Sisters 'make people happy'

Researchers quizzed 571 people aged 17 to 25 about their lives and found those who grew up with sisters were more likely to be happy and balanced.–BBC News Well, at least “Sisters appear to encourage more open communication and cohesion in families.” The words “make people happy” only appear in the headline. From another point…

Why numbers no longer win arguments

A number in the news is no longer a cold fact, it is a killer fact, with all the murderous zeal that word implies. Journalists everywhere know the meaning of the phrase, the dagger of detail that runs the opposition through: the 23% up! The £16m wasted! The 140,000 children! For an example, try 271.…

MIT Police Charged With Dumping Student Newspaper

Two police officers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have been suspended and are having their employment reviewed following allegations that they dumped copies of The Tech, MIT’s student newspaper, that featured an article about the arrest of another police officer, The Boston Globe reported.– Inside Higher Ed Similar:Close Reading: Introduction to a College English…

Tomas Nilssons portfolio

Remediation of a classic? A satire on visual cruft? http://www.tomas-nilsson.se/ SlagsmÃ¥lsklubben – Sponsored by destiny from Tomas Nilsson on Vimeo. Similar:Tweaking yesterday's #steampunk workstations. Now with darker wood (better contrast with c…AestheticsMother 3: My Mom, and MeThoughtful, powerful, personal analysis …Aesthetics"Look for the helpers" is good for distracting preschoolers from horrors they can't change…”Look for…

Keeping J-School Relevant

This article describes how the Columbia School of Journalism is redesigning its program in order to integrate new media and business skills into the traditional journalism program. Currently, most student work in the introductory course is in print — sometimes published by a professor on a course’s Web page. It is Grueskin’s hope that, in…

U.S. bill seeks to rescue faltering newspapers

Cardin’s Newspaper Revitalization Act would allow newspapers to operate as nonprofits for educational purposes under the U.S. tax code, giving them a similar status to public broadcasting companies. Under this arrangement, newspapers would still be free to report on all issues, including political campaigns. But they would be prohibited from making political endorsements. Advertising and…

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon Gale, 2008

  Similar:Bob Dylan's Nobel Prize Acceptance Speechhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TlcPRla…CultureCaroll "Big Bird" Spinney was originally to be on NASA's doomed Challenger flight And he was even offered a seat as Bi…EducationViolations (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 12) Telepathic Memory Assaults Beset…Rewatching ST:TNG A small group o…CultureA.I. 'Completes' Keith Haring's Intentionally Unfinished Painting After learning of his AIDS…

TinEye Reverse Image Search

I generally discourage my students from delivering PowerPoint presentations, in part because they typically grab images from everywhere and anywhere, which is a practice I don’t want them to retain if they should start working for the student paper.  I prefer instead for students to post a richly linked blog entry (with links pointing directly…

When NOT To Hyphenate Your Name

Many married women choose to hyphenate their married name and maiden name. But there are times when you just shouldn’t!! (Mature Content) CBS 13 I laughed so hard my six-year-old daughter rushed downstairs to ask why I was crying. Similar:Daughter doing a thing. Interviewing the Pittsburgh Dance Council’s Randall Miller for Bur… AcademiaFirst They Got…

How to Write a Great Blog Comment

I don’t know any bloggers who don’t crave comments, but there are many more places than blogs that you can leave comments these days: on news articles, photos, videos, comment walls, and more. Comment writing is something of a new art form, and as many people who get comments will tell you, some are great…

Scrabble and Other Games Have Overvalued Points

You can’t do this on dead trees.  A great example of how a new media widget makes a news article interactive. From the Wall Street Journal. The Letter Law View Interactive Compare letter frequency across various English language sources, from Scrabble to newspapers to fiction. Similar:Technology's Impact on Education Technology’s Impact on Education | V…AcademiaMy…

Making Waves Within Webs: Rhetorical Agency in a Complex World — CCCC 2009 – Session O.11

Kristen Seas, “Ripple Effect: A New Perspective on Rhetorical Agency” Lars Soderlund, “Kairos and Emergence” Marc Santos, “Social Bookmarking as Distributed Research” Jeremy Tirrell, “Decorum and Emergent Ethics” I was particularly interested in this panel, in part because I taught the session chair in a few technical writing / new media classes when she was…

Web 2.0 Wavelengths: Examining Spaces Created Within Electronic Discourse – CCCC 2009 – N13

[I came in about 10 minutes late so I didn’t catch the beginning. These are my rough notes, lightly edited.] Similar:My meme about the distracted boyfriend memeAmusingMars Panorama — 10yo with iPad Pretends Her Bed Is NASA Roverhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4rCkr0oA…Current_EventsGround-nesting Yellowjacket WaspsWhile my 16yo son was mowing the lawn wi…CultureTwitter and the "Two Minutes Hate"Another of the…