"Star Wars" – an a capella tribute to John Williams

Similar:Astronauts cloaked Klingon space patch: Star Trek-inspired emblem revealed The current commander of the Internati…AestheticsMyths about "Learning Styles Persist in SocietyI first heard the formalized theories ab…AcademiaFirst time experimenting with depth of field. The pilot's perch in a fancy #steampunk crui…   AestheticsBlood & Laurels : Emily Short's Versu launches iPad GameEmily Short (Galatea, First…

The Incredible Vanishing Book

Many professors will spend countless hours putting together elaborate and voluminous course packets of photocopies for classroom use (I used to be one of them). And now, it is more frequent for technologically minded teachers to file-share large numbers of PDFs through password protected sites on campus. This is so wrong it hurts. We are…

Twitter, Flickr, Facebook Make Blogs Look So 2004

When blogging was young, enthusiasts rode high, with posts quickly skyrocketing to the top of Google’s search results for any given topic, fueled by generous links from fellow bloggers. In 2002, a search for “Mark” ranked Web developer Mark Pilgrim above author Mark Twain. That phenomenon was part of what made blogging so exciting. No…

The Unfinished Swan

Via The FPP — first-person painter! I wish the creator hadn’t chosen to go eerie with the mood, that seems like cheating a little… it’s so easy to go scary. Still, it’s beautiful And it’s an XNA-developed title. Interesting. The Unfinished Swan – Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo. Similar:Cursor*10Great free Flash game,…

E-mail error ends up on road sign

Thanks, Mike, for pointing out this one, which is a close second to “Translate Server Error.” The English is clear enough to lorry drivers – but the Welsh reads “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.” When officials asked for the Welsh translation of a road…

Chronicle and HBO Win Excellence in Sports Journalism Awards

Some award-winning sports journalism. Filing it away for future reference. Similar:Northeast braces for temps near boiling point – Yahoo! NewsThe inter tubes are clogged with pundits…Current_EventsAmbiguous language in journalism: Monkey Pox and Camel Privates Amazing lead: A veterinarian prescr…AmusingFacebook Removes Human Curators From Trending ModuleToday, Facebook announced that human cur…BusinessBlewsMicrosoft researchers discuss Blews, whi…CybercultureInteresting Slant…

A Self-Referential Story

One of my freshmen recently submitted a paper about how to overcome writer’s block.  It reminded me of this story, which I came across many years ago and was able to find again fairly quickly with Google. Fun stuff. The purpose of this sentence (which can also serve as a paragraph) is to speculate that…

Our Readers' Coolest Geek-o'-Lanterns

From Wired: Similar:Shattered Mirror #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 20) Jake Meets Mirror Jennifer …Rewatching ST:DS9 Lonely Jake frumps …MediaWhy our future depends on libraries, reading and daydreamingNeil Gaiman tells us why books matter:Wh…BooksTwitter was locked in a chaotic doom loop. Now it’s on the verge of collapse | Siva Vaidhy…I joined Twitter for…

Technology Review: Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

My colleague David Stanley links to this article. Many people, especially academic experts, have argued that Wikipedia’s articles can’t be trusted, because they are written and edited by volunteers who have never been vetted. Nevertheless, studies have found that the articles are remarkably accurate. The reason is that Wikipedia’s community of more than seven million…

10 Ways to Get Your Writing Out There

Jim  Munroe, a Toronto indie new media author whose work I’ve been following for some time, recently published this useful article on building an audience. Of course he mentions self-published print zines and blogs, but he also mentions another subject I’ve been introducing my students to this term… 6. TEXT ADVENTURE VIDEOGAMESAnyone out there play…

Yahoo's Blistering Buzzword Barrage

I logged onto Yahoo and found that my profile had been changed. The first of Yahoo’s “Top Questions” is “What happened to my profile?” but the link just goes to the aggressively cheerful “Welcome to the Profiles Tutorials!” page, which does not actually answer the question. Another question is “What happened to my alias profile?“,…