No individual has made billions off Star Trek—although that franchise, too, has its own mountains of merchandise, including toys, video games, and hundreds of books. More impressive than its merchandise and its profits, though, is its monumental amount of screen-time. Since the first broadcast of the first episode on September 8, 1966, there have been…
—MLA Citation Style (Long Island University) It’s got Star Trek. It’s got Flash Gordon. It’s in MLA style. What could be better? Similar:To Learn More, This High-Schooler Left The ClassroomNick Bain, 17, was in class one day when…CulturePerspective | Could ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ really be done? We found out. The three of us approach them…
—‘NY Times’ Retracts John Roberts Memo Story (Editor & Publisher) So the paper publishes false information, in a story about a memo critiquing a court case involving a newspaper that published false information. The court case ruled that a newspaper could only be found libelous if the paper published the false information with actual malice.…
The shuttle has cost the lives of 14 astronauts since the first flight in 1982. Roger Pielke Jr., a space policy expert at the University of Colorado, estimates that NASA has spent about $150 billion on the program since its inception in 1971. The total cost of the space station by the time it’s finished…
WASHINGTON, DC—Congress scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of the Constitution Monday, only two months after it went live. “The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation,” Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. “But when so-called ‘contributors’ began loading it down with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought…
“Don’t panic over the latest techno jargon like … peer-to-peer, wi-max, 80211, bittorrent … the only thing that gives purpose to all these remarkable delivery systems is the kind of creative content we all produce,” Eisner said. —Eisner’s parting words to Hollywood: “Don’t panic” (Breitbart.com) I don’t feel much pity for the hordes of netizens who…
I wonder what they call it when you can’t think of what to write in a weblog? Writer’s Blog, weblock? —Anna-Marie —Comfortably Numb (ilex) One of Mike Vitia‘s students coins a term. Students in several of my classes are engaging in drive-by blogging, which is the flurry of entries that one posts just before the blogging…
The wild rumors filled the vacuum and seemed to gain credence with each retelling — that an infant’s body had been found in a trash can, that sharks from Lake Pontchartrain were swimming through the business district, that hundreds of bodies had been stacked in the Superdome basement. “It doesn’t take anything to start a…
In addition to a Sony PlayStation 2, the family has some special equipment: a S.M.A.R.T. BrainGames system that consists of a special controller, a helmet with built-in sensors for monitoring brain activity and a Smartbox that receives the brain signals. As long as the boys remain calmly focused on the game, it plays normally, says…
The tomb of Odysseus has been found, and the location of his legendary capital city of Ithaca discovered here on this large island across a one-mile channel from the bone-dry islet that modern maps call Ithaca. —Thomas Elias —Archeologists make historic discovery (Madera Tribune) Similar:The dangers of 'character education' in universitiesAs the authors depressingly note, “the…
There was always a notion in the past of putting out information that people need to know. Now the entire industry is driven by providing what people want to hear and see. And that gives you more Michael Jackson than Social Security. That gives you Chandra Levy and Gary Condit, not local government. That gives…
Back then, most directors were too old to play games, and clearly didn’t bother to observe anyone who did. But to be fair to Hollywood, game culture is also hard to film because so much of a game’s appeal is internal. All the strategizing, the mental mapping, the cybernetic thrill of being in a loop…
In “Drama as Literature,” I assigned the first third or so of Oedipus the King, which always throws students for a loop. What’s with the “strophe,” which is the part of the choral performance chanted as the performers dance from right to left, and the “antistrophe,” which is chanted as the performers dance from left…
—Austrian national anthem ‘sexist’ (BBC) Should that caption read “Austrian schoolchildren are taught the national anthem during solar eclipses”? I can’t imagine why else they might be wearing those goggles. I don’t mean to make light of the subject. I’ve written a handout on gender-neutral language, and in my American Lit class, we discussed the ritualistic…
Usually once a decade an invention comes along that makes everyone revise the way they think about an accepted form of technology. In the first decade of the 21st Century the invention is Uni-Screw?. Uniscrew? replaces Slotted, Phillips,? Pozi-Drive,? Torx? and Square Head style screws and offers significant advantages compared to these fastening mediums. As…
Hi, I’m a reporter with National Public Radio and I’m doing a story on the plague that’s hit World of Warcraft. I’m really interested in talking to some people who play the game about the plague and what’s been done about it and generally how it feels to have your virtual character done in by…
In these days of instant messaging, e-mail, videophones and nearly instantaneous satellite communication with all parts of the world, the idea of communicating by telegraph is perhaps best described as “quaint.” However, it would be difficult to overestimate the impact that the telegraph had on worldwide communications at the time of its introduction. —The road…
Clutching the shredded tatters of my pride and dignity, I trudged to the office hours of my math instructor every week, seeking an explanation for the increasingly mysterious problems in the textbook. My instructor welcomed my presence as she would welcome the Angel of Death. Irritated? She was terrified. Explain…the problems? Articulate…the steps? Relate…the concepts?…
During the 1990’s, Lorin Anderson (a former student of Benjamin Bloom) led a team of cognitive psychologists in revisiting the taxonomy with the view to examining the relevance of the taxonomy as we enter the twenty-first century. REMEMBERING Recognise, list, describe, identify retrieve, name ?. Can the student RECALL information? UNDERSTANDING Interpret, exemplify, summarise, infer,…
More and more, video game-related courses are being offered in colleges around the country in response to the digital media industry’s appetite for skilled workers and the tastes of a new generation of students raised on Game Boy and Xbox. —Michael Hill —More Colleges Offering Video Game Courses (AP|MyWay) Seton Hill University January, 2006 (3 weeks,…