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As homework for another class, a student asked me to give her my definition of a story. I didn’t pull out any narrative theory books to refine it, and I didn’t try to put any special cybertextual spin on it, which I would have done if I’d spent more time thinking about it. Anyway, here’s…
Am I a bad person because I found this Language Log posting hilarious? Which word is grosser? #27 Moist Used Men 48% 52% Women 56% 44% Similar:The Cost of Defining Yourself as an Introvert or ExtrovertIn a nutshell, introversion is not about…CultureUniversities must stop presuming that all students are tech-savvyAlthough considerable resources have bee…AcademiaEvita in…
I remember the Biden law school incident. Not long after that, during the Clarence Thomas hearings, I remember reading that law school students were secretly photocopying homework assignments submitted by their arch enemies, in the hopes of one day using that information to torpedo a big political appointment. By choosing Joe Biden as his running…
I’m preparing to introduce a class of English majors to Blender3D. Many of the online tutorials I’ve found spend way too much time introducing the interface, which is of course worth some attention because it is non-standard, and in the days before YouTube, I remember being so confused by it that I gave up on…
From a recent study of university libraries. There’s plenty in this report on digital scholarship, print journals, and comparative approaches of the various disciplines. Neither faculty members nor librarians expect e-books to constitute a viable substitute for print books; they are more generally seen as complementary. Somewhat oddly given this low level of faculty interest…
Our provost sent this link to English faculty members this morning. One of my recent juniors was particularly eloquent on the subject. After having sat in my classroom for a year forcefully projecting his boredom, he started an e-mail dialogue with me over the summer. “The reason for studying fiction escapes me,” he wrote. “Why…
Thanks for the link, Rosemary. From The Atlantic. Economists and ecologists sometimes speak of the “tragedy of the commons”–the way rational individual actions can collectively reduce the common good when resources are limited. How this applies to traffic safety may not be obvious. It’s easy to understand that although it pays the selfish herdsman to…
Mike Arnzen writes about the thinking behind his decision to revise his syllabus to include a statement on the use of electronic devices in class. In some ways, there’s no difference between a student texting and a student flipping through a magazine in the back row of a class, but there are times when we…
If my old shoebox of Meego Star Trek action figures turns up, I’ll consider myself very happy. Seton Hill’s librarian, David Stanley, reports an even more significant historical find. From the Reeves Library blog. Kelly Addleman, our public services librarian, received an email from a researcher in Germany who has been making a survey of…
Boston.com: A man from Somerville, Mass., and his friend who went around the country this year removing typographical errors from public signs have been banned from national parks after vandalizing a historic marker at the Grand Canyon. Similar:What are 'Judeo-Christian values'? Analyzing a divisive termblock of American society. ÂBut for crit…AcademiaAt Computers and Writing #cwcon…
A good lesson in journalistic humility. FoxNews. One morning, there was a fatal accident. One person died. One lived. As always, I dutifully jotted down the information from the report. And a few hours later, I announced to all of Ohio who died and who survived this crash. But I was wrong. See, the police…
From the BBC… thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary. The 3,000-year-old skeletons were in such good condition that anthropologists at the University of Goettingen managed to extract a sample of DNA. That was then matched to two men living nearby: Uwe Lange, a surveyor, and Manfred Huchthausen, a teacher. The two men have now become local…
Facebook’s advertisers in ur feed, annoying ur friends. (Wired) Undeterred by the setbacks with its Beacon platform last year, Facebook is rolling out more advertising that uses your friends to sell you stuff. Similar:U.S. Press Freedom TrackerIt’s frustrating and terrifying that the…CultureThere, in my morning snapshot of the kids home-schooling in the kitchen, is the…
Excellent example of effective journalistic use of a striking detail. This made my morning. The gnome, about a foot tall, wore a hat, a blue shirt over a bulging stomach and a wide grin as it sat on a table in open court throughout the two-day trial. Morrison and the weapon were separated by about…
An Ohio State press release discusses how a student’s psychological profile correlates to academic integrity. An interesting study in rhetoric, focusing on promoting a cultural identity for the “academic heroes” who do honest work, rather than hunting and trapping those whose behavior is less exemplary: The students completed measures that examined their bravery, honesty and…
The latest Pew report: Since 2006, the proportion of Americans who say they get news online at least three days a week has increased from 31% to 37%. About as many people now say they go online for news regularly (at least three days a week) as say they regularly watch cable news (39%); substantially…
Josh suggest this story. Experimental software now under development can automatically swap eyes and facial expressions from one face to another, and the software is being tested as a way to anonymize faces that appear in Google Maps. This story is about more personal, more targeted, use of image-processing software. (NYT) Ellen Robinson, a volunteer…
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