20 Sided Fuzzy Dice Danglers

—20 Sided Fuzzy Dice Danglers (Think Geek) Now those are my kind of fuzzy dice. Similar:Chilling on Forbes Avenue with a small friend.Chilling on Forbes Avenue with a small f…AestheticsA 27-Story Vertical Forest Grows in MilanBosco Verticale was conceived in respons…AestheticsMany of these individual steampunk control panel elements are repeated, but I've arranged …AestheticsIffy "Cloak of…

Atari Candleholder

—Atari Candleholder (Wonderland | Mixko) Wonderland credits a designer called Mixko, but I couldn’t find it on that site. (And even I did find it there, I couldn’t link to it, because the site uses Flash in a horribly user-hostile way.) Similar:The Complete Deaths: all of the Bard's 74 scripted deaths in one new play.Over the…

Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting: A New Method to Enhance Online Reading

The VSTF process converts display of text such as this first sentence from the U.S. Declaration of Independence into this: —Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting: A New Method to Enhance Online Reading (Reading Online) Fascinating. The indented version really does seem a lot easier to read, perhaps chiefly because the first word in each line is often a…

Americans and Japanese Read Faces Differently

In Japan, emoticons tend to emphasize the eyes, such as the happy face (^_^) and the sad face (;_;). “After seeing the difference between American and Japanese emoticons, it dawned on me that the faces looked exactly like typical American and Japanese smiles,” he said. —Americans and Japanese Read Faces Differently (Live Science) Similar:A ‘Dewey Defeats…

Teaching through Text Message; Cell Phones Emerge as Learning Tool

Some linguists are worried that the proliferation of text messaging among students may hurt the development of formal English. Johnson does not agree. “I don’t buy it,” Johnson said. “I think students can distinguish between different contexts. What they would say with their friends is different from what they would say to an instructor.” Text…

Calif. Student Arrested in Shooting

Police arrested a college student Tuesday suspected of opening fire in an off-campus apartment during a dispute over a video game console, killing one man and wounding two others. —Calif. Student Arrested in Shooting (AP | MyWay (will expire)) Similar:Fascinating, and very sad, story behind an iconic National Geographic photo.Fascinating, and very sad, story behind …AestheticsI'm…

The Monetary Economics of Thurston Howell III

Imagine Gilligan’s Island without the Howells and their paper dollars. Without money, commodities exchange directly: coconuts for fish, fish for bamboo, etc. But even with barter, some commodities are more “marketable” than others. Perhaps one of the castaways might eventually buy one of the Professor’s books, but they will more often purchase Mary Ann’s coconut…

Slouching Toward Something

Why can’t anything fun ever be slouched toward? I mean, what about Slouching Towards Deliciousness, or Slouching Towards Balloon Animals? —Slouching Toward Something (Why Not Sneeze?) Similar:The karyotype of Pimelodella cristata (Siluriformes: Heptapteridae) from Central Amazon ba…Some scholarly journals have a more rigo…AcademiaNancy Grace and Ashleigh Banfield Hold Split-Screen Interview in Same Parking Lot  Nancy Grace…

The readiness to deconstruct is all

When we refuse to “budge an inch,” excoriate “rotten apples,” or admonish slackers to “sink or swim,” we speak in his voice. Although the arts sections of newspapers teem with products from self-anointed “artists” who will not survive their publicity budgets, Shakespeare after roughly four centuries still pleases general audiences, challenges intellectuals, and provokes academics.…

atari-and-controllers

—atari-and-controllers (jackrabbit.etsy.com) Via join the dots. Similar:When the Reporter Becomes Part of the Story (Aggressive Reporter Covering Pittsburgh Zoo D…Students who are new to journalism often…AcademiaSimulated iceberg, preserved artifacts and re-creations at the Titanic installation. …CultureQ Who? (ST: TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 16)Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…MediaMy second greenscreen test.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9d-LPwKQ…CybercultureAnd to think… I had…

To Do

To Do (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) 5: The number of proposals I’ve sent off in the last 24 hours. (Well, one I had drafted weeks ago, and another consisted of me answering the phone and saying “Yes,” but still…. ) Feels like a pretty good day. To do: Share with colleagues draft of revised senior portfolio for…

LOL Trek

—Stephen Granade —LOL Trek (Live Granades) I was vaguely aware of the lolcats phenomenon, which involves remediating the famous “Hang in there, baby” cat poster as if the cats themselves were writing the captions. Never did I expect it to be unleashed on the beloved Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles” (which has earned it…