Scientists say they have photographic evidence that suggests liquid water may have been on the planet as little as five years ago. —Julie Wheldon —Does water STILL flow on Mars? (Daily Mail) Similar:Earth With RingsSure, Saturn’s rings are cool, but the E…AestheticsFinal grades are due tomorrow. My Fall 2020 is almost over. I survived.Final grades are…
The lunch took place just a couple of days after the Democrats crushed the Republicans in the midterm elections, regaining the House and the Senate. Mr. Bérubé, to his credit, kept the gloating to a minimum. It’s worth noting that, even though they’ve been writing about each other for years, the two men had never…
In what seems to be a growing genre, we have a new trailer for Mary Poppins re-cut by a fan into a horror film called “Scary Mary”. —Mary Poppins re-cut into Horror film (The Disney Blog) Stay awake… don’t close your eyes. Similar:How Common Core Testing Damaged High School English ClassesHelping my students understand how my…
I discovered that an online newsletter, Podcasting News, had run a small piece titled “Professor: University Podcasts Are Totally Bogus.” The professor was me. The piece included a link to our student newspaper, which led the reader to a mangled version of my opinion piece, reduced to a fifth of its original length and printed…
Writing, in a radio story, has to be tighter and simpler than print: the beginning should hook listeners fast and hard, the way a song does. A succession of straightforward, declarative sentences (like those in the beginnings above) might feel a bit too clipped in a print story, but it’s just right for radio. A…
What I got from dumpster this month: 8 giant bags of fun-size skittles (exp. 8/07) 2 giant bags of fun-size starburst (ditto) 8 cloth Halloween gift bags 1 Halloween make-your-own candy necklace (sealed) 1 candy vampire teeth (ditto) 1 rainbow clown wig (new in bag) 1 head of cauliflower 3 8 oz. packs of mushrooms…
—Gingerbread Tie Fighter (Flickr) The Icing is what gives the ginjedi his power. It’s an energy field created by egg whites and sugar. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the ginjedibread together. Via BoingBoing. Similar:Students say "math class is stupid and boring," and they are right. –Mathematician Paul L…I am working on some conference…
The Internet has become so pervasive that to be truly literate in 2006 demands some degree of technological fluency or at least familiarity. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 73% of American adults had used the Internet or e-mail as of March 2006. For the first time, the National Association of Adult…
—Periodic Table of the Elements (Popular Science) This is a detail from the “Oxygen” entry for this photographic periodic table of the elements. Last night for his bedtime reading, when asked to choose from a small stack of books that also included adventure and humor, for his bedtime story my eight-year-old chose “The Mystery of the…
We started laughing, and I forgot that I didn’t like this and that I’d rather be doing something else. We worked together and never actually hit a point where we couldn’t make things work on our own. It was a nice, independent sort of feeling (which is a feeling that has been quite rare for…
The 99 tips in this article make up the best in email practices. From how to ethically use the ‘BCC:’ to what attachments will make your mobile emailing compatible with everyone else’s, this list covers everything you need to know about emailing. —Hacking Email: 99 Email Security and Productivity Tips (IT Security) I don’t really care…
constructing a pie with the topology of a sphere from 20 triangular sub-pie modules attached with amazing magnets. —modular pie-cosahedron (Instructables) Now this is geeky. Via boingboing. Similar:Self-referential capitalism; paradoxical fusion of idealized pop culture and mass-produced…AestheticsMy Tween Preps to Program a Lego Hobbit GameAs part of a course I’m teaching on “Dig…CybercultureThrough the Looking Glass…
I would like to send my condolences out to Catherine Altman, Robert Altman’s wife, as well as all of his immediate family, close friends, co-workers, and all of his inner circle. I feel as if I’ve just had the wind knocked out of me and my heart aches. If not only my heart but the…
The bricks are so meticulously made that the company claims that out of every 1 million elements made, just 18 will be declared defective and removed from the set. Impressive numbers, considering that the LEGO Group is producing 15 billion components a year–that’s 1.7 million items an hour, or 28,500 a minute. Tire production accounts…
With the aid of a photo, master illustrator Rob Sacchetto will hand-illustrate a custom portrait depicting you as a brain-chasing ghoul. —Zombie Portraits Similar:I'm happy with today's #steampunk control panel. To fill out the master plan I'm constrain…One of many steampunk control panels I’v…AestheticsThe Schizoid Man (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 6)Rewatching Star Trek: The…
When someone forwards you an urgent e-mail message, it’s often something you really do need to see; if a cellphone call breaks through while you’re desperately trying to solve a problem, it might be the call that saves your hide. In the language of computer sociology, our jobs today are “interrupt driven.” Distractions are not…
—Asteroid’s Revenge This resembles a videogame version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, the modern play that retells Hamlet from the perspective of two minor characters. The website calls it “Asteroids Revenge,” but I’ll excuse the mistake. Similar:Sights, Sounds, and Smells of Elizabethan TheaterSomewhere during my education I picked u…AcademiaNerd Break! Listening To: Wilhelm Scream…
This short study examines Wikipedia’s credibility by asking 258 research staff with a response rate of 21 percent, to read an article and assess its credibility, the credibility of its author and the credibility of Wikipedia as a whole. Staff were either given an article in their own expert domain or a random article. No…
Persons making noninfringing uses of the following six classes of works will not be subject to the prohibition against circumventing access controls (17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)) during the next three years. 1. Audiovisual works included in the educational library of a college or university’s film or media studies department, when circumvention is accomplished for the…
This face says, “GOD! I am WAY TOO BUSY having a mouthful of braces and a hot-rolled ponytail to smile for you, Mom! GOD!” —bershon (flickr pool) The world needed a word to describe this attitude. I haven’t been able to trace its origin, though. Update: My German classes were a long time ago, but…