The Difference Engine…a steampunk adventure

This bit of educational theatrical fun sounds awesome! Via. Travelling from past to future through a landscape of machines and ideas Walk the Plank and Thingumajig Theatre have created an interactive journey through the courtyard of Manchester’s Town Hall. The audience will help inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage find the clues to repair his Difference…

MI6 chief blows his cover as wife's Facebook account reveals family holidays, showbiz friends and links to David Irving | Mail Online

The Facebook epic fail isn’t just grist for the teen angst mill. It also affects the head of the British secret service. Via. The new head of MI6 has been left exposed by a major personal security breach after his wife published intimate photographs and family details on the Facebook website. Sir John Sawers is…

Let e-Readers Be e-Readers: Let's not turn them into all-purpose devices until we get the reading details right.

From a thoughtful review of the Kindle: The Kindle DX’s five-way joystick is quick, convenient, and expertly designed. (Plastic Logic’s touch screen really isn’t markedly better than using Amazon’s joy stick, but that’s because the touch options are fairly rudimentary.) The problem is the dearth of good places to direct the cursor. That’s a real…

R.U.R. (2011)

There’s no information in the non-subscription IMDB, but there is an entry for a movie based on Rossum’s Universal Robots. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1300594/ The original play was a talky social comedy mixed with a melodrama (complete with a “missing papers” plot twist), and the big action sequences happened off-stage (with characters either referring in passing to events…

Get Smarter

For a period of 2 million years, ending with the last ice age around 10,000 B.C., the Earth experienced a series of convulsive glacial events. This rapid-fire climate change meant that humans couldn’t rely on consistent patterns to know which animals to hunt, which plants to gather, or even which predators might be waiting around…

Constructing Journalism Knowledge in the Classroom

The journalism class that I’m preparing to teach this fall is a writing course, but it’s also very content-heavy — lots of specialized vocabulary, lots of unique professional practices to teach. This fall, I’m not using a big $100 journalism textbook. Instead, I’ll be spending more time with several smaller texts.  In place of assigning chapters for…

Peering into Your Neighbors' Windows

I’m always on the lookout  for interesting stories that one can tell with statistics — and cautionary tales about misusing statistics in order to create news where there isn’t any. Via MetaFilter — this OK Cupid article breaks down responses to user-generated dating profile questions. Green states were more likely to answer “yes” than the…

A Famous Person Has Died (Cartoon Parody of TV News)

The first few panels of a 12-panel cartoon. Thanks for the suggestion, Mike. Similar:What happened when I showed vintage Mister Rogers to my 21st-century kidsThey discovered TikTok. And Fortnite. An…CultureMove Along Home (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 10) Hopscotch Cringe Shenanigan…Rewatching ST:DS9 I was kind of dread…CultureI MacGyvered myself a heat sinkI’m getting ready…

Fall, 2009

LA100: Basic CompositionEL200: Media Lab and SetonianEL227: News WritingEL237: Writing about LiteratureEL266: American Literature I (1800-1915) Similar:A Revolutionary Approach to Treating PTSDInhabiting an improvised play designed t…HomeI can probably remove that link to LycosOn a web page that I posted in Nov 2000 …BusinessFacebook, really? More people liked the picture in my post than saw…

The 2009 Lyttle Lytton Contest

My favorite “winner” in this year’s Lyttle Lytton Contest, which awards writers who can, in one sentence, imitate the infamous “It was a dark and stormy night” novel opening. Alex turned to Gertrude, in much the same way Martin Landau turned to Barbara Bain in the opening of Space: 1999. — Alex Dering Similar:Verify or…

Blender 3d Softbody Demo

I can’t say I understand my creation, but it sure was fun making it. Similar:Phantasms (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 6) Data's Trippy Dreams; Riker's Brai…Rewatching ST:TNG Data is walking thr…AmusingStudent: “Just wanted to let you know that your class has benefited me outside of just lit…In my online class on literary dystopia,…AcademiaHow We…