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:The 1931 Histomap: The entire history of the world distilled into a single map/chart.This “Histomap,” created by John B. Spar…AestheticsThe Supreme Court could soon change the internet forever — here’s what you need to know There’s a…

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

Similar:Carolyn appears as homeschooled teenager "Carolyn." Free holiday show Tuesday at 7. PersonalEvery family has one.PersonalTrump, Obama seem equally disinterested in portrait unveiling — but journalism takes hits…On social media recently I saw people mo…AestheticsChecking sources back in 2006 involved using this *steampunk* contraption.Research Before Google Books AcademiaAlex and Carolyn rehearse for “The King and I”…

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 Facebook and Twitter control what you see about FergusonOn Twitter, I see tear-gassed civilians,…CultureGirlhood 2014They don’t even seem to want to watch Fr…CultureCrying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship EverI’ve felt a…