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…
As US newspaper publishers mull charging readers on the Web, a Pennsylvania daily announced plans on Monday to put some content behind a pay wall. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette said “PG+” would be a “members-only website with interactive features and exclusive content” available to subscribers for 36 dollars a year or for 3.99 dollars a month.…
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 girl rehearsing as Babette in Stage Right's Beauty and the BeastCarolyn rehearses with Nick Lenz. Her sh…Current_EventsThis 8-Year-Old Chess Champion Will Make You SmileIn a homeless shelter in Manhattan, an 8…CultureBlender 2.8 Released. Please leave…
A technology win from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: Rather and Potter emptied the victim’s pockets of his cell phone and wallet and told the victim to “get out of here,” police said. The victim ran off while Rather and Potter headed toward Fifth Avenue, police said. When officers showed up at the victim’s home, he was…
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…
Similar:Seeing Floyd Collins, a musical about caving and journalism. Front Porch Theatricals.PersonalThe ballroom of my #steampunk fantasy space cruiser is now a less lonely place. Thanks to watching many, many YouTub…AestheticsThere's No Substitute for FictionWhat do Peskin and Astington recommend f…BooksParchmap – Interactive Fiction with automapping, autocomplete, navigation, note taking, an…Parchmap is a wonderful expansion…
[L]ast fall, for the first time in 15 years, Ms. McNeill, 42, did not assign “Mockingbird” — or any novel. Instead she turned over all the decisions about which books to read to the students in her seventh- and eighth-grade English classes at Jonesboro Middle School in this south Atlanta suburb. Among their choices: James…
I’ve long been annoyed by the fact that Verizon hijacks my URL typos and sends me to its own lame search service. The opt-out instructions are designed to look pretty ominous, so I decided I’d call Verizon customer support, and have them do a remote connect to my computer and perform the procedure for me.…
Dude! Your shirt looks just like the blue walkway and the brown sand! How do you do that? From the MailOnline, via. Similar:Shakespeare’s Choose-Your-Own AdventureIf meeting three strange ladies in the s…AmusingHow exactly do bridges bridge? How do rivers rive? How much detail does my model of #medie…How exactly do bridges bridge? How do ri…AestheticsThis…
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…
Tonight on Channel 4 Action News at 11, Seton Hill University students reflecting on what they learned by watching a half hour of local Channel 4 Action TV News. We go now to Channel 4 Action News at 11 reporter Dennis Jerz, with this live Channel 4 Action News at 11 report. I had my…
A couple days ago, I posted to Twitter about hearing a strange whining noise, which didn’t seem to change in volume when I moved inside or outside. Later I realized it was my voice recorder in my fanny pack. So this story hit home with me. Ominous Music Heard Throughout U.S. Sends Nation Into Panic…
With this Wired article, Clive Thompson put me into a happy place, and I wanted to share it. He’s quoting Andrea Lunsford: “I think we’re in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven’t seen since Greek civilization,” she says. For Lunsford, technology isn’t killing our ability to write. It’s reviving…
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…
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…
Last week, I spent a little while doing the rounds, trying to drum up some advertising customers for the student paper. Ordinarily there’s a student who carries the role of business manager, but when we’re in between student workers, or outside of class time, I try to push things along. There were twenty different things…
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…
I bought my Olympia Monica S in Croydon, south London, from an office supply shop when I was 20. It was a decisive moment. I wanted to write and a typewriter was the essential tool of the trade, an instrument every bit as vital as a paintbrush is to a painter or a guitar to…
A few years ago, I bought a wireless mouse, used it for a few days, then put it away in favor of my old mouse. Every so often, like when I’m not feeling the course-prep love and I’m desperately looking for an excuse to procrastinate, I remember that wireless mouse, but can’t remember why I…
People on the road can turn an LOL into a great big O-M-G. — Katie Couric, advocating a “designated texter.” Similar:Fired for Making a Game: The Inside Story of I Get This Call Every DayHe knows that if he’d instead posted a s…BusinessThe Rise of "Synthespians"”Mr. Serkis is the human actor behind th…ArtGoogle worker says…