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:Weaponizing Empathy: You reacted to the outrageous…

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:The YouTubers who blew the whistle on an anti-vax plotWhile rational minds worry about the imp…Current_EventsShip in a Bottle (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 12) Barclay's holodeck hack br…Rewatching ST:TNG Data and LaForge ar…CybercultureFinished…

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

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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:While searching my bag for a cable, I found an unexpected wealth of food-substitute items.AmusingA rare…

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…

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:Writing, Coding and Education: Why They MatterBack in my grad school days, I was calle…AcademiaHow the Midwest went from the idealized to the deridedWhile Pittsburgh has become more metropo…AcademiaScammer tricks YouTuber who exposes scams to…