Fed Up With MySpace? Join the Club and Delete Your Account

Jenna Wortham (Wired): Wednesday is International Delete Your MySpace Account Day, an online protest geared at uniting users eager to ditch the popular social networking site. Similar:Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say  The brain was not designed for r…BooksFor New Acquisitions, UMD Libraries Choose Ebooks by DefaultIncreasingly book vendors…

Happy Thought for the Day

While walking an introductory class through a close reading of “The Defense of Fort McHenry” (better known as “The Star-Spangled Banner,”) I noted that a student had wondered whether the appearance of “In God We Trust” on US currency had anything to do with the inclusion of a similar phrase, “In God is our Trust,”…

Talking with a Non-Gamer Faculty Member

Non-Gamer: Why is it called “Dance Dance Revolution?”Me: Because the demographic wouldn’t go for “Dance Dance Establishment.” Similar:August Wilson Trifecta (Two Trains, Ma Rainey and Fences on the same day)Fences was performed in the backyard of …CultureFake News Is Not the Real Media Threat We’re FacingConservative talk radio predates the Int…CultureThe disinformation system that Trump…

Millennials in the Workforce

A close professional contact who regularly takes on student interns shared this list of guidelines, which she has found necessary to include when orienting a new intern to the routine of office work. Although the site is a non-profit educational organization, and thus the environment is more relaxed and forgiving than it might be in…

Lego Timeline

The Lego brick system was patented 50 years ago today. Gizmodo offers this timeline. Similar:U Michigan's North Quad Complex: A Media CathedralThe North Quad Residential Complex at th…AcademiaEarth doesn't need more 'successful people'.The plain fact is that the planet does n…AestheticsReady to teach another set of students what research is (and what it isn’t).AcademiaTrying Out…

Confessions of an Aca/Fan: Reconsidering Digital Immigrants…

Some thoughtful development of a powerful meme in cyberculture studies, from Henry Jenkins: Talking about digital natives and digital immigrants tends to exagerate the gaps between adults, seen as fumbling and hopelessly out of touch, and youth, seen as masterful. It invites us to see contemporary youth as feral, cut off from all adult influences,…

Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot

Great satire from The Onion. Breaking News: Series Of Concentric Circles Emanating From Glowing Red Dot Similar:Poetry Writing: 10 Tips for Writing PoemsIf you are writing a poem because you wa…AestheticsThe Dauphin (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 10)A pretty 16yo destined to bring peace to…AmusingBacon Starry Night MemeI’ve no idea where the “Bacon Starry Nig…AestheticsAnnoyed…

Booksthatmakeyoudumb

Of course it’s not scientific, but it’s fun. Virgil Griffith: Ever read a book (required or otherwise) and upon finishing it thought to yourself, “Wow. That was terrible. I totally feel dumber after reading that.”? I know I have. Well, like any good scientist, I decided to see how well my personal experience matches reality.…

Friend Game

Lauren Collins (The New Yorker) Teen-age identities mutate so quickly online, and can be masked so easily, that by the morning after Megan was pronounced dead Josh Evans had vanished from MySpace. It wasn’t until a month after her death that a neighbor named Michele Mulford told the Meiers that Curt and Lori Drew, who…

Lower-cased initialisms

Via Language Log: It is a small but not insignificant recent change in written English that in Britain the newspapers have started spelling acronyms in lower case with capital initial instead of all in caps. The Universities and Colleges Employers Association and the the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs are not UCEA and…

Rejlander, Oscar Gustave

Interesting historical anecdote of an early attempt to make an artistic statement with photography, using visual elements that were acceptable in painting, but considered controversial in photography: Rejlander’s “Two Ways of Life.”  (via Metafilter). Useful, perhaps, as a point of comparison for what happens when video games cross the line, and attempt to make serious,…

Blog Comments and Peer Review Go Head to Head to See Which Makes a Book Better – Chronicle.com

Jeffrey R. Young (Chronicle): The idea was to tap the wisdom of his crowd. Visitors to the blog might not read the whole manuscript, as traditional reviewers do, but they might weigh in on a section in which they have some expertise…. “We are a peer-review press–we’re always going to want to have an honest…

Flight Of The Conchords – The Humans Are Dead

Robots gloating, and occasionally philosophizing, over their decision to destroy the humans. Love the binary solo. The guy on the left does an excellent imitation of a standard PC speech synthesizer voice. Overall, this is a great send-up of the “arrogant humans create robots who turn on them” meme (which was first widely spread by…