"…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:Vaccine hesitancy…
My student Matt Hoy sent me this link. Thanks, Matt! —Scholarly Electronic Publishing Weblog Similar:Adding a media project to a semester-long paper assignment is like adding a jetpack to a d…AcademiaBrilliant, Troubled Dorothy Parker by Robert GottliebIn 1915, Parker, aged twenty-two, went t…CultureI'm really enjoying seeing how my students are responding to Hamlet.As part of a…
(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:Tell Me a Smart Story: On Podcasts, Videos, and Websites as Writing AssignmentsIt does take longer to evaluate student …AcademiaIn August,…
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:The Visitor #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 3) Old Jake Reflects on the life-cha…Rewatching ST:DS9 On a dark and storm…BooksPeter vs. the…
“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:Practicing Intellectual, Evidence-based DisagreementThis is what a busy literature…
“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:Sweet Lenten RegretsThis Lenten evening / Your orphaned feas…AestheticsThat’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.AestheticsU.S. Press Freedom TrackerIt’s frustrating and terrifying that…
"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:That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.AestheticsWhy do so many…
“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:Apple faces threat of legal action over ‘in…
“…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:Harper Lee, author of To Kill a Mockingbird, dies aged 89Harper Lee, whose 1961 novel To Kill a M…BooksThe Tempest,…
“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:I played hooky from work to see Wild Robot with my familyI…
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:Starship Mine (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 18) Picard out-thinks thieves rai…Rewatching…
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:Air miles be damned. I say the best way to find out about the joy and complexity…
“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:Why fake news worksFake news works on our emotions,…
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:Study finds AI…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:What can you do with an English Major?AcademiaThe difficulty is the point (teaching critical thinking skills differs from teaching facts…In the past few years I have seen more s…Academia‘Hunger Games’ to digitally recreate Hoffman filmmakers behind the “Hunger Games” mo…CybercultureI Made…
"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:'Our worst nightmare': New legal filings detail reporting…
"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:Blog ten-beat lines of verse, like Shakespeare wrote. Blog ten-beat lines of verse, like Sha…AcademiaHeadlines: Why editors matter in journalism.Headlines are important. (Send an editor…AmusingTravel trouble, gun restrictions and no…