The Pope has died at the age of 84, after becoming one of the longest-serving pontiffs in history. —Pope John Paul II dies in Vatican (BBC) Similar:Pluto FlybyWhen I was about 10, I wrote to NASA and…Current_EventsGingerbread USS EnterpriseMr. Sulu, set phasers to delicious! Whic…AestheticsDear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to youI am intrigued…
For the first three days of April, celebrations will be held in Denmark to mark the bicentenary of the birth of the country’s most famous writer, Hans Christian Andersen. —Malcolm Brabant —Enduring legacy of author Andersen (BBC) The Ugly Duckling… The Little Mermaid… The Princess and the Pea… The Emperor’s New Clothes… You know Hans Christian…
They Took It Sitting Down (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) The other night, about a third of my American Lit survey class insisted on sitting on the floor. They pushed the chairs aside and clumped together in the front of the room. The weather was nice, but we couldn’t go outside because a student was using her blog…
As the first lethal robots head for Iraq, the role of the robot soldier as a killing machine has barely been debated. The history of warfare suggests that every new technological leap – the longbow, the tank, the atomic bomb – outraces the strategy and doctrine to control it. “The lawyers tell me there are…
A thorough analysis of the Koran reveals that the US will cease to exist in the year 2007, according to research published by Palestinian scholar Ziad Silwadi. The study, which has caught the attention of millions of Muslims worldwide, is based on in-depth interpretations of various verses in the Koran. It predicts that the US…
Q. If you could travel in time, where would you go and why? A. I’d like to see what my 30s look like, not too far – we’re talking about eight years down the line. I’d like to see what’s going on in my life, that’s quite interesting to me. —Q&A: Billie Piper (BBC) My wife,…
“[B]logging is not an educational use of school computers.” — Chris Sousa, principal of Proctor Jr.-Sr. High School. —High school bans blogging (Rutland Herald) I wish this were an April Fool’s Day hoax. Similar:Journalists prefer plain language.AestheticsI'm Asking My Students to Be Deliberate about the Word "Novel"In the past few years, I have noticed mo…AcademiaWhat Part…
“Reality is dead,” says Marx; however, according to d’Erlette[1] , it is not so much reality that is dead, but rather the futility, and some would say the fatal flaw, of reality. However, the economy, and thus the rubicon, of postmaterialist constructivism which is a central theme of Tarantino’s Jackie Brown is also evident in…
A Shanghai online game player stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword, the China Daily said Wednesday, creating a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons. —Online Gamer Stabbed for Selling Cyber-Saber (Reuters|My Way) But it wasn’t the stabbing that created the dilemma, it was the victim’s act…
Imagine someone coping with real discrimination — a black tanner, say, in 1897 Alabama. To expand his business, he needs capital and access to markets beyond the black business corridors in the south. Every white lender has turned him down, however, and no white merchant will carry his leather goods, even though they are superior…
Whether solving mysteries in text-based adventure games or slaying dragons by phone in multi-user role-playing games, many players still name the written word as their weapon of choice. —Jacob Ogles —Keyboard Is Mightier Than Sword (Wired) Rather than wallow in text-only nostalgia, this piece places text games in the context of modern 3D gaming, so it’s…
Across campus, in a second-floor windowless room, four students huddle around an odd, 3-foot-tall frame constructed of PVC pipe. They have equipped it with propellers, cameras, lights, a laser, depth detectors, pumps, an underwater microphone, and an articulated pincer. At the top sits a black, waterproof briefcase containing a nest of hacked processors, minuscule fans,…
In terms of their reputation within respectable society, comics hit their nadir in the early 1950s. Slowly, however, the pendulum started to swing the other way. The careers of two Catholic intellectuals, Marshall McLuhan and Father Walter Ong, illustrate how comics re-won respect in the post-war era. In the 1940s, long before his fame as…
Take her money and cut and paste a paper together from the internet that was so obviously plagiarised that she’d be guaranteed to get caught. And then, if I was able to get the information out of her, I’d report her to whatever her school was, and who knows, maybe even pump her for double…
Because Grinnell is a small college, it‘sclear that many students make postings that assume a lot of knowledge on the part of readers, and the postings range from serious to silly — with many appearing to be the kind of thing a college student might write after a beer or three. Another Grinnell student sent…
Columbia is introducing a new journalism curriculum. But it is doing so in a separate program, maintaining its old program, which has many of the characteristics Bollinger criticized. The new program is a one-year M.A. degree that draws more heavily on the liberal arts and broad areas of study, rather than the traditional, one-year M.S.…
In 1999, I wrote about the conference in my first online journal, but since I composed entries under a pseudonym, I wrote in vague terms and ended up saying very little. Whenever I met another blogger, the encounter always felt somewhat clandestine; blogging was something we did in a back room and certainly not something…
—Chess Tournament Photos I’ve added a few pictures to the blog entry about my son’s chess tournament. Similar:I didn't mark a single paper or set foot in a classroom. Here's why this prof is tired fro…I submitted my final grades a few weeks …AcademiaMy colleague Dr. Cusick bakes Irish soda bread every year to honor…
Many people think teens are technowizards who surf the Web with abandon. It’s also commonly assumed that the best way to appeal to teens is to load up on heavy, glitzy, blinking graphics. Our study refuted these stereotypes. Teenagers are not in fact superior Web geniuses who can use anything a site throws at them.…
Most biologists who have considered insect societies see them as models for studying altruism, with the workers looking out for the common good. But according to Wenseleers, the new work suggests that the more appropriate image is that of oppressed workers in a police state. —Susan Millius —Cops with Six Legs (Science News) While I spent…