A Win-Win-Win Situation

Tell your professors face to face every time you will be gone, I urged the baseball team, and express your eagerness to make up any missed work. Even more important, when you?re in class, show the professor that you are there to learn. Just as you know how to position yourselves on the diamond, learn…

The nesting of clauses that lay in the sentence that Cheney said

Why is Cheney snowcloning ‘The House That Jack Built’? —Benjamin Zimmer —The nesting of clauses that lay in the sentence that Cheney said (Lanugage Log) Similar:Why Can't My New Employees Write? | Just VisitingWe’re talking about elite students here …AcademiaNBC's Chuck Todd takes aim at CNN”The big danger always confronting CNN —…BusinessWhere is the comma in…

Babylon 5's Katsulas Dies

Andreas Katsulas, the character actor known to SF fans as G’Kar on Babylon 5 and a familiar face from Star Trek and other SF&F TV shows, died Feb. 13 of lung cancer in Los Angeles, his agent, Donna Massetti, confirmed to SCI FI Wire. He was 59. —Babylon 5’s Katsulas Dies (SciFi.com) This man brought an…

Who Gets In? The key to admission remains a mystery

“Along with the Sphinx, the DaVinci code and Easter Island, college admissions is one of the world’s great mysteries,” said Mary Beth Kurilko, associate director of undergraduate admissions at Temple University. “I see it in the faces of the parents who hover around their children during our information sessions. They’re listening for it, leaning forward…

Dick Cheney Quail Hunt Game

—Dick Cheney Quail Hunt Game File this under “What took you so long?” Similar:Why I Like Papers, PleaseAt a certain point, the transit papers w…AestheticsFake News Can Be Deadly. Here's How To Spot ItWe are all vectors by which fake news ca…Current_EventsGoogle worker says he was fired for blowing whistle on cultA former Google video…

Happy, Happy Poetry

The Swing Robert Louis Stevenson HOW do you like to go up in a swing,   Up in the air so blue? Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing   Ever a child can do! Up in the air and over the wall,   Till I can see so wide, Rivers and trees and cattle and all…

Better living through video games?

The York team recently compared 94 bilinguals and monolinguals between the ages of 30 and 80. It found that while both groups started showing cognitive decline by age 60, the rate of slowing for bilinguals was much slower. Now young people who play video games are showing this similar pattern of high performance in resisting…

Cubists Launch Unnavigable Web Site

The International Society of Cubists officially launched its Web site today, a brilliant rejection of natural form and perspective that metaphysically establishes the implication of movement, analytically redefines spatial relationships, and is an absolute bitch to navigate. “What the hell is this? I can’t tell how to get anywhere,” one of the site’s first visitors…

Superman to the rescue of Jesus

Superman will help teach British children about Jesus in state-mandated religious education classes, The Telegraph reports. —Superman to the rescue of Jesus (JoanneJacobs.com) I’m blogging this one not just because it’s odd enough to be interesting, but because of Joanne Jacobs’ final suggestion, just before “Posted by joannej”. Similar:Go not to the elves for counsel, for…

The Professor as Instant Messenger

I regularly use computers in my classroom, and have long been a fan of the educational potential of online discussion groups. So I was completely taken aback a few months ago when a colleague informed me of something she had recently learned from her students: Teenagers no longer check their e-mail. I confirmed that in…

Blogging Slowdown

Blogging Slowdown (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m going to slow down my blogging here for a while, because I’m in the process of moving to a new server. I’ve got a backup of the site as of sometime yesterday, and I’m not sure whether I’ll be able to get another backup before the new site goes online.…

Ten Things About Ten Things About Writing

—Ten Things About Ten Things About Writing (Paperback Writer) A top ten list of top-ten lists about writing. (A former student of mine, Kathy Kennedy, wrote “Short Stories: 10 Tips for Novice Creative Writers” as part of a technical writing class.) Similar:Mentoring skills, communication/listening, empathy, critical thinking define successful em…A Google self-study found that its own…

Bottled Water: Nectar of the Frauds?

More fossil fuels are used in packaging the water. Most water bottles are made with polyethylene terephthalate, a plastic derived from crude oil. ”Making bottles to meet Americans’ demand for bottled water requires more than 1.5 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel some 100,000 U.S. cars for a year,” Arnold said. Worldwide, some…

A Good Choice

“It says here under your ‘Date Needed” column that you need these on February 7th. I have them scheduled to arrive on February 8th.” He then continued, “But your document is unclear because you did not fill out the “Date Used” column as well. If you had put February 7th in the “Date Used” colum,…

Harper Lee, Gregarious for a Day

They come with cameras dangling on their wrists and dressed, respectfully, as if they were about to issue an insurance policy or anchor the news. An awards ceremony for an essay contest on the subject of “To Kill a Mockingbird,” the occasion attracts no actor, politician or music figure. Instead, it draws someone to whom…

Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams

After 145 years, Western Union has quietly stopped sending telegrams. —Era Ends: Western Union Stops Sending Telegrams (Live Science) Similar:Hyperbole and a Half: The Alot is Better Than You at EverythingThe Alot is an imaginary creature that I…AmusingGeometry and color maps for wooden desk tray. #Blender3D #practiceThe blue image is a “normal map,” which …AestheticsAnalysis |…