He taught ethics classes in California! LA Times —Law School Dean Fired for Plagiarism Similar:Awesome 1935 Soviet Movie Deploys Saxophone-Controlled Robots to Crush Tophat- and Bowler-…I wish I understood Russian, so that I c…AestheticsActually, this post really *is* about ethics in journalism.People – journalists and non-journalists…Current_EventsChecking sources back in 2006 involved using this *steampunk* contraption.Research…
“Handwriting is a basic skill that serves us all our lives. Unfortunately, a problem that primarily affects boys is rarely on anyone’s list of educational priorities.” Christina Hoff Summers —The Write Stuff Similar:When T.S. Eliot Invented the Hipster Prufrock cannot bring himself to…CultureI am not really sure why I have kept it up this long.…
“[O]nce you have observed that the other is typically portrayed as lazy, dirty, stupid, crafty, womanly, passive, rebellious, sexually rapacious, childlike, enigmatic and a number of other mutually contradictory epithets, it is hard to know what to do next apart from reaching for yet another textual illustration of the fact.” London Review of Books —The…
Too much information? “[T] this weed in our informational landscape has just sprouted–it is only about 50 years old. Up until then, more information was almost always a good thing.” David Shenk —Data Smog Similar:Pagers, Pay Phones, and Dialup: How We Communicated on 9/11For much of the day, those aboard Air Fo…CultureFrom The 'London Times'…
“Log onto almost any college Web site and you’ll see the same beautiful students talking about their beautiful campuses and how much they learn. But there are no numbers, no studies, no objective measurements.” —Wash. Monthly —What Do the US News Rankings Measure? Similar:Editors and editorial board quit top linguistics journal to protest subscription feesWhen…
“Hey, all you crafty, capable women wearing chunky, horn-rimmed glasses (this year) and doing your brainy chick thing…” Hank Stuever, Wash. Post —Velma Rules — Jinkies! Similar:Reflections on Flannery O'Connor's "The River"I’m teaching “The River” today in an “In…Culture The Expensive Education of Mark Zuckerberg and Silicon Valley Because what he never managed to grok …Business"If…
Failed to Practise What It Preached The magazine that chronicled the excesses of the dot.com revolution did not spot the extravagances that led to its own downfall. Mark Tran —Industry Standard Similar:Almost Flat DesignApple, Google and Microsoft have very di…AestheticsYou don’t hate millennials. You hate 21st-century technology.A favorite observation about millennials…CultureLife in Code and Software…
Include Your Children when Baking Cookies New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger Test Group Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half —Real Headlines Similar:Microphowned .AmusingI Was Fired for Making Fun of Trump After 25 years as the editorial cartoo…CultureTruth Trumps BiasTrump offers plenty of opportunities for…Current_EventsLet's conſider ſome ſurpriſing old type: "Did you ever…
Despite the technological hoopla, nobody’s paying attention to e-books but the courts. “Digitizing the printed page has put the very nature of books up for grabs, unleashing heated battles among writers, readers, librarians and technologists over who should control electronic books.” Chicago Tribune —E-Books Solving a Problem Consumers Don’t Have. Similar:One Does Not Simply: An…
Not-Work: “CNN acts like they’re the network of record in Millennial America, just because of their award-winning Gulf War coverage. That was so 10 years ago, and people only watched because there was no MSNBC back then.” The Onion —CNN Should be Named the Crappy News Similar:How do you spend your last week of summer…
At first, Huck Finn said “as if” instead of “like,” “wasn’t” and not “warn’t,” and described a night sky “sprinkled”–not “speckled”–with stars. A new edition of the American classic traces Mark Twain’s efforts to refine the speech of his most famous character. LA Times —A New Read on Huck Finn’s Distinctive Voice Similar:Empathy in a…
(Watch them instead.) “Create a few alternative designs, show them to a group of users, and ask which one they prefer. Wrong. If the users have not actually tried to use the designs, they’ll base their comments on surface features.” Jakob Nielsen —First Rule of Usability? Don’t Listen to Your Readers. Similar:Rare find discovered…
At a graveyard near where Beatrix Potter (author of the “Peter Rabbit” stories) spent her youth: “Names on headstones included Mr Nutkin, Mr McGregor, Jeremiah Fisher, Tommy Brock – and even a Peter Rabbett.” BBC —But what about Jemima Puddle-Duck? Similar:Lies about history in Texas can be traced to the Lone Star State's own Big…
“A modern language changes when we change it, and the metaphor that makes it autonomous only obscures our real task, which is to consider just how and why we change it.” Mark Halpern Similar:Close Reading of Sonnet 130: Form, Theme, and Cultural Context (and a Rage Comic)I’m preparing to teach Shakespeare again…AcademiaTwo classic novels returning to…
“Author Jessica Kingley expressed regret Monday that she had ‘pretty much used up all the hardship‘ from her early life in her recent first novel Bitter Root, leaving her nothing to write about for her follow-up book.” The Onion Similar:CNN Profiles Former White House "Chief Calligrapher"Today was the last day of the manuscript…AestheticsThe Inner Light…
That said, we’ve decided to acknowledge our very favorite Web sites—five each in 10 subject areas—with the Scientific American.com Sci/Tech Web Award. It is an eclectic mix—from the practical to the academic to the downright silly. Among this year’s winners are sites that decode computer acronyms, explain group theory, unravel the genome, track chemistry in…
The second most popular form of entertainment after television, video games have rapidly become the largest segment of the entertainment industry. Mounting evidence lends support to what parents have suspected all along — violent videogames encourage violent behavior. Contemporary Pediatrics Similar:No Money, No Time We tend to assume that pressure makes …CultureTwo decades of Alzheimer's…
: “Every report you ever write from this day until the day you die should start out by saying something nice about the product or service you are reviewing. Then you can get down to business.” Tog —How to Deliver a Report Without Getting Lynched Similar:Vote for your favorite Monopoly token — or else!One of…
. Painfully funny small-town satire from The Onion. —Wal-Mart Opens Store in Winesburg, Ohio Similar:Today I didn't save the world, but I did help a student while power-walking at the mall.I’m far from perfect, and injustice and …AcademiaChildren of Time #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 22) Defiant crew meets happy co…Rewatching ST:DS9 In the…
“If anything, the recent expansion of literacy and educational opportunities has increased our access to literature and our enjoyment of it.” J. Peder Zane —What Good is Literature? Similar:Parallel Structure vs. Faulty ParallelismI just touched up a handout on Parallel …HumanitiesEric Bentley, Critic Who Preferred Brecht to Broadway, Dies at 103One of the few harsh…