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:What happens to local news when there is no local media to cover it?The pressures on local news outlets have…CultureFie upon your multi-page, ad-stuffed crapfest of shame. (Don't click!)What I wrote is not actually a list,…

Radio News Delivery: How to Sound Like a Radio Broadcaster

Listen to a short news broadcast, such as the NPR Hourly News Summary. These stories will typically include audio clips from newsmakers, and perhaps the noise of crowds or nature. But we’re just focusing on the sound of the radio journalist’s voice. Don’t try to sound like “an announcer.”  Forget the barking style of voice that radio announcers always…

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

Similar:The Outsiders — four sold-out weekday matinees; four more performances this weekend So proud of my talented, hard-working …BooksEnjoying live theater.The Illustrious Invalid. @kinetictheatre_pghPersonalPrime Stage Theatre to end 2018-2019 season with Shakespeare comedy Twelfth Night, May 3–1…2019 Pittsburgh Public Theater Shakespea…CultureThat’s water under the bridge! Crowds of NPCs charge across, sweeping the player along. G…That’s…

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:FCC Approves Net Neutrality Rules For 'Open Internet'Verizon and Comcast lobbyists hang their…Business‘Unexpected item’: how self-checkouts failed to live up to their promiseBusinesses still fret over these issues,…BusinessWhy You Hate Google’s New LogoThe new logo…