The Royale (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 12)
Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generation after a 20-year break. In “The Royale,” an away team is trapped in a simulated casino, where Data cheats at roulette. That’s about it. A solid teaser and surreal first act ramp up the mystery nicely; however, on my rewatch, the episode didn’t hold together very well for me. We’re…
When your January term starts Dec 18. #partylikeaprof
What happened when I showed vintage Mister Rogers to my 21st-century kids
They discovered TikTok. And Fortnite. And a world of YouTube gamers. I assumed they’d forgotten about Mister Rogers. But then came fall. After a long day of school, my daughter came home with tears in her eyes. She had too much homework, she moaned. And on the school bus a pair of kids had called…
Long Live The English Major—If It’s Paired With An Industry-Recognized Credential
What does this simple question and its results tell us? It’s not the English major that’s the problem. It’s an industry-recognized skill attached to the English major that’s the opportunity. I’ve long advocated for a rebranding of the term liberal arts. Americans generally and employers more specifically value the elements of a liberal arts degree such…
What are you eating at midnight breakfast?
Serving at midnight breakfast.
Woman Yelling at Cat About Academic Argument: an evidence-based defense of a non-obvious position on a complex issue.
See: Academic Argument: Evidence-based Defense of a Non-obvious Position
Contagion (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 11)
Picard faces aggressive Romulans and an archeological puzzle as a computer virus threatens the Enterprise. Some good Neutral Zone brinksmanship, and a formulaic but fun quest right out of a CD-ROM point-and-click adventure game.
In December 1999, I Was Blogging About Joseph Heller, E-Journalism, and Travel Writing
In December 1999, I was blogging about: The death of Joseph Heller (author of Catch-22, which invented the term) “On the Internet, every page is hot off the presses… or could be, if editors and publishers simply realized that ‘[i]nteractive media eliminates the holy deadline.’ What’s left over feels more like gardening.” Dot-coms hiring journalists,…
‘Heil Trump’ and an anti-gay slur were scrawled on an Indiana church right after Trump’s election. The investigation led to an unlikely suspect — and the discovery of a hate crime hoax.
A well-written news story, covering a sensitive subject. The graffiti in rural Indiana became a national sensation, part of a string of high-profile hate crime reports in the wake of Donald Trump’s victory. Late-night television host Stephen Colbert featured an image of one of the tagged walls during a monologue. The church’s priest, the Rev.…
Narrating “A Christmas Carol” for WAOB Audio Theatre. (The four episodes will be released in the days leading up to Christmas.)
“This Is Probably Going to Kill Us:” How First ‘Star Trek’ Movie Avoided Disaster
This article left out someone important! Reassembling the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise (Shatner as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelley as McCoy, George Takei as Sulu, Nichelle Nichols as Uhura and Walter Koenig as Chekov) years after the end of its five-year mission — with added, pivotal Starfleet characters Decker (Stephen Collins) and Ilia…
A full minute standing ovation after that rousing final “Alleluia.” Thrilling!
This class has been everything that I expect it would be and I cannot believe that we are so close to its end.
Some days are slogs. Some weeks are slogs. Some weeks are slogs that end with a wonderfully heartening comment from a student. I will not deny that I was a little worried about reading Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet as I know that they are two of Shakespeare’s most famous plays and I feared that…
How Artists on Twitter Tricked Spammy T-Shirt Stores Into Admitting Their Automated Art Theft
Yesterday, an artist on Twitter named Nana ran an experiment to test a theory. Their suspicion was that bots were actively looking on Twitter for phrases like “I want this on a shirt” or “This needs to be a t-shirt,” automatically scraping the quoted images, and instantly selling them without permission as print-on-demand t-shirts. Dozens of…
My Freshman Comp Student Didn’t Recognize the Term ‘Word Processor’
Most of my students use MS-Word, but maybe a third use Google Docs (that’s a big increase lately) and a handful (but a bigger handful) use Pages. Today during a writing conference, a freshman comp student blinked in confusion when I asked her to “take me to your word processor.” I tried again. “Open up…
The Most Unexpected Workplace Trend Coming in 2020: the Return of the Liberal Arts Major
On LinkedIn each year author Dan Schawbel writes a list of workplace trends to watch for in the coming year. This time around Schawbel makes this prediction about degrees in subjects like literature, philosophy and history: “AI will automate technical skills and drive the demand for soft skills like creativity, communication and empathy. While there’s been such a…
Shakespeare's Will
The Dauphin (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 2, Episode 10)
A pretty 16yo destined to bring peace to a war-torn planet falls for Wesley, but 1) her governess disapproves and 2) well… Wesley. The puppy-love story is cringe-worthily wholesome (influenced by the long dark adorable shadow of “The Wonder Years”), but still enjoyable.