A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope

Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn’t. Actually, Leia offers him one but Chewie turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about 20 years ago, but there’s no way he can tell her that. —A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope (Mornignstar) A great little detail that really helps this…

Of thought and metaphor

Even something as seemingly straightforward as asking for the salt involves thinking and communicating at two levels, which is why we utter such convoluted requests as, “If you think you could pass the salt, that would be great.” Says Pinker: “It’s become so common that we don’t even notice that it is a philosophical rumination…

Pac-Man Bathroom

—toxickaty —Pac-Man Bathroom (Flickr | toxickaty) Awesome. Similar:The Chronicle of Higher Education Announces Plan to Limit, Curate CommentsBy 2016, the terrain has shifted. Public…Academia'Arrival' Is Smart, Stylish Sci-Fi About Language, Not Laser BeamsThe premise sounds quite interesting. Re…CultureBack in the MLAAs the humanities decline in the United …AcademiaThe barbican at Mickelgate was pulled down in the…

Aztecs vs. Greeks: Those with superior intelligence need to learn to be wise.

The encouragement of wisdom requires a special kind of education. It requires first of all recognition of one’s own intellectual limits and fallibilities–in a word, humility. This is perhaps the most conspicuously missing part of today’s education of the gifted. Many high-IQ students, especially those who avoid serious science and math, go from kindergarten through…

Pong: The Text-Based Game

The nefarious enemy of all that is good, the right paddle, has performed an act of agression against our sovereign right side by hitting the ball back in our direction.If we act fast, we may be able to intercept the ball. It is aimed for directly above our paddle! Move the great paddle up!Hold the…

Age of Wonders

The science fiction drug is available everywhere to kids, in superhero comics, on TV, in the movies, in books and magazines. It is impossible to avoid exposure, to avoid the least hint of excitement at Marvel Comics superheroes and Star Trek reruns and Star Wars, impossible not to become habituated even before kindergarten to the…

Why Video Games May Be Hard to Give Up

The researchers found that the games can provide opportunities for achievement, freedom and even a connection to other players. Those benefits trumped a shallow sense of fun, which doesn’t keep gamers as interested. Players reported feeling the best when the games produced positive experiences and challenges that connected to what they knew in the real…

Clooney, Others Develop SCI FI Shows

Diamond Age, based on Neal Stephenson’s best-selling novel The Diamond Age: Or a Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, is a six-hour miniseries from Clooney and fellow executive producer Grant Heslov of Smokehouse Productions. When a prominent member of society concludes that the futuristic civilization in which he lives is stifling creativity, he commissions an interactive book…

Clues About the Gender Gap

“The 2007 National Freshman Attitudes Report,” a survey by Noel-Levitz of nearly 100,000 incoming freshmen at 292 public and private two- and four-year colleges, finds that men and women share high expectations for getting a degree, “no matter what obstacles get in my way.” But male students at the same time report coming into college…

Publishing a Short Story

Publishing a Short Story (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) A handout on my website, Short Stories: Top 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers, is currently turning up pretty high in the Google rankings. Every so often I get an e-mail from someone asking for advice. What advice I give depends on how serious the author is. Since I…

The lost art of the letter

E-mail is , of course, cheaper and encourages quicker thought, and it introduces a peculiar blend of the personal and professional. The AIP historians have also detected a decline in the use of lab notebooks, finding that data are often stored directly into computer files. Finally, they have noted the influence of PowerPoint, which can…