"…in the past three months, the pent-up thirst for knowledge and modern skills has transformed the capital. Dozens of storefront language and computer skills centers have sprung up, and last week several thousand young people showed up to take entrance exams at the newly revived university." —With War Over, Afghans Battle Ignorance (WashPost) Similar:Journalists dole…
My student Matt Hoy sent me this link. Thanks, Matt! —Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Similar:Stanford to offer new undergraduate majors integrating humanities, computer scienceTraining humanists who can code like a t…AcademiaI was perhaps a bit more conversational and chipper than usual during class today. A grinn…I was perhaps a bit more conversational …AcademiaNational Science Foundation…
(New Yorker) Manhattan treasure hunt: "Across the street, a writer for ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’ and a crossword virtuoso named Ellen Ripstein are scrutinizing graffiti in a phone booth. Catercornered to them, the editor of the Wall Street Journal crossword is standing beside a professional palindromist who is riffling through a bin of…
"The history of teaching teems with machines that have jammed and stained. Who can forget that buried next to the ditto are the old-fashioned 8and 16-millimeter film projectors?" —Jamming Together: Remembering the Dittob> (Chronicle) Similar:Bye Facebook, hello Instagram: Users make beeline for Facebook-owned social networkInstagram dialed in early to the power o…BusinessIT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE…
No, he was not squashed by a falling safe or run over by an Acme Indestructo Steel Ball. Jones created the Road Runner and Coyote cartons. Rules from that series: “No dialogue ever, except ‘beep beep.” “No outside force can harm the Coyote — only his own ineptitude or the failure of the Acme products.”…
A palindrome is a word or phrase that reads the same backwards and forwards: "Madam, I’m Adam." Nick Montfort & William Gillsepie have written a whole palindrome story. —2002: A Palindrome Story Similar:Old English Has a Serious Image ProblemThis fall I will be teaching Shakespeare…AcademiaA salute lost to historyHistory is complex and baffling and fasc…CultureIf…
“The day I came home for Christmas vacation my parents and I were sitting in the kitchen, I looked at them and said, ‘I’m pregnant. Just kidding, I want to change my major.’” Jeanine Savageau —Changing Majors: Junior Realizes Journalism Isn’t for Her (UWEC Spectator; registration required) Similar:Rules for Civility: 14-Year-Old George Washington's 110 Commandments for…
“The year 2002. The 20th day of the 2nd month, 2002. And, on the 24-hour clock, at two minutes after 8 p.m., harmony. 2002.” —2002 2002 2002 (Toronto Star) Similar:PICT Classic Theatre brings The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll to the airwavesI’m proud of the daughter for her involv…CultureBREAKING: All ITT Campuses Will CloseAll ITT Tech…
"Traditional publishers… couldn’t understand his willingness to surrender his ‘authority’ over his own work by letting others participate. Nor could they understand his desire to ‘devalue’ his copyright by posting a whole book online." —A Footnote to E-book History (Wired) Similar:Readers Are Liars: The 1928 Study That Predicted the Future of NewsThe invention of the…
“Alongside the boom, however, there have recently been a few faint signs of backlash. As increasing hordes take on the task of trying to keep new sites looking nice, sounding original and free from banalities, more hordes just seem to fail.” —Blah, Blah, Blah and Blog (Wired) Similar:The Comic Sans SongComic Sans is a typeface,…
“…I think the wonder of our aesthetic or religious sense, or musicality, is increased by the fact that it depends on three pounds of jelly in our head.” —Interview with Oliver Sacks (neurologist and novelist) Similar:Happy Easter 2019 Current_EventsMy "Writing About Literature" Students Are Sampling Text Adventure GamesI’m having my students play Adam Cadre’s…CultureLie to…
“I was eight years old when my parents bought these for me, and I can still remember those chewy little peanut butter sticks more vividly than almost anything else from my childhood. I’ve wanted more of them for three decades!” —Space Food Sticks Similar:In October, 2002, I was blogging about stupid space explosions, the superiority…
Kathleen, I wanted to do this in this most potentially embarassing way possible, and I figured doing it here and now, in front of a quarter of a million strangers was as good a way as any. CmdrTaco —Geek in Love (Slashdot) Similar:Students who grew up with search engines might change STEM education foreverThe headline…
A short series of philosophical exercises, in a futuristic setting, which asks you to evaluate different definitions of personal identity. (Do you step into a spacecraft that has a 50% chance of killing you, or have your whole body scanned, destroyed, and re-constructed somewhere else three minutes later?) At the end, your choices are analyzed.…
“I have lost all touch with reality, and only live to comment on the comments that other bloggers have made in reference to my notes about their comments. Is anybody out there?” —Blog ad Nauseam (The Weekly Standard) Similar:Loved part 2 of Romeo and Juliet @thepublicpgh #pptplaytime (Next week: Tartuffe)CultureAdvice to First Year College Students…
“It may sound far-fetched, but a U.S. federal court will hear preliminary arguments next week to determine if this most elemental of Internet activities is the business property of a lone company, protected in the form of a patent.” —British Company Claims Patent on Hyperlinks (Wired) Similar:Zork: The Great Underground EmpireA blogger has started chronicling…
What’s it like interviewing college students at job fairs? "What a snooze. By the sixth interview of the day I vow that I’ll hire anyone who can make me remember their name, and I’ll sign over my 401(k) to any candidate who can make me laugh." Erin Cronin —Honesty, Shining Throughb> (WashPost) Similar:James Comey: Trump…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:Reading should not carry a health warningThis is probably the first time in histo…AcademiaEverybody Dies (Shakespearean Tragedy Infographic) The image (by Magee and Griffin) is an…AestheticsNew Voices For The Voiceless: Synthetic Speech Gets An UpgradeWonderful, inspiring article that uses t…CultureReally, WCCC?…
"Calling the theological giant’s stranglehold on the religion industry ‘blatantly anti-competitive,’ a U.S. district judge ruled Monday that God is in violation of anti-monopoly laws and ordered Him to be broken up into several less powerful deities." —Judge Orders God to Break Up into Smaller Deitiesb> (TheOnion) Similar:Entire staff of Russian TV channel resigned during…
"Write simply. Keep headings, summaries, sentences, paragraphs and documents short. Get to the point. Then stop." Gerry McGovern —The Need for Simple English on the Web Similar:Share a Coke with "Pepsi"AestheticsMixed ReceptionThis activity is set in a research group…AcademiaI’m a High Schooler. AI Is Demolishing My Education. AI has transformed my experience of ed…BooksI just…