Disney to buy Marvel in $4bn deal

Is your Spidey-sense tingling? Disney will take over ownership of 5,000 Marvel characters, such as Spider-Man and the X-Men.–BBC Similar:North Sea cod: Is it true there are only 100 left?A spokesperson for the Sunday Times told…BusinessGrappling with Genocide: Fostering Empathy and Engagement through Text and Image (NEH fund…Some of my amazing colleagues have colla…CultureChilling analysis…

Birdhouse: Existential Philosophy, Biology, Aesthetics, and Re-enactment of a Literary Entombment

Similar:Can the multiverse explain human history?Where did this idea of parallel universe…CultureUntil next term, I have zero more unmarked assignments. #fistpumpUntil next term, I have zero more unmark…AcademiaSpring and Fall, by Gerard Manley HopkinsMárgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldeng…AestheticsBag a Bot DayAt midnight tonight, participants in the…Current_EventsFBI admits flaws in hair analysis over decadesSo what…

Bill would give president emergency control of Internet

OMG! The prez is in ur internet, killin ur freedomz! The new version would allow the president to “declare a cybersecurity emergency” relating to “non-governmental” computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat. Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for “cybersecurity professionals,” and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in the…

Wikipedia Will Limit Changes on Articles About Living People

Although Wikipedia has prevented anonymous users from creating new articles for several years now, the new flagging system crosses a psychological Rubicon. It will divide Wikipedia’s contributors into two classes — experienced, trusted editors, and everyone else — altering Wikipedia’s implicit notion that everyone has an equal right to edit entries. That right was never…

Student writing is getting worse- or wait, it's getting better!

Wonderful stuff from Steven Krause. Representing the world champion, the “going to hell in a hand-basket,” the eternal the youth are getting worse and worse, and carrying on the tradition of complaining about students that dates back in western culture to at least Isocrates, I give you Stanley Fish’s “What Should Colleges Teach?” on his…

Idea to Implementation

I’ve been sitting on a particular interactive fiction work-in-progress for ten years. Ten years! Every so often I dust it off and add a little more, but I still haven’t finished the chore of converting it from Inform 6 to Inform 7.  And while hiding from this project, I went and released a different project…

Auto-Tune the News #7

People on the road can turn an LOL into a great big O-M-G. — Katie Couric, advocating a “designated texter.” Similar:How journalists can prep for a possible violent eventJournalists face a unique threat when co…CultureAP reporter’s mistake: Did the punishment fit the crime? Reporters have been sometimes fired …EthicsAnd so it begins: the unmarked assignments…