But while the goal of rewarding good teachers is laudable, the awards can sap the morale and productivity of faculty members who try too hard to receive them. For young professors in particular, paying too much attention to teaching awards is dangerous. […] A professor whose goal is to win a teaching award can be…
Instinct told me to start with the market of the 1970s – the time when electronics were getting small enough and cheap enough to allow for the definition to become true. Therefore the 1970s were also a time when the very concept of a PDA was something ordinary people could grasp. In some ways this…
Dripping wet and deeply disturbed, the smartly-dressed man was discovered walking along a windswept road beside the sea. Over the next few days he steadfastly refused, or was unable, to answer the most simple questions about who he was or where he had come from. It was only when someone in hospital had the bright…
Six in ten among the public feel the media show bias in reporting the news, and 22% say the government should be allowed to censor the press. More than 7 in 10 journalists believe the media does a good or excellent job on accuracy–but only 4 in 10 among the public feel that way. And…
Newsweek magazine on Sunday said it erred in a May 9 report that said U.S. interrogators desecrated the Koran at Guantanamo Bay, and apologized to the victims of deadly Muslim protests sparked by the article. “We regret that we got any part of our story wrong, and extend our sympathies to victims of the violence…
“Parents so far have not gotten the message that trampolines should not be used in the home environment,” said James Linakis, a pediatric emergency physician at Rhode Island Hospital’s Hasbro Children’s Hospital. —Study: trampoline injuries have spiked (Washington Times |UPI) Sigh. My next weekend project is to put together the backyard trampoline that my wife got…
Are classic essays like Swift’s still being written, or has the elegant thoughtfulness that is the essay’s legacy been winnowed away by its rapacious bastard offspring, the blog? And will the Internet generation, suffused by the blogosphere, lose the ability to write essays altogether? (The plethora of essays for sale online to students portends they…
For those of you who don’t know what Mono is… let me explain. It is known to most ignorant people as “The Kissing Disease.” This, of course, makes anyone who has it appear to be a whore or a gameshow host. But, this isn’t a proper representation of how the disease is actually spread. I…
The departure of Griego Erwin, who wrote three columns a week, continues the run of recent embarrassments for newspapers, many of which have cost writers their jobs. Last week, USA Today Pentagon correspondent Tom Squitieri resigned under pressure after lifting quotes from another newspaper and using other quotes without attribution. That followed on the heels…
—Ladies of Star Trek (SixtiesCity.com) Knee boots and beehive hairdos… I’m in heaven. (Thanks for the link, Scribblingwoman.) Similar:The Ascent #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 9) Odo and Quark bicker their way up …Rewatching ST:DS9 Space Dad fusses ho…AmusingAnother delightful section of a #steampunk #neovictorian control panel. #design #aesthetic…AestheticsOedipus Tyrannos (Oedipus Rex) — Brief IntroductionMy…
After finding food, scout bees returning to the hive dance on the vertical walls of the honeycomb. A round dance indicates the food is very close, within 35 yards or less. A figure-eight pattern indicates that the food is farther away. The bee indicates the distance to the food by how long it dances; it…
“The cause for the beatification of John Paul II is open,” the new Roman Catholic leader told priests meeting at Rome’s Basilica of St John in Lateran. —Pope John Paul II to be beatified (BBC) Similar:On the Ethics of Rebranding a Former Trump Administration Official as an Amusing TV Person…It’s also a disservice to readers to…
I have recently decided that not being in a class that requires blogging is a bad thing. Because i am not required to do blogging, i don’t do it. This isn’t because i don’t want to, it is because i don’t have time to. If it were required, i would make time to do it,…
The World’s Energy Problems Solved by My 7-year-old (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) For months now, my son has been requesting, for his bedtime stories, books about chemistry and energy. We just finished one on windmills. These aren’t kiddie picture books — they are thin, but they are chapter books, packed with statistics and chemical equations. For a…
The main cost of starting a Web-based startup is food and rent. Which means it doesn’t cost much more to start a company than to be a total slacker. […] Most startups fail. It’s the nature of the business. But it’s not necessarily a mistake to try something that has a 90% chance of failing,…
Provided it is fed with cubes, the robot can create a copy of itself within a few minutes. To build a replica, a ‘parent’ robot bends down and places its own uppermost cube on the table next to it. This becomes the base of the ‘child’ robot. The parent then picks up a new cube,…
No one at Southern Methodist University knew — for sure — who The Phantom Professor was. The professor’s blog, like those of many untenured academics, was anonymous and the university was never named. —Scott Jaschik —‘The Phantom Professor’ (Inside Higher Ed) A professor blogs anonymously, venting about the campus crime and the wealthy socialites in her…
How many other American journalists, perhaps not as secure in their position as I, have thought to do a story and decided that it’s too close to the bone, too questioning of the American government or its actions? How many times was the risk that our own government might come in and rifle through our…
We are prudent, practical, common-sense people. And what could be more common-sense — more downright American — than chopping down vast acres of trees, loading them onto trucks, driving the trucks to paper mills where the trees are ground into paste and reconstituted as huge rolls of newsprint, which are put back onto trucks and…
Given the dominance of Hierarchical folders over the last 40 years, this is a major development in the history of information management. Implicit in Google’s product offerings is an declaration of war: Hierarchy is doomed, and Search is going to kill it. —John Hiler —Google’s War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders (Microcontent News)…