships and bitter enemies. I’ve…
For anyone who’s ever forgotten something or someone they wish they could remember, a bit of solace: Though the memory is hidden from your conscious mind, it might not be gone. —Wired Similar:Code is not literatureA literate programmer describes his atte…CybercultureOn Night, Darkness & the PastWhen we banish the dark, what do we lose…AestheticsMy 10yo…
U.S. citizens will soon be able to log in to government websites using their Google account, or the URL of their Yahoo profile. It’s a significant embrace of the open and emerging tech standards the Obama administration promised. —Wired Similar:Programming as Magic Spells in Erica Sandbothe's New NovelIn her new novel, Codecrafter, Sandbothe…BooksCarnegie Science Center's…
Not as cleverly written as that video that has a line or two about each U.S. president (which I can’t locate at the moment) but still very nicely done. Similar:We Need to Talk about the Burgeoning Robot Middle ClassMaybe it’s not the super-robots we need …BusinessMicrosoft is once again asking Chrome users to try Bing…
From the president’s prepared remarks to school children, scheduled for tomorrow. Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide. Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe…
A team of scientists from Britain, the United States and Papua New Guinea found more than 40 previously unidentified species when they climbed into the kilometre-deep crater of Mount Bosavi and explored a pristine jungle habitat teeming with life that has evolved in isolation since the volcano last erupted 200,000 years ago. In a remarkably…
Top-down grading by the prof turns learning (which should be a deep pleasure, setting up for a lifetime of curiosity) into a crass competition: how do I snag the highest grade for the least amount of work? how do I give the prof what she wants so I can get the A that I need…
I remember some years ago reading an article that used a similar strategy to describe exactly what it would feel like to stand on Mars. One of things Ford wasn’t ready for is the weird smell. “From the [spacewalks] there really is a distinct smell of space when they come back in,” Ford said from…
In many ways, the Times’ blogs are no different from anyone else’s. But there’s one organizational trick they employ very effectively: Division of Labor. Times bloggers don’t work on their own. They don’t handle every aspect of their blogs. Who does what is divided up to bring specific expertise to bear on different parts of…
“Just make sure that you spell everything wrong and swear a lot.” Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids Similar:Enjoy the showmanship as a 94yo woman performs in a dance competition.https://youtu.be/8LOdmka4_90AestheticsAdventure | T.M. CampGreat story of nerdiness and discovery a…CybercultureHow Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled”I remember the…
The economic reality of working in journalism in the present economy: good people are losing their jobs. For the past several years, largely as a result of free news and classifieds on the Internet, ad revenues and circulation have been sinking for newspapers nationwide. Sun management and their bosses at the Chicago-based Tribune Company, which owns the paper, have…
Clever DVD Verdict review (written by recent SHU graduate Mike Rubino) DM: You pick up Dungeons & Dragons: The Animated Series, and find that it is lighter than expected. Your nostalgia level receives a +5 for the next nine hours and 54 minutes. (Thanks for the link, Josh.) Similar:Dissecting a Frog: How to Write a…
“The more dependent we allow ourselves to become to something like Facebook — and Facebook does everything in its power to make you more dependent — the more Facebook can and does abuse us,” Harmsen explained by indignant e-mail. “It is not ‘your’ Facebook profile. It is Facebook’s profile about you.” — Virginia Heffernan, New…
In 1970, the gap between shows featuring magic and shows featuring more science-based themes is fairly wide, which may be related to the relative cost of producing the different types of shows; Captain Kirk required pricey sets and a makeup crew while Samantha Stevens just needed a film editor and the ability to wiggle her…
If this were a Monday, I might have had my “News Writing” students watch it during class, since many of them are education majors (and a fair number of them admitted they were only in the class because their teaching certificate program requires the course). This is the first time an American president has spoken…