Imagine a scenario in which circumstances outside your control confine you to a single room for an indefinite period of time — and you have basically nothing to do but stare at the walls. Available activities are strictly limited; you aren’t allowed company; you can’t really go outside; time collapses in on itself; and your…
Similar:There’s Something Off About LED BulbsWhen I’m stressed, or I feel life is spi…AestheticsThat felt sooo good!PersonalThe Girl Has Started Rehearsals for PICT Classic Theatre’s Jane EyreI’ve chauffeured the girl into Pittsburg…BooksLooking forward to what looks like an exciting evening of dance.PersonalFall 2021 Grades Submitted Mission accomplished.AcademiaMy schedule every Friday this term. (Payback for teaching…
In December 2000, I was blogging about Typeface snobbery (The Onion) Videogames as gendered play spaces (Henry Jenkins) Who wouldn’t want to trade in the confinement of your room for the immersion promised by today’s video games? …. Perhaps, my son finds in his video games what I found in the woods behind the school,…
Oh no. First YouTube institutes a “COVID-19 Medical Misinformation Policy” and starts deleting videos that tout fake cures or discourage people from following the medical advice of the WHO; then, YouTube takes a stand against any video that “misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential…
Similar:Set design for a virtual production of R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots). Post-apocalypti… AestheticsWhen she isn't playing Hodel, she'll be dancing with a bottle.PersonalSome editing and cropping makes this cartoon a perennial. EthicsMore #Blender3D practice. Additional details for a steampunk control panel. Just because.AestheticsEclipse!PersonalEvery conversation between a parent and a child, in four conversations. (Slate)This whole…
As part of an independent study project, a graduating Seton Hill student wrote a blog about self-publishing her original collection of fairy-tale adaptations. She’s a double-major in creative writing and graphic design, and she freely adapted each story and illustrated each one in a different style. (She’ll be self-publishing her anthology soon, and I’ll certainly…
Final grades are due tomorrow. My only unmarked assignments are just a handful of final projects with some components I couldn’t evaluate, mostly for some technical reason. It’s been a pretty rough semester, but I’m glad I started prepping for it in July, rethinking and reorganizing and rebuilding lesson plans and assignment sequences with a…
This week for #StorytimeFriday friend of Prime Stage @DennisJerz reads The Machine Stops by E.M. Forster, a 1909 short story about a world in which people primarily communicate via video screens. Sound familiar? Enjoy! #PrimeStageShares https://t.co/KaHdCGHVTC — Prime Stage Theatre (@Prime_Stage) December 4, 2020 Similar:Affect (v. "to change") vs. Effect (n. "the result")I ran into…
Mr. Bernards, 34, of Edwards, Colo., was visiting the monolith on Friday night when, he said, four men arrived as if out of nowhere to dismantle the sculpture. Mr. Bernards had driven six hours for the chance to ogle the sculpture and to take dramatic photographs of it. Using upscale Lume Cube lights attached to…
Similar:xkcd: Headlines It: nailed. xkcd: Headlines.AmusingSurprise sidewalk encounter with my man Hopkins outside the Admin shuttle stop this mornin… Spring and Fall Gerard Manley Hop…AestheticsTexty Cloak of Darkness in ProseBelow is a snippet from “Texty Cloak of …GamesJournalist Nellie Bly Began her Around the World in 72 Days Tour Nov 14, 1989 From Wikipedia: In…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Picard searches for a legal loophole in peaceful planet’s pact with the devil. Memorable scenes include Data playing Scrooge on the holodeck, courtroom hijinks (“The advocate will refrain from making her opponent disappear”), and Picard padding around on the planet in his jammies (“Just have Mister Data fetch me…
Similar:Very interesting adaptation of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice. #pptlaytime @thepublicpghCultureMore rehearsing. More dancing. PersonalIn April 2000, I was blogging about HTML frames, the future of reading, grammar, Kairos, a…In April 2000, I was blogging about… …BooksMy simulated city has 1000 capsule inhabitants that are just smart enough to gather around…My simulated city has 1000 capsule inhab…DesignAnother…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. This episode introduces the Cardassians, who years ago attacked Picard on the Stargazer when he approached them during a diplomatic mission. Worf grumbles that the Cardassians have no honor. Indeed, during the teaser they attack the Enterprise. Still, Picard listens to Gul Macet’s complaint: a Federation starship has attacked…
Fascinating art history — a thoughtful close reading of a painting. Great example of multimodal journalism. The clouds are heavy and black. A grim day for fighting. In the air is the smell of damp, and mortar fire. It’s a little after 10 a.m. on Sept. 13, 1759. The battle is almost over. In the…
Screeeech . . . hisss . . . squaawk. These are familiar sounds to anyone who’s ever used dial-up internet or called BBSes. It seemed especially noisy late at night. Have you ever wondered why all that noise was necessary? And did you know you could have muted your noisy modem? Source: Why Did Dial-Up…
Great free Flash game, emulated at the Internet Archive. Similar:Scammer tricks YouTuber who exposes scams to delete his anti-scammer channelThis one is hard to unpack, and painful …Current_EventsHow Zuckerberg’s Facebook is like Gutenberg’s printing pressHistorian Niall Ferguson notes that Sili…BooksMy crowd simulation handles 2000 capsule NPCs at 130fps. I’m really pushing my coding skil…AestheticsI should…
Highlights from a column by Margaret Sullivan (The Washington Post): President Trump didn’t create the media cesspool that he’ll bequeath to a troubled nation. He just made it exponentially worse — not only with his own constant lies but with his ability to spread the ugliness. Just days ago, he tweeted out a debunked conspiracy theory that…
The Oatmeal on working for “exposure.” Similar:Pope calls Argentine kiosk owner to cancel paper deliveryThis is a very cute story, further illus…AmusingBless thee, Carolyn, bless thee! Thou art translated — into a 22 year-old woman. I remember when we got home from SHU’s…PersonalTo DoTo Do (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) 5: …AcademiaBreakfast Battle from "The Miracle Worker"…
In November 2000, I was blogging about Ursula K. Le Guin Why we perceive mirrors reversing things left/right but not up/down Pioneering blog Arts & Letters Daily (just a year older than my own blog) Nick Montfort’s constrained poem “Upper Typewriter Row“ The 2000 US Presidential Election controversy (ballot design, hanging chads, recounts, political cartoons)…
Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. Data investigates Romulan intrigue, mediates a spat between O’Brien and his bride-to-be Keiko, and gets a lesson from “the dancing doctor.” A clever storytelling device has Data narrate a letter to Commander Maddox, the cybernetics expert who initially wanted to dissect him in s2e9 “The Measure of a Man.”…