"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:How to Think Like ShakespeareSaving this for the next time I teach Sh…AcademiaDragging Myself to a New Skill Level with Blender…
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:Two Cheers for the Middle Ages! by Eric ChristiansenI love good writing. “Even those who dou…CultureLanguage Log » 25 Questions for Teaching with…
“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:Huge Collection of Free CC-Licensed Textbooks (2012)2012 Book Archive.…
“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:Perseverance lands on Mars today! Here's what you need to know Today, February 18, 2021 at 20:44 UTC …AwesomeAsteroid 2012 DA14 brushes by EarthAn asteroid is making…
"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:This Is Not a Book: Thomas Jefferson & Apple's App StoreHumanities professors from the Universit…AcademiaThe…
“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:'We're back': Bushy Run's 2023 battle reenactment will…
“…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:Coding Bootcamps and the New For-Profit Higher EdThere are actually a number of narrative…AcademiaSome fairy tales may be 6000 years…
“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:Go Forth and Conquer, but Postpone the Selfie“We have about 850 graduates,…
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:A study in breaking news headlines.For the UK Guardian, the news is the…
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:Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say The brain was not designed…
“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:Thirty Years Ago, the Challenger Crew Plunged Alive and…
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:BWW Review: TWELFTH…
(Word Circuits): Hypertext poetry by Stephanie Strickland —The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot Similar:No space for over-30s as relaunched MySpace erases its pastKeep a local backup of anything importan…BusinessFacebook Finally Rolls Out 'Disputed News' Tag Everyone Will DisputeAnybody seen a post tagged this way? If …Current_EventsPICT’s ‘Oliver Twist’ Offers a Different Kind of Holiday…
"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:Plagiarism Today Plagiarized in a Plagiarism Atonement EssayJonathan…
"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:The case for puns as the most elevated display of wit Geary admits that he often makes pun i…CultureShow, Don’t (Just) Tell (New Example)I wrote down this example on…
"Poor sad Mac, born in a plastic age. / A time when the world still thought in beige. / Crafted and molded just like a piece of art. / An orphan, abandoned. It’s enough to break your heart." [Which column would you put this one in? Sometimes I wonder why I continue to split my…
Kaycee Nicole, an attractive student dying from leukemia, shared her ordeal via on online diary. Her mother started a companion diary. Web surfers became close friends with this family through email, chatroom, and even phone conversations. The New York Times even quoted Kaycee about college life. When she finally died, her online friends grieved like…
Yahoo recently ran a story about a man suffocated by a stripper’s breasts… but it was a hoax first published in a tabloid. You may have heard recent reports about the airliner passenger stuck to a toilet seat. (MSNBC, BBC, CNN) Note that no names or dates are given. It’s a hoax. (Unless it’s a…