Look at this picture. A guy in a uniform obviously has his hands around a kid’s neck. Why would Business Insider use the word “allegedly” to describe what seems like a pretty obvious assault? If you are Young Sesame Chicken, what makes the Business Insider post worth sharing is the contrast between the mealy-mouthed headline…
Rewatching ST:TNG Who doesn’t like seeing stuffy Picard react to the quirky mayhem caused by the unpredictable Q? Who didn’t like seeing stuffy Picard react to the quirky mayhem caused by the unpredictable Vash? Certainly not the cigar-chomping network executive who burst into the TNG writers’ room and barked, “I want a Vash and Q…
When I was in college and grad school, a couple of times of year I would stay with my sister in her apartment for a long weekend, and we would splurge on junk food (often Keebler Fudge Sticks) and video games (often the latest Sierra point-and-click adventure). I remember playing The Colonel’s Bequest in my…
Parchmap is a wonderful expansion to the interactive fiction player Parchment. It adds a visual auto-mapper to Infocom-style games, including those created with Inform 7. You can jot notes on the map, too! My own 2001 IF-Comp entry, “Fine-Tuned: An Auto-mated Romance,” is one of the 217 stories available on the Parchmap site. Similar:Empty…
It’s weird that in the Narnia board game, the Pevensies compete against each other. I thought it would make sense that they would have to work together to defeat the White Witch, but no. Why do they all work against each other? In the book, Edmund betrays his siblings — but they don’t betray him!…
Forget for a moment that the picture is among the most famous in US history, or that the photographer—a 21-year-old Kent State journalism student named John Filo—risked his life to document the tragedy. Consider what the photo captures: Our own military occupied a public university and then opened fire on a crowd of unarmed citizens—students…
Similar:Imagine, if you will, a Shakespeare course / Propos'd in blank verse like the Bard would w…Verses Proposing a New Course: “Shakespe…AcademiaDid you put enough donuts in the elevator shaft of your #steampunk #neovictorian cruiser t…https://youtu.be/lSgv5L0sXtc &nbs…AestheticsQuidditch Comes to Seton HillwartsVisitors often remark the campus reminds…AcademiaThe Big Goodbye (TNG Rewatch, Season 1, Episode 11) When a holodeck glitch…
Rewatching ST:TNG Engineering schlub Lt. Barclay gets zapped by this week’s Space Thing, which makes him smart, charming… and also dangerous. Stumbling through a friend-zoning scene from the play Cyrano de Bergerac, actor Dwight Shultz deliberately flubs a dramatic line and fails to shove a prop to the floor on the first try, masterfully embodying…
A student newspaper article about interactive fiction (quoting Emily Short and me) Blaming Roget’s Thesaurus Finding the URL of a framed HTML document My visit to the John Lennon Artificial Intelligence Project HarperCollins re-issuing the works of C.S. Lewis Dave Winer on “The Web is a Writing Environment“ Similar:A masked, socially distant museum visit. So…
How dare President Biden be invoked by a British tabloid that rather creatively linked a scholarly study to a plan Biden floated during the Democratic primary. How dare Biden be implicated in a Fox News graphic that falsely lists cutting beef sales by 90% as a requirement of Biden’s “climate requirements.” How dare Biden be…
I love watching my daughter perform. Here she is doing some short tap routines. The last two also incorporate her interpretation of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 60, “Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore.” View this post on Instagram A post shared by TapTitansToday (Official) (@taptitanstoday) Similar:I came of age playing too many CD-ROM…
When my wife and I were grad students in Toronto, my sister would fill up VHS tapes with episodes of Babylon 5. When the tape was full, she’d send it off. (Together with some Mystery Science Theatre 2000.) What that means is that, though the episodes aired weekly, I binge-watched them. (I assume they were…
We’re talking about elite students here landing jobs in highly desirable firms. These are Deresiewicz’s “Excellent Sheep.” We can presume that their educations have been rigorous as they’ve climbed to the top of the meritocratic heap. If these young professionals can’t write well, who can? And if they’re not writing well, why not? My belief…
Similar:Appreciating the production values and so-stupid-it-might-be-brilliant comedy in Avatar: T…The daughter is showing my wife and me “…AestheticsWoman Yelling at Cat About Academic Argument: an evidence-based defense of a non-obvious p…See: Academic Argument: Evidence-based D…AcademiaPioneering Harvard Blog Site Wrapping It UpI still use blogs.setonhill.edu, which I…AcademiaLimit child TV viewing to an hour each day, study…
Just in case you haven’t been thinking lately about the passionate accusations of massive voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election (which led led to the Jan 6 storming of the Capitol Building), here’s an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Note that the Post-Gazette editorial page endorsed Trump in 2020. Massive voter fraud? This author,…
I remember when I started seeing political cartoons that began depicting office workers using flatscreen LCDs instead of bulky CRTs. I inherited a handful of CRTs as people I know upgraded. I still haven’t bought a new LCD TV — I’ve inherited several hand-me-downs from family members. The next time I offer my course on…
NASA’s Ingenuity Mars Helicopter Succeeds in Historic First Flight Similar:Boston marathon bombing: All the mistakes journalists make during a crisis like the Boston… First, do not pass on speculatio…Current_EventsHumanities and STEM Can and Should Get Along BetterIn my lit and writing classes, I regular…AcademiaSchiller schools internet on correct Apple device plurals, but Cook says "iPad…
Similar:The barbican at Mickelgate was pulled down in the 1800s but I made a rough approximation f…The barbican at Mickelgate was pulled do…PersonalElsa at noon. College “Intro to Chemistry” in the afternoon. Amy March at night.PersonalStorage Wars Sued By Its Star; Show Is Faked And Execs Were Confronted By Cast, Court Pape…”Reality TV” star is…
Similar:Out & About: Cabaret Theatre presents its 'Cabbie Awards'You can just make out Carolyn, Leigh, an…CultureAn unreal Mars skylineThat awesome image showing Earth, Venus …AestheticsSpotted: the North American tree daughter.NatureAnecdotal evidence reliable? One man says “yes”.AcademiaMy outward-bound editor's graduation cap.PersonalThe dress we ordered for the “girl next door” role in The Fantasticks… vs the dress…
Similar:Voiceover artist Gayanne Potter urging ScotRail to remove her voice from new AI announceme…When I was working in radio news in the …CultureThe Case for Slow Journalism: When to Unplug from the Endless News CycleOften when I see people in my social med…CybercultureThe girl rehearsing as Babette in Stage Right's Beauty and the BeastCarolyn rehearses…