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:As Twinkle Twinkle is to Suzuki musicians, so is a wooden shipping crate to CGI modelers. …https://youtu.be/diQF9buONqY I ha…AestheticsLounge area of a steampunk villain’s lair. Still needs a light fixture or two. #blender3dAestheticsIs this why oldsters love nostalgia?…
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…
The Nerd Watch Message Board is up and running! Visit an online community of LCD wristwatch collectors to socialize and share information about digital watches. —Nerd Watch Museum (Pocket Calculator Show) I had a calculator watch in high school. It had a touch screen. This was in about 1984 — it was awesome. I daydreamed about…
Mistake: A student raises her hand to announce that there’s a typo on a handout. Knee-Jerk Reaction: Saying “I did that on purpose just to see if you guys were paying attention.” Constructive Response: Reward the student who discovered the typo. Ask the whole class to correct the error on the handout by hand. Then…
Some of my offices have had peculiar shapes: 6 feet wide and 30 feet long with a sloped ceiling (once part of an attic); 8 feet square and — if you peeked above the suspended ceiling — perhaps 50 feet high (a ventilation shaft). I once had an office that was like that strange floor…
In 1982, testifying in front of Congress before the Supreme Court had ruled, MPAA President Jack Valenti said, “I say to you that the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone.” —John Borland —FAQ: Betamax–tech’s favorite ruling (ZD Net) A good primer…
Writing liberated the life of the text from the moment of performance. It allowed the poet to reflect on and manipulate traditional forms and subject matter. Recording the chronicles of oral culture led to the development of prose, a purely written use of language. By the fifth century, the transition of Greek society from oral…
This Yahoo! Search service finds content across the Web that has a Creative Commons license. While most stuff you find on the web has a full copyright, this search helps you find content published by authors that want you to share or reuse it, under certain conditions. —Yahoo! Creative Commons Search (Yahoo!) Slashdot is aflutter with…
Gray, a part-time worker at the Clackamas County library information network and the Tigard Public Library, sold at least $10,000 worth of library materials online in the past six months, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office. According to Jim Strovink, a sheriff’s office spokesman, Gray would check out books, then tap into the library…
Appearing as part of a sextet of high-profile directors promoting 3-D and digital cinema at film industry convention ShoWest on Thursday, Lucas said he hadn’t yet committed to a precise schedule but hoped to have the first film ready for the 30th anniversary of the original “Star Wars” movie in 2007 and that he would…
An international study of about 100,000 15-year-olds in 32 different developed and developing countries suggests that the drive to equip an increasing number of schoolchildren in the UK with computers may be misplaced. In a report to be given at the conference of the Royal Economic Society in Nottingham this week, Thomas Fuchs and Ludger…
About 36 million Americans—or 27% of internet users—say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files, according to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. […] Current file downloaders are…
Readers are using aggregation services like Google News to save time and find news they’re interested in from one location. But the digital melting pot of news has raised questions about the need for standards that go beyond technology. —Stefanie Olsen —Tough week prompts closer look at how Google gathers its news (SFGate.com) Similar:New Data…
Visiting the Four Seas During the 4Cs (Jerz’s CCCC 05 Notes) On my last night at the Conference on College Composition and Communication (known as “the 4Cs”), after the blogging special interest group, some of us walked through Chinatown in the light rain. What did I spy but a restaurant named “The Four Seas.” I ogled…