Phaedrus

Is not rhetoric, taken generally, a universal art of enchanting the mind by arguments; which is practised not only in courts and public assemblies, but in private houses also, having to do with all matters, great as well as small, good and bad alike, and is in all equally right, and equally to be esteemed-that…

Slayer Slang

Buffy has introduced new slang terms and phrases in nearly every episode, many of them formed in the usual ways, some of them at the crest of new formative tendencies. The show incorporates familiar slang, too; the familiar and newly coined slayer slang together compose a particularly vivid snapshot of current American teen slang. —Michael…

Professor's Saturn Experiment Forgotten

“If you’re looking for a job with instant and guaranteed success, this isn’t it.” — David Atkinson, scientist whose 18 years of work on a space probe experiment were trashed when someone forgot to turn the thing on before the probe’s 1997 launch. —Professor’s Saturn Experiment Forgotten (AP/My Way) Similar:Pope Leo XIV names AI one of…

Welcome Back, Blog

Welcome Back, Blog (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Dear blog, I missed you while you were down. Let’s take this opportunity to thank Will Gayther for helping me bring you back, and to thank those who e-mailed me to let me know you weren’t well. Welcome back. Similar:How We Found Tom Price’s Private JetsGreat behind-the-scenes story of the…

Data Analysis

You wouldn’t buy a car or a house without asking some questions about it first. So don’t go buying into someone else’s data without asking questions, either. Okay, you’re saying… but with data there are no tires to kick, no doors to slam, no basement walls to check for water damage. Just numbers, graphs and…

Web Site Usability

—Web Site Usability (Mind Tracks) A good collection of links introducing usability and web design. I’ll keep it in mind for the next time I teach “Writing for the Internet“. Similar:Lie to Me: Fiction in the Post-Truth EraI’m trying to remember what it was like,…BooksUsing a Typewriter Simulator to Teach Media HistoryWorking on the syllabus for…

Production and Overproduction

Administrations and faculties need to stop caring how much someone writes or publishes or says, or even how important what they?ve published is according to some measurable or quantifiable metric. Not only because trying to measure productivity in terms of scholarship destroys scholarship, but because it detracts from the truly important kind of productivity in…

Religion is Big News on the Net

The Internet has been providing people who have religious convictions — the vast majority of Americans — with a home long denied them in mainstream media. But there are signs of change in the MSM. —Daithí Ó hAnluainedia —Religion is Big News on the Net (Online Journalism Review) The other day I spoke briefly with a…

Writing Interactive Fiction (a.k.a. "Text Adventure Games") with the Inform Programming Language

A great introduction to a medium near and dear to my heart. —Writing Interactive Fiction (a.k.a. “Text Adventure Games”) with the Inform Programming Language (IndieGameDev) Similar:Homeward (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 13) Worf's foster brother interferes w… Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-…EthicsThe Staying Power of "A Christmas Carol" — Dennis Jerz, for WAOB Audio Theatrehttps://youtu.be/_US-PnhJ5FU What…

Textbooks: Spring 2005

Textbooks: Spring 2005 (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Classes start the week after next. I’m teaching the regular full teaching load — four courses — plus an overload. Students are starting to ask what books they should buy. I won’t be able to get the syllabi up online until next week, but I thought I’d post the reading…

Who owns your e-mails?

“He was keeping a journal of sorts to put together for future history,” John Ellsworth told BBC News. “He wanted to make sure that his generation, as well as following generations, have actual words from somebody who was there.” But Mr Ellsworth Snr was shocked when Yahoo! turned down a request to release his dead…