Shackle yourself to your work, and set the timer.Thanks for the link, Josh. Similar:Folger Shakespeare Library on "The Fate of Ophelia"On my ride into work yesterday, my mothe…AcademiaTopical Satire Is Not "Fake News."While I’ve been preparing to teach a cla…AmusingAn Adjunct's Death Becomes a Rallying Cry for Many in AcademeBecause I blogged Kovalik’s editorial ye…AcademiaGo not to…
A touching tribute in images and words. Phillip Toledano Similar:A Pox On Your Listicle ClickbaitYup, seeing “1 of 21” at the top of your…BusinessPhoto of William Crowther, 2012I just noticed that a few days ago, a Wi…CybercultureEnglish Is the Language of Science. That Isn't Always a Good ThingEnglish speakers tend to assume that all…AcademiaStapler jam…
I recently submitted a conference proposal on cloud computing. Google said in a blog post the outage came down to a simple traffic jam at an Asian data center. The search giant described the situation by using the analogy of a large number of airplanes being rerouted through one airport that was not equipped for…
Clever piece on a games-themed theater performance in Brooklyn next month. One of the more unusual plays in this year’s Antidepressant Festival is Adventure Quest, which mimics old-school computer adventure games, combining live action with vintage graphics and 8-bit music. For those too young to remember these strange, puzzle-intensive artifacts of the Reagan era, the…
Okay, I’m officially lame. I teared up a few days ago during Star Trek, and tonight I teared up during this song from The Magic Treehouse: The Musical, based on a series of easy-reader books by Mary Pope Osbourne. The touring show was in my town tonight; we had front-row seats. The song is a…
The following search on our campus — for a published mystery author qualified to teach creative writing — has been extended, and will continue until filled. Candidates interested in this position should apply immediately, as we will be considering applicants over the summer. — Mike Arnzen Similar:Have 40 years of mobile phones given literature bad…
A budding artist learns his real skill is not artistry, but the ability to critique. I’m blogging this for the next time I introduce iteration as an important cognitive skill — something that requires dedication, time, and a willingness to take risks in order to learn from failures (something that doesn’t often fit will with…
That’s the space shuttle orbiter Atlantis, with the Hubble Space Telescope, in front of the sun. Wow! It’s difficult to imagine a more epic scene, but this photo has modest origins: amateur Astronomer Thierry Legault shot it with nothing but his own telescope, a solar prism and a Canon 5D Mk II. — Gizmodo Similar:If…
High-end journalism can and should bite any hand that tries to feed it, and it should bite a government hand most viciously. Moreover, it is the right of every American to despise his local newspaper – for being too liberal or too conservative, for covering X and not covering Y, for spelling your name wrong…
How many of you make a point by asking how many people in the room already know it, and then praising everyone who does? This fall, I’ll be teaching my most content-heavy course — “News Writing.” I have to teach a lot of vocabulary, along with research, interviewing, revision, and copyediting skills, in addition to…
[C]ourse-management software has become a new kind of campus building–a virtual one where online classes are held and new kinds of “hybrid” courses take place. The unsettled question is who controls what these classrooms look like and how stable their foundations are. Colleges don’t want to just buy these online classrooms out of a catalog.…
Nowadays, layout editors can just expand the size of a photo or cheat the typesize to make a story fill a gap. But in the days before such digital magic, newspaper editors needed a steady supply of filler stories — short items, just long enough to plug gaps of a few inches at the bottom…
Last night, I went to see the new Star Trek movie with a member of the computer science faculty. A math professor was hoping to come, but had a change of plans. The previews suggested it would be a bit intense for me to take the kids to see it, but now that I’ve seen…
Several of my students created videos for class projects. EL200 Jessie Krehlik: Self Defense Videos (with Aero Windwalker) Jessie Farine: Suis La Lune Review Rebecca Marrie created this YouTube Channel, which I hope we can use to sort all the SHU student projects I hear about in the future. I have one independent study project…
It’s the first time I’ve given a final exam in a while. I usually mark final projects or final papers, which I’ve seen in numerous draft forms for the past month, so all I really need to do is read the student’s final reflection, after all the hard work is over. But in a large-ish…
This paper riffs on one of the most popular handouts on my website — Short Stories: 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers (originally written by one of my technical writing students in 2002, though I continue to tweak it), and applies it to mathematics. [B]efore anyone can understand a piece of mathematics, they must first…
The cuteness of a tribble, the temper of a mugatu, and the ham of a Shatner. Similar:I didn't exactly set out to achieve this goal, but it's not hard to do the minimum to keep…EducationRichard Halloran / Owns Home Computer.“Engineers now predict the day will come…AmusingThe world's population is lopsided.AwesomeOh the Overthinks You Can Overthink:…
I know that my bridge playset has long since gone to the big warp core in the sky, and I can’t seem to find the shoebox where I kept my original Star Trek action figures from the 70s. Even as a kid, I remember being frustrated that the playset didn’t really look all that much…
A masterful spoof of one of my favorite literary works, skewering a reference book I spent a lot of time with in my formative years.. ‘Tis hard to say, which promises more Loot:Writing, or Telling others how to do’t. — Geoff Nunberg Similar:Somewhere Nearby is Colossal Cave: Examining Will Crowther's Original ''Adventure'' in Cod…Because so…
A serendipitous click on a link brought me to this striking example of storytelling economy in a news story. “Three flower cars, wow!” said a pilgrim from Wisconsin who was just about to chomp down on a chocolate cannoli from Mike’s Pastry yesterday morning. The cheesehead was momentarily spellbound by the stately procession of black…