Best Invention: YouTube

Having started with a single video of a trip to the zoo in April of last year, YouTube now airs 100 million videos–and its users add 70,000 more–every day. What happened? YouTube’s creators had stumbled onto the intersection of three revolutions. First, the revolution in video production made possible by cheap camcorders and easy-to-use video…

Whack-A-Moliere

Whack-A-Moliere (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I made this with cleverpig.com’s Whack-A-Pig tutorial. Similar:What a fluke (great headline; great story)AmusingIt's Friday night in July, and I'm jamming with my fall course preps.The dean sends me an email at 9:07pm. In…AcademiaBrett Favre Urges Ban On Youth Tackle Football, Pleads For No Hitting 'Til 14Concussions in sports often a topic…

Physics for Future Presidents

[C]hocolate chip cookies (CCCs) have eight times the energy as the same weight of TNT. How can that be true? Why can’t we blow up a building with CCCs instead of TNT? —Physics for Future Presidents Via Metafilter. My eight-year-old son is a physics junkie. I can’t wait to show him the videotaped lectures and…

Once upon a time

“I’ve been making up bedtime stories for my children and suddenly I’ve had a brainwave. These stories are good! These stories are brilliant! I would be failing in my moral duty to my adoring public if I did not put them down on paper.” If my theory holds true, it is scary, because it suggests…

The Wikipedia and the Death of Archaeology

Given a sufficient amount of server space and the commitment to maintain it, a resource already exists that may not only sound the death knell of archaeology, but also the opportunity to enable a greater depth and sophistication of anthropology than has ever existed before. So radical an innovation would this new anthropological methodology represent…

Seton Hill University Information Technology's Special Comments about Internet Usage and Web Postings

Seton Hill University encourages self-expression and open communication as part of the student experience, in balance with the mission of Seton Hill University and the ideals of sensitivity, dignity and respect for self and for others. —Seton Hill University Information Technology’s Special Comments about Internet Usage and Web Postings (Seton Hill University) More and more students…

Best. Costume. Ever.

—Best. Costume. Ever. If your geek quotient isn’t high enough to recognize it, this is a mock-up of the power loader from Aliens. Similar:Microsoft “lobotomized” AI-powered Bing Chat, and its fans aren’t happyMicrosoft limits long conversations to a…Current_EventsAI is better at writing poems than you’d expect. But that’s fine. Even the most rebellious poets follow…

Percentage of Chart Which Resembles Pac-Man

—Percentage of Chart Which Resembles Pac-Man (themot.org) Similar:Lego TimelineThe Lego brick system was patented 50 ye…AestheticsMy 10yo Created Bookmarks to Express Her Complex Relationship with ReadingMy 10yo has a complex relationship with …BooksCopspeak, "the past exonerative" tense, and punching NazisIn the Constitution, any suspect is inno…CultureNo, Prince Philip did not dress as a palace guard to…

Stephen Colbert on Blogs

—Stephen Colbert on Blogs (Youtube) My student Gabby Blanchard posted this on her blog. Hilarious. Similar:How Will Historians of the Future Run MS Word 97? How Can We Save It for Them?Just as early filmmakers couldn’t have p…CybercultureShakaar #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 3, Episode 20) Winn asks Kira to reclaim macguffins… Rewatching ST:DS9 After losing to…

Shaking Things Up

Inkshedding was first developed by writing teachers Russ Hunt and Jim Reither in the 1980s. You can find all kinds of information about it online. Of course, as with any popular teaching technique, many different practices now fall under the name of inkshedding, as instructors have personalized it and made it their own. Dan’s version…

Under Fire, Soldiers Kill Blogs

Milblogs published by authors with “boots on the ground” received little attention from officials in the early days following the Iraq invasion in 2003, when the phenomenon of blogging was less known. But since then, Pentagon scrutiny has increased.–Xeni Jardin —Under Fire, Soldiers Kill Blogs (Wired) Similar:How Are Websites Made?This one chart is actually the punch…

''Kairotically Speaking'': Kairos and the Power of Identity

I’ll return to my analysis of Kairos as a project identity later. But first I’d like to consider one other aspect of Jerz’s critique–attention to audience. Kairos’s design (referring to Issue 5.1), Jerz says tongue-in-cheek, “has drastically improved,” making it “no longer an easy target.” The only mention of audience in Jerz’s critique is when…