Walter Cronkite, the CBS News anchor who famously became the most trusted man in America, died Friday at the age of 92.–NPR Similar:Shakaar #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 3, Episode 20) Winn asks Kira to reclaim macguffins… Rewatching ST:DS9 After losing to O…EmpathyOpinion: Don’t Be Fooled by America’s Flattening CurveAnother example of effective new media d…Current_EventsIn…
The HD version actually came out better than I thought it would. More photos after the jump… Similar:I just discovered what will grind up a significant portion of my free time over the break.So Khan Academy now has a grammar unit. …PersonalHappy ice cream turkey cake day. AestheticsNerdy Rainbow Loom CraftingMy wonderfully geeky tween made…
The LA Times technology blog critiques the new Google Reader interface. For example, let’s say we have a news article that we like. Well, might as well click the “like” button, right? OK, now we’ve told the Internet that we think it’s cool, and we can see a list of strangers who also think it’s…
Talk about penny wise and pound foolish! NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing. Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been…
Amazing! Similar:D&D-Themed movie Zero Charisma pits Nerds vs. HipstersMy wife usually gives me nerd-themed DVD…CultureVoiceover artist Gayanne Potter urging ScotRail to remove her voice from new AI announceme…When I was working in radio news in the …CultureThank you, male ballet dancers everywhere, for making moments like this possible.AestheticsAs CRT Supplies Vanish the Classic Arcade Machine…
A great interview, on Adventure Classic Gaming. Was something like Adventure inevitable? That’s a tough question, but I think probably so. I’d say that the real wild-card here is not Adventure but rather Adventure‘s inspiration, Dungeons and Dragons. You just can’t exaggerate the importance of D&DÂ to all of the many storygames that have followed it.…
A bit predictable, but still enjoyable. Similar:A Pedestal, A Table, A Love Letter: Archaeologies of Gender in Videogame HistoryA thoughtful, informative article on the…BusinessIn April 2000, I was blogging about HTML frames, the future of reading, grammar, Kairos, a…In April 2000, I was blogging about… …BooksReading Literature on Screen: A Price for Convenience?Because all of…
Wired has a good piece about the value of local reporting. “In every town in America, almost, you have reporters going out and doing humble jobs and turning over rocks every day and seeing what’s under them,” says John Carroll, the former editor-in-chief of The Los Angeles Times, a man who led his newsroom to…
And you thought the secrets to academic success would involve sensible stuff like “Study for two to three hours for every hour of class” or “Keep up with the readings” and “Meet all the deadlines your prof sets.” But those won’t help you game the system, which is the strategy Don Asher presents as the…
Clearly by “Them” the sign means “dogs,” but the since the sign refers instead to “Your Dog,” so it was already in need of some attention even before this alteration took place. Via Bryan Alexander. Similar:A lost generation of news consumers? Survey shows how teenagers dislike the news mediaMore than half of the teens surveyed…
The following started out as routine e-mail feedback on a freshman essay, but I thought it came out well enough that I might want to use it again. I don’t want this to get buried in my existing handout on thesis statements, so I figured I’d just post the good bits here. A good academic…
I missed this when it came out a few weeks ago. At Hopkins, Knudson uses Twitter as an extension of the classroom, asking students to raise questions, hold discussions online, keep up with breaking news and share links to interesting stories. She believes the limited number of characters allowed is a useful way to remember…
A website will re-create the 1969 moon mission in real time (allowing for the 40-year time lag). http://wechoosethemoon.org/ Similar:Thirty Years Ago, the Challenger Crew Plunged Alive and Aware to Their DeathsThe Challenger made it through the spect…CultureInfinite Scrolling: XKCD's Creative Insight on a Common Interface IndignityAmusingThe Last Soviet CitizenInteresting reflection on the collapse o…CultureThe AI…
First, there is a general increase in use of Facebook and a general decline in use of MySpace across the board. In 2007, 79% of the study participants were using Facebook while in 2009, 87% of the sample reports doing so. In contrast, while in 2007, 55% of the group reported using MySpace, in 2009,…
She said the manhole she fell in to was left open and unattended with no warning signs or orange cones. She said two workers with the New York City Department of Environmental Protection failed to secure the area as they prepared to flush the sewer. “It was just really gross and it was shocking and…
Post office boxes! Post office boxes! My face hurts from laughing. New Live Poll Allows Pundits To Pander To Viewers In Real Time Similar:Feeling Like an Impostor at 49I reminded my Shakespeare students that …AcademiaU.S.S. Requin — Extended Tour of the Cold War Submarine at the Carnegie Science CenterSoon after WWII began, the USS Requin…
Older words also making their debut as a result of renewed interest online: sock puppet (a false identity used to manipulate opinions in online forums) and fan fiction. (Via Guardian) Similar:The Linda Lindas sing "Racist Sexist Boy" — my new favorite punk songDethroning the “I hate you” song that Ki…AwesomePerchance to Dream: LARPing Hamlet at…
The gradual, and almost invisible, transformation of many “liberal arts colleges” to more comprehensive institutions is similar to another gradual trend that has reshaped the composition and the work of the American academic profession. Over the past three decades, colleges and universities have replaced tenure-track faculty positions with part-time and full-time term-contract positions — a…
A roundup of the initial reactions, via BBC: “One of Google’s major goals is to take Microsoft out, to systematically destroy their hold on the market,” said Mr Enderle. “Google wants to eliminate Microsoft and it’s a unique battle. The strategy is good. The big question is, will it work?” At the popular blog, TechCrunch,…
I have to make a conscious effort to say “Grand Theft Auto” when I’m talking about the game. An excellent group blog begins its afterlife. Grand Text Auto, for six years (May 2003-May 2009) a single blog with six co-authors (Mary Flanagan, Michael Mateas, your very own Nick Montfort, Scott Rettberg, Andrew Stern, and Noah…