This compilation is a work of beauty. I’ve been aware of this prop since the early 80s, but I didn’t realize it was in the Incredible Hulk and Buck Roger TV shows from the late 70s. Similar:n+1: The Stupidity of ComputersComputers are pretty dumb, but they’re d…CybercultureScrape, Scrape, Spam Blog, Have You Scraped My…
The headline is oddly STEM-specific, but yes, it used to be that if you worked with computers at all, you had to understand your computer’s file directory structure, so all college instructors could expect that their STEM majors had probably learned this concept as part of their earliest computer training. But the “search” function on…
I’m not a huge fan of Disney, largely because as a grad student in the 1990s, I chose the 1920-1950 time period for my dissertation based on my expectation that the literary works I studied from that time period would fall out of copyright one by one during my career. I planned to mine my…
I tend to defend journalism when showboaters & slogan-quoters attack “the media” in general, but I’m eager to read legitimate critiques of individual news stories. Here’s one that seems to manipulate data out of context to support a fearmongering narrative. (Don’t do this!) 1. Data not normalized2. Not the appropriate visualization3. No differentiation between data…
Although more modern-looking rifles appeared as props in ST:The Next Generation and later iterations, the iconic phaser rifle only appeared in the second pilot, the first to feature William Shatner and the character James Kirk. Reuben Klamer, the inventor of Milton Bradley’s The Game of Life board game and the designer of a Starfleet phaser…
Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise follows a weak distress signal to a planet where a Federation ship crashed 200 years ago. After a tiny shuttlecraft (with seatbelts!) crashes because of the planet’s glowy storms, some glowy bits enter the bodies of Troi, Data and O’Brien, and before you know it, we have a Die Hard hostage…
Similar:My Son Plays Mozart Too Fasthttps://youtu.be/gXAtRI1NLxs He says “M…AmusingAstaire Unwound (Ceiling Dance from "Royal Wedding")My high school physics teacher, Admiral …AestheticsSocial Media Companies Aren’t Liberal or Conservative. They’re capitalist.Facebook cares more about scalability—th…BusinessAn apology to Donald Trump, from the "fake news" mediaA good example of the power of satire. …CultureFormer Facebook Workers: We Routinely Suppressed…
Rewatching ST:TNG The Enterprise-D crew finds itself the victim of an amnesia scenario devised by desperate, shadowy figures known as “TV script writers,” who actually give Riker a line complaining about the feeble infodump that shows up in the denouement. Plot necessity provides this week’s baddies with the power to erase all the personal memories…
From explaining the effectiveness of social distancing for preventing the spread of COVID-19 to communicating earthquake preparedness plans to the public, scicomm efforts are vital for helping turn research into action. Yet despite scicomm’s importance, it remains a hugely overlooked, underdeveloped and unknown area in academia. Academics are trained to communicate with other academics, and jargon-filled research papers prevent broad audiences from engaging with and understanding impactful scientific discoveries.
Why do tech companies give us these cool free digital voice assistants? (Hint: If you’re not paying for it, you’re the product being sold.) Because of recent major advances in natural language processing and machine learning, individuals will soon be able to speak conversationally not just to their phone assistant or smart speaker but to…
One of many steampunk control panels I’ve designed for pleasure. Similar:And if my point of view is somewhat misty-eyed…And if my point of view is somewhat mist…AestheticsSiblings gotta sib.PersonalToday's annoying adventures of adulting: fixing the bathroom ceiling fan.Not fun, but done. ModdingRookie News Anchor — Fired Instantly for Dropping 'F***ing S***' On the AirYes, it…
From AdFontes Media. If you never disagree with the slant of your news source, then you probably aren’t reading a balanced news source; you’re just reading a source aligned with your bias. A truly informed person will consult credible sources (above the green line) on both the left and right. Know where your biases are,…
I was a young faculty member teaching a two-hour freshman comp lab in Wisconsin the morning of September 11, 2001. On my way back to the office, I happened to pass the English faculty lounge, and saw people watching the TV news coverage of the Twin Towers. When I heard about the plane that hit…
My family tells me I’m starting to speak louder than I need to around the house. On my campus, all students are required to be vaccinated or masked. I can hear my students much better now that most students aren’t masked, rather than last term, when everyone was masked and practicing social distance. Today I…
Last year, three cryptocurrency enthusiasts bought a cruise ship. They named it the Satoshi, and dreamed of starting a floating libertarian utopia. It didn’t work out.
Rewatching ST:TNG When a Space Thing threatens a genetically perfect colony, the wary inhabitants resist Picard’s offer to evacuate. Humans on Moab IV have for two centuries enjoyed a carefully designed society. The charismatic leader Conor speaks glowingly of fulfilling the role he was genetically engineered to hold, while the rigid traditionalist Martin undiplomatically scoffs…
Rewatching ST:TNG A small group of aliens (with bumps on the *sides* of their heads) demonstrate their ability to collect memories telepathically. The leader, Tarmin, helps Keiko recover a pleasant memory of her grandmother. After Tarmin offers to help Beverly remember more about her first kiss that she’s currently thinking about, his son Jev scolds…
With a grant from UWEC, I was able to invite foundational computer game designer Scott Adams to a seminar on Storytelling in Computer Games. I used tiny analog tape recorder at the speaker’s podium, and later worked with my student Matt Hoy to post a hyperlinked transcript to go along with the audio. (This was…
Similar:It's Not Cool to Overreact: How Normalcy Bias Will Define Our FutureDuring moments of crisis, I’ve certainly…CultureYour Students Learn by Doing, Not by ListeningToday one of my students gave a final pr…AcademiaHere’s How the Pandemic Finally EndsThis is the end of the coronavirus pande…CultureA 40sq cm section of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dartAestheticsChatGPT answers…
Similar:Texas lawyer trapped by cat filter on Zoom call, informs judge he is not a catA Texas lawyer accidentally left a kitte…AmusingJust a handful more of these elegant #steampunk control panels and I can move on to the ne…AestheticsLong-Haulers Are Redefining COVID-19Our understanding of COVID-19 has accret…Current_EventsThe magic of words opens a whole new world…