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:Half of my students have never read Hamlet. (I told them not to get too attached to any of…We focused just on Act I today — the ope…PersonalFULL BLOOM (Aug 31-Sep 2)PersonalMore #steampunk #neovictorian goodness. Bring the wood polish. #design #aesthetics #blende… AestheticsCan't upload photos to Facebook from my MacBookI spent 30 minutes trying to…
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:A brief respite from grading. A brief respite from grading. PersonalFancy a game of whist with your nemesis? The prospect of ruin adds piquancy to the pleasur…PersonalBiggest accomplishment of the dayThe real problem is timing — they had c…GovernmentYou come very close to successfully combining argument and explication here… I recently came across a box…
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:The Real Reason Why You Can't WriteHave you ever stopped to…
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:Finished the female officers for my neovictorian steampunk personal project. #blender3d, #… Female officers, from the le…AestheticsYour verbs have been lost and will be invisible until sentence author revision.The marketers and programmers at Google’…CybercultureRightful Heir (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 23) Worf's quest for the return o…Rewatching ST:TNG Worf is uncharacter…CultureBrought my in-progress…
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:Toasting Shakespeare at the Bard's Birthday BashOrganized by Pittsburgh Shakespeare in t…CultureThe truth hits Thorvald. Loved PPT PlayTime’s online presentation of Ibsen’s A Doll’s Hous…PersonalImaginary vs Real Office SpaceHere’s a fantasy workspace, that I built…AcademiaSoldiers and Sailors Memorial and Museum Another visit to Pittsburgh with my his…CultureWhy do academics dress so badly? (Answer: they are…
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:The Article is Dead. Long Live the ArticleTake the background paragraph. It ill-se…CultureChildren struggle to hold pencils due to too much tech, doctors sayWhen I was in middle school, I developed…CultureAmazing High School Yearbook Politics SpreadI’m gobsmacked by the creativity that we…AestheticsEach building in my #medievalyork…
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:Trump communications director Murtaugh rallies supporters by tweeting fake Washington Time…Here’s more evidence of just how crucial…CultureGil Gerard (1943-2025) I built a model of the two-pronged Sta…CultureLiberal Arts Majors Are the Future of the Tech IndustryMy sister the computer programmer benefi…AcademiaThe Day I Stopped Saying ‘Hurry Up’Adorable photos…
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.”…