CITY COUNCIL is based on an actual city council meeting I covered while working for a small twice-a-week newspaper early in my career. Some of the items here have been fictionally enhanced for educational purposes. And, of course, some names have been changed to protect the foolish. Even as an assistant editor at this small…
A CBS News producer was fired and the network apologized after a Katie Couric video essay on libraries was found to be plagiarized from The Wall Street Journal. —Producer for Katie Couric Fired — For Lifting from ‘Wall St Journal’ (AP | Editor & Publisher) Here’s a copy of Jeffrey Zaslow’s “Of the Places You’ll…
“It’s almost always the first play I teach,” she said. “I do that because very often students have only encountered Shakespeare in high school and have a misunderstanding of him as safe, moral, and dull. This one really dislodges the idea that Shakespeare is full of eternal moral truths. It takes place in a different…
The first issue was providing enough fun. Every puzzle should have some reward, and a complicated or multi-stage puzzle should provide some minor rewards for partial solutions. So once I had the puzzle structure in mind (more about that later), I could see which puzzles were going to open a lot of new game-play and…
MySpace vs. Facebook (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I just searched Google News for MySpace and Facebook, and was surprised at the difference in what I found. Of the first seven MySpace hits, five emphasized criminal acts, and two were PR-driven pieces. Of the first seven hits on Facebook, only one involved legal worries (in an item that…
Each passerby had a quick choice to make, one familiar to commuters in any urban area where the occasional street performer is part of the cityscape: Do you stop and listen? Do you hurry past with a blend of guilt and irritation, aware of your cupidity but annoyed by the unbidden demand on your time…
Got to Dance (autographed by the author, M. C. Helldorfer; illustrated by Hiroe Nakata) Has a Heart (Magic School Bus (Turtleback)) (Annie Capecki; illustrated by Carolyn Bracken) Zathura The Movie Deluxe Storybook (Zathura: The Movie) (adapted by David Seidman) Frederick (Leo Lionni) —Coffee Table Books Meme (CultureCat) My coffee table is deep in kid territory. If…
The News Limited story suggested that net-savvy types were giving up on blogging and turning their attention to MySpace. The owner of Myspace is, of course, News Limited. Also conveniently not disclosed was the fact that, according to the Gartner report, use of MySpace has been falling steadily during the past year. […] Jorn Barger…
Perhaps the only thing that could have made this movie better would have been if Xerces, the God-king of the Persian army, had been played by John Stamos, the actor who played Uncle Jesse on Full House. Even the Spartans would have cowered beneath his seductive gaze and shining, well-combed hair. […] Not only did…
—Star Trek Bonanza (Something Awful) Similar:The Great Works of SoftwareI realized that each one of these techno…AestheticsThis Woman Inspired One of the First Hit Video Games by Mapping the World’s Longest CaveThe Medium headline calls Colossal Cave …AcademiaJumpsuit for a female mechanic in my #neovictorian #steampunk project. #blender3d #unity3dAestheticsLet Me Explain Why Miley Cyrus’ VMA Performance…
Science Fiction movies have been a source for speculation about the future of technology and human computer interaction. This paper presents a survey of different kinds of interaction designs in movies during the past decades and relates the techniques of the films to existing technologies and prototypes where possible. The interactions will be categorized with…
Students at the George Mason University School of Law received a double whammy last week: First, Dean Daniel D. Polsby sent an e-mail informing them of a “special town hall meeting” scheduled for Monday where they could meet a candidate for a tenure-track job — a 22-year-old candidate who had once posted online class notes…
Colleges and universities must inform students about the particular dangers they face online. But if schools actively monitor their students’ online activities and students are aware of this policy, they may have a duty of care that includes preventing any illegal acts committed as a result of information posted online. Thus, schools should inform their…
The potential caves were spotted near a massive Martian volcano, Arisa Mons. Their openings range from about 330 to 820 feet (100 to 250 meters) wide, and one of them, Dena, is thought to extend nearly 430 feet (130 meters) beneath the planet’s surface. The researchers hope the discovery will lead to more focused spelunking…
The researchers gave the example of a secondary school in an unnamed northern city, which dropped the Holocaust as a subject for GCSE coursework. The report said teachers feared confronting ‘anti-Semitic sentiment and Holocaust denial among some Muslim pupils’. It added: “In another department, the Holocaust was taught despite anti-Semitic sentiment among some pupils. “But…
I’ve been hunkering down in my little home office here more often than ever recently, all because I’m on a quest. No, I’m not crossing swords with evildoers or standing defiant before a salivating dragon while searching for some sacred bauble (well, not unless you count the occasional bouts in Bethesda’s Oblivion). I’m penning my…
Grand Theft Auto and its progeny — nearly a dozen sequels and spinoffs, including this fall’s GTA IV — let players live out their fantasies. But few videogame fantasies match the real-life adventures of Rockstar Games. Almost a decade ago, a gang of young prep-school-educated Brits invaded New York with a then-outrageous dream: to make…
—Maraka (YouTube | Saturday Night Live) “Pump your hands to make the balloon fill up. Pump them harder. Come on! Harder! What’s wrong with you? There! You did it!” “Can you help me decide if Robert Blake was innocent?” “Don’t question it, just do it!” Wonderful spoof of “Dora the Explorer.” Similar:I have for some reason…
White House Secret Service Agent Anthony Panucci is being called a hero after intercepting what could have been a critically damaging question aimed directly at President Bush during a press conference in the Rose Garden Tuesday. —Heroic Secret Service Agent Takes Question Intended For Bush (The Onion (Satire)) I love the graphic that indicates the question…
Someone, somewhere created the very first Web log. It’s just not quite clear who. It may not be one of the Internet’s grandest accomplishments, but with the number of active bloggers hovering somewhere around 100 million, according to one estimate, there are some serious bragging rights to be claimed by the first person who provably…