Over the last few years, I’ve noticed that a surprisingly large number of native English speakers, who are otherwise very technically competent, seem to lack strong English skills. Mostly, this seems to manifest itself as varying degrees of poor spelling and grammar: ‘definately’ instead of ‘definitely’; ‘should of’ instead of ‘should have’; and I even…
For one thing, we overestimated academe’s interest in the humanistic study of video games. True, colleges and universities across the country are rushing pell-mell to grab a piece of the game pie, but that rush seems to be more about pipelining students into industry jobs than helping them develop critical-thinking skills. Ensuring that young people…
Here’s something you probably didn’t know: Ireland today is the richest country in the European Union after Luxembourg. Yes, the country that for hundreds of years was best known for emigration, tragic poets, famines, civil wars and leprechauns today has a per capita G.D.P. higher than that of Germany, France and Britain. How Ireland went…
Modern English has given us two terms we need to explain this phenomenon: “geeking out” and “vegging out.” To geek out on something means to immerse yourself in its details to an extent that is distinctly abnormal – and to have a good time doing it. To veg out, by contrast, means to enter a…
It just can’t be good, it has to be original and good. When I think hard about it part of me kind of wishes we hurled our bodies into the air, at times, cracking on impact, but I miss the rest of you and I am now working on keeping myself at SHU. You can…
Computers and the Internet are changing the way people read. Thus far, search engines and hyperlinks, those underlined words or phrases that when clicked take you to a new Web page, have turned the online literary voyage into a kind of U-pick island-hop. Far more is in store. Take “Hamlet.” –Gregory M. Lamb —How the…
At the same time, usability is also an ideology — the belief in a certain specialized type of human rights: The right of people to be superior to technology. If there’s a conflict between technology and people, then technology must change. The right of empowerment. Users should understand what’s happening and be capable of controlling…
We live at a peculiar juncture, one in which the record (an object) and the recombinant (a process) still, however briefly, coexist. But there seems little doubt as to the direction things are going. The recombinant is manifest in forms as diverse as Alan Moore’s graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, machinima generated with…
As theorists became endowed chairs, department heads, series editors, and MLA presidents, as they were profiled in the New York Times Magazine and invited to lecture around the world, the institutional effects of Theory displaced its intellectual nature. It didn’t have to happen, but that‘sthe way the new crop of graduate students experienced it. Not…
As did many others, I received the sad news this morning that John Lovas, recent chair of CCCC, passed away June 21, 2005. He was 65. —Doug Hesse —John Lovas (Community College English) I’m still catching up on all that happened during my offline week. This is a shock, and it certainly puts my own little…
On Father’s Day, while we were headed east on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, on our way to a family vacation in Amish country, the steering on our 1992 Taurus gave out. The car spun out in the grassy median, flipped over, and came to rest partially in a westbound lane.–Dennis G. Jerz —What I Did on…
Vacation June 18-25 (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Sometime this weekend, I’ll be taking the wife and kids to a cabin for a week in Amish country. Actually, that phrasing is misleading. It’s more accurate to say I’ll accompany my family to a cabin that my in-laws booked. At any rate, I’ll be offline the whole time… and…
The students were deliciously amused as the blinds fell. . . but the screen rose — or else the video was out-of-focus, or the sound intermittent, or worse. How I hoped to orchestrate the class! Instead, the room orchestrated me, and the technology orchestrated the room. Are lecture halls more vulnerable to the lure of…
Imagine losing all your tax records, your high school and college yearbooks, and your child’s baby pictures and videos. Now multiply such a loss across every federal agency storing terabytes of information, much of which must be preserved by law. That’s the disaster NARA is racing to prevent. It is confronting thousands of incompatible data…
THE Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, has criticised the new web-based media for ?paranoid fantasy, self-indulgent nonsense and dangerous bigotry?. He described the atmosphere on the world wide web as a free-for-all that was ?close to that of unpoliced conversation”. […] ?There is a tension at the heart of the journalistic enterprise. Its justification…
On May 7, the 26-year-old vaccine researcher from Arlington, Virginia, 15 weeks pregnant with her second child, collapsed from a stroke brought on by undiagnosed melanoma. She suffered serious brain damage and will never regain consciousness, but the cancer is spreading quickly. Now Ms. Torres’ family is hoping she will live long enough on life…
The techniques Rumsfeld balked at included “use of a wet towel or dripping water to induce the misperception of suffocation.” “Our Armed Forces are trained,” a Pentagon memo on the changes read, “to a standard of interrogation that reflects a tradition of restraint.” Nevertheless, the log shows that interrogators poured bottles of water on al-Qahtani’s…
Fleet Street began its association with publishing in 1500 when Wynkyn de Worde built London’s first printing press next to St Bride’s. It became home to Britain’s newspaper industry. But one by one the newspapers moved out – the former offices of the Daily Telegraph and Daily Express are now home to the US investment…
“They develop both left-brain technical thinking as well as right-brain artistic thinking (skills), combined with traditional university liberal arts training,” said Scott Leutenegger, associate professor and coordinator of the game-development program. “This is going to become something that’s needed for more jobs over the next 10 to 30 years.” Schutz said the program “keeps both…
All in all, I enjoy my job very much, and I’m thankful that in return for my work, I make enough for my family to live on (with the help of some summer work). I may not see my family as much as I’d like, but I know that what I’m doing is right for…