Summer Blogging Slowdown

Summer Blogging Slowdown (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m going on a little family vacation, and won’t be back until Tuesday. We’re visiting my brother-in-law in New Jersey, and plan to visit Philadelphia, too. I hope this trip goes better than last year’s. Similar:Nature walks 2012 and 2018.AestheticsTricking the eye to see 3D details in geometrically flat surfaces…

Knights of the Round Table — Star Trek TOS

—Knights of the Round Table — Star Trek TOS (YouTube) Amusing. Not side-splittingly funny, like that Bush/Blair mashup that was circulating last year. But still amusing. Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary. Similar:Parallels (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 11) Worf gets technobabbled into a ti… Rewatching ST:TNG After returning…AmusingToday's 10 sq cm of a #steampunk control…

Overheard at Soccer Camp

Angry mother to preteen girl: “Don’t ever tell me to shut up again. That’s totally disrespectful. Now go and fill your damn water.” Similar:Clues (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Four, Episode 14) Data's faslehoods nonpluss and Pic…Rewatching ST:TNG After the crew blac…EmpathyThe Backstory: A reporter arrested while covering a protest faces trial Monday. Here's why…Journalists are…

Moving Past Survival

Although professors may hope to remove obstacles to success, innate personality and other environmental factors may influence learning more than what we are able to offer with the short number of hours we are in contact with students. Yet, there are some tactics that seem to encourage real engagement in undergraduate core classes: —Shari Wilson…

Hey! Who turned me in?

The 28-year-old, identified only as D.M., took a photo of his speedometer showing 170 km (100 mph) on a back road in northern Croatia and then put it on the Web site of his local municipality. Police found him three days later. —Hey! Who turned me in? (Reuters) Similar:It's reckless and dangerous for a leader with…

Space Invaders

Qui ne se souvient pas du SPACE INVADERS, lun des premiers jeux vidéo — Aux commandes d’un vaisseau, il s’agissait de défendre la Terre contre des escadrilles d’envahisseurs venus de l’espace… Et bien, la plus grande partie de SPACE INVADERS de la planète a eu lieu le 24 juin 2006 au festival Belluard. —Space Invaders (notsonoisy.com)…

Maize: the final frontier

—Maize: the final frontier (ABCnet.au) A Star Trek cornfield maze. I’ll spare you the fanboy analysis, which would hinge on the fact that it looks like that’s the original series Enterprise, firing what looks like a phaser from the secondary hull (should be coming from the base of the saucer) at a Borg cube, but the…

”Uh…”

And yes, Liz’s face registers the shift between thinking Jon is sweet and deeply weird, but the sudden retraction of her hand from Garfield’s back seals the deal: she wants so little to do with Jon that even touching his cat feels wrong. —”Uh…” (Garfield: Permanent Monday) The world needs more daily critical analyses of Garfield…

People Power

Today’s peer-production machine runs in a mostly nonmonetary economy. The currency is reputation, expression, karma, “wuffie,” or simply whim. This can all sound a little like, well, ’60s-style utopianism. After all, Marx himself believed that the industrial proletariat would revolt against the bourgeoisie, creating a state where the workers own the means of industrial production.…

Muppet Wiki

—Muppet Wiki  (Muppet.Wikia.com) Too much information on the muppets. Way, way too much. Similar:Small Changes in Teaching: The Last 5 Minutes of ClassI just ordered the book Lang mentions in…AcademiaFacebook's director of media tries to appease news industryFacebook’s Patrick Walker assured a room…BusinessEvery day on my fantasy #neovictorian interplanetary cruiser features glowing green ether … In…

Paying Attention to Technology: Writing Technology Autobiographies

As citizens of a highly technological culture, our students see (and often use) technologies as a daily experience. Because of their proliferation, these technologies become are often taken for granted and unexplored. This lesson plan asks students to pay attention to these technologies explicitly. In this activity, students brainstorm lists of their interactions with technology,…

Goodbye, Mr. Keating

So, why do you want to study literature, knowing what you now know?” I wondered if studying a century of cynicism had altered their motives in the slightest. They were all considering graduate school, but their answers had little to do with what I knew they would need to write in their application essays. Sitting…

His Space

In an online advertising market increasingly dependent on the Net’s ability to precision- target ads, MySpace offers no sure way to hit the bull’s-eye. Google decides which ads to show based on search terms and page content. By contrast, a typical MySpace pageview doesn’t offer much of a clue about anything. What conclusions can you…

Barry, Brad, Beluga, and me

Dunn, now 40, grew up in suburban New Jersey where most of her friends dreamed of marrying their high-school sweethearts and settling down. She, however, was obsessed with music, and one day in 1989 walked into the offices of Rolling Stone. Despite a bad perm and a lack of street cred, her detailed knowledge of…

Mouse Potatoes and googling go mainstream

Mouse potatoes joined couch potatoes, google officially became a verb and drama queens finally found the limelight on Thursday when they crossed over from popular culture to mainstream English language. —Jill Serjeant —Mouse Potatoes and googling go mainstream (Reuters) Similar:'We're back': Bushy Run's 2023 battle reenactment will be heldI’m glad to know that this recent contro…CultureThat’s…