“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 (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…
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…
What’s it actually like? Does it exploit the tragedy for cheap thrills? Or does it actually have artistic merit — offering a new way to think about Columbine? Right off the bat, Ledonne tries to put his critics off guard by delivering precisely the opposite of what you’d expect. Nobody will be able to use…
Even Twain scholars seem to have missed his foresight on this subject. I discovered it by accident, in browsing through the 24 volumes of his collected works in the “Author’s National Edition.” In an 1898 short story called “From the ‘London Times’ of 1904,” he describes an invention called the “telelectroscope,” a gadget hooked up…
Recently, I tried to help a faculty member at my college submit a grant proposal to a National Institutes of Health competition. I soon discovered that one can no longer submit a grant to NIH directly. One has to submit it through Grants.gov. I estimate that it took me more than 25 hours to try…
The [Association of American Colleges and Universities] report outlines curricular goals for all colleges, but they are not of the “two semesters of science, two courses in writing” variety. Instead they are four broad “essential learning outcomes,” with the idea that different kinds of institutions would assure these outcomes in different ways. Generally, the outcomes…
The primary focus of this conference is to explore the growing cultural importance of interactive media. All scholarship on digital interactive media, such as computer games, mixed realities and interactive fiction, as well as users, including adults and children, will be considered in one of four broad conference streams: —Interacting with Immersive Worlds (Brock University) The…
Mexican food in the united states is like the bow legged asthmatic cousin of real Mexican food. —Jonathan Stewart —Tacos, toilets and a glass of tap water! (Mexican Civilization) I have been enjoying the blogging that is currently being posted by students of my division chair, John Spurlock. Similar:Why did I only blog 3 times in…
I have seen it, touched it, and played with it. The final industrial design prototype for the XO, the device that the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) Initiative is going to start shipping to countries across the world this summer. AMD hosted a luncheon on Monday to give the press an update on the project,…
Whatever one thinks of the game’s content, the game went through an extensive judging process and was deemed a finalist by a jury of game experts. To have the game pulled based on either pressure from backers or a fear of liability is to say that independent games do not deserve the same respect and…
You know something is seriously changing in a genre when a masked serial killer invites you to check out his “blog”. Such a gesture is obviously a solicitation of interactive engagement — a marketing scheme intended to solicit an investment of attention and to mollify a fan base, with the promise of giving a web-savvy…
To “pluto” is “to demote or devalue someone or something,” much like what happened to the former planet last year when the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union decided Pluto didn’t meet its definition of a planet. —‘Plutoed’ chosen as ’06 Word of the Year (Yahoo | AP (will expire)) Similar:My 13yo homeschooler had no…
The influence of newspaper and magazine critics is on the wane. People don’t care to be lectured by professionals on what they should read or listen to or see. They’re increasingly likely to pay attention to amateur online reviewers, bloggers and Amazon critics like Klausner. Online critics have a kind of just-plain-folks authenticity that the…
In an optical or physical sense, the capabilities of modern day computers have really put “reality” immersion within reach. Yet, this aspect of immersion–the “wow it looks so real” factor–has become a crutch and the only pillar of the immersion experience for which most games aim. Maybe it’s easier to sell or produce en masse.…
There are no lithe leaps, perfect pirouettes or pointed toes here. Most girls cannot walk or stand, much less make a shallow curtsy. Their crutches and walkers lie nearby and their customized ballet slippers are stretched over leg braces. —Corey KilGannon —Given a Chance to Be Little Ballerinas, and Smiling Right Down to Their Toes (NY…
Born with a rare syndrome that left him profoundly autistic, seven-year-old Luke was trapped in his own body. But then his dad took him surfing. —Paul Solotaroff —About a boy (Guardian) I’m sick with a virus, and I can’t do much but read. Oh, and try to find out why my division chair can’t log into…
I never understood why the dead were painted and made to look alive, but now I see that‘snot really the purpose. Watching Joe at work, I see that he restores bodies to a restful state, rather than an unnatural one. They don’t look like they?re going to sit up in the casket and say howdy,…
The vast majority of teens who use social networking sites say they use the sites to maintain their current friendships, while half report using the sites to make new friends. Teens say they use social networking sites to stay in touch with friends they see a lot (91% of social networking teens report this), but…
Until literature departments take into account that humans are not just cultural or textual phenomena but something more complex, English and related disciplines will continue to be the laughingstock of the academic world that they have been for years because of their obscurantist dogmatism and their coddled and preening pseudo-radicalism. Until they listen to searching…