xkcd: Pathogen Resistance

This is just an excerpt. Read the whole thing. Similar:I am a dog and I am a good boy and I am prepping my Spring courses.AcademiaRascals (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 7) Transporter glitch tween-ifies Picar…Rewatching ST:TNG A glowing Space Thing…AmusingA study in breaking news headlines.For the UK Guardian, the news is the wor…CultureThe…

Disagreement Hierarchy: Arguments, ranked from name-calling to the careful refutation of an opponent’s central point

My weekend coronavirus lockdown project was writing up a new handout devoted to Graham’s “Disagreement Hierarchy” for academic arguments. Does the word “argument” make you think of angry people yelling? This document presents Graham’s “disagreement hierarchy,” which catalogs multiple stages between juvenile name-calling and carefully refuting an error in your opponent’s central point. Siblings might…

It’s unfair to treat every gaffe as evidence of malice or incompetence. But were Trump’s demonstrably false statements gaffes?

Public officials misspeak all the time. Journalists make mistakes all the time. Ordinary citizens over-react to headlines without reading the full article all the time. We are all of us human. It’s unfair for any of us to treat every gaffe as evidence of malice or incompetence. For example, critics of President Trump are stretching…

The Shape of the World, According to Old Maps

The Shape of the World, According to Old Maps Similar:On the Hatred of LiteratureGoing back to Plato—perhaps the first ha…AcademiaWhat Can Science Tell Us About Dad Jokes?Beyond making the audience cringe and, h…CultureElderly woman who botched religious fresco demands royalties – TelegraphThe elderly Spanish woman who ruined a r…AestheticsWhy Is Othello Black?To us today, the…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

In March 2000, I was blogging about Palm V computers for the Navy, NCAA banning online journalists, Stephen King, and diploma mills

In March 2000, I was blogging about Palm V handheld computers for Navy officers Teaching with bells and whistles Stephen King selling a short story online NCAA banning online journalists Great moments in bureaucratic history Diploma mills Maps of imaginary lands   Similar:Me (glares in iambic pentameter)Me: I need to post the opening lecture f…AcademiaCanada's…

What a stunningly responsible young man I was, to have on June 10 1998 backed up all my files on a Zip disk, which of course I now no longer have the hardware to read.

Similar:On teaching coding to English studies studentsBecause this is a practical, hands-on, i…AcademiaSo glad to be attending another live theatrical production. @quantumtheatre never disappoi…Projections, live music, sounds, props, …BusinessWhy I Still BlogI particularly value blogging because of…AcademiaJustine Sacco Is Good at Her Job, and How I Came To Peace With HerJustine Sacco is the PR…

Who Watches the Watchers (ST:TNG Season Three Episode 4) Rationalist, talky mythbusting

Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break. After a primitive, rationalist society mistakes Federation technology for supernatural power, Picard must do whatever it takes to undo the resulting cultural contamination. Fortunately for Picard, that involves lots of talking. A grim scene in sickbay memorably demonstrates that humans in the 24th century can sometimes delay but cannot…

Loved part 2 of The Importance of Being Earnest (live videoconference play from @ThePublicPGH )

Similar:The super-rich ‘preppers’ planning to save themselves from the apocalypse This was probably the wealthiest, most…BusinessImagine all the people. Just reading their damned syllabus.These are not the rhetorical choices I w…AcademiaScaring People Can Make Them Healthier, But It Isn't Always The Way To GoAs my freshman writing students assemble…CulturePope Leo XIV names AI one of…

Stunning, bleak unemployment chart from the front page of the New York Times

Similar:Those mean fake news people at the Washington Post are at it again, this time publishing a…Those mean fake news people at the Washi…CultureJury Duty UpdateI’m a happy, responsible, and no-longer-…GovernmentSobering data; stunning visualization.This NYT story on the effects of race on…CultureProud of My JournosI saw several heads that I recognized, b…AcademiaSweet Lenten RegretsThis Lenten…

Fact check: Trump utters series of false and misleading claims at coronavirus briefing

Not fake news. Not the enemy of the American people. “Nobody ever thought a thing like this could have happened,” said the the president at Thursday’s press event. Feb 27: “We’re going very substantially down, not up.” [Narrator: “Cases were not going down.”] Feb 26: “The 15 [documented cases of COVID-19 in the USA] within…

Updating a villain’s lair in #Blender3D. Still a work in progress.

Similar:Ideal Homeschool Summer Day: Studying Latin, Justifying Nilla Wafers, and Making a Duct Ta…Today, I managed to get in a couple of h…AestheticsSeton Hill Student Journalists Launch Local Election Coverage Students in my journalism class are pu…AcademiaLate night set construction for The Miracle Worker.ArtFaculty stacked up in launch tube beneath McKenna gym, ready for graduation…

The Nightingale (WAOB Audio Theatre)

I haven’t done any audio theatre recordings in a while (thanks, coronavirus) and I miss it. Here’s my interpretation (recorded some time ago) of Hans Christian Anderson’s “The Nightingale.” The nightingale is considered the most beautiful thing in the kingdom… until a mechanical nightingale wins over the citizens, and the true nightingale is banished. But…

Introduction to The Skin of Our Teeth (optimistic, absurdist metatheater; Thornton Wilder, 1942)

Similar:BBC News – TS Eliot's widow Valerie dies aged 86 She guarded her late husband’s liter…CultureServing at midnight breakfast.PersonalNew York Times runs just 1000 names of the nearly 100,000 Americans who have already died …AcademiaText, Speech, Machine: Metaphors for Computer Code in the Law : Computational CultureOn my to-read list once I post midterm g…BusinessTimes…

When People Only Read the Headline — Misuse of Journalism

The Society of Professional Journalists links to an interview with an MIT professor who’s studying misinformation on social media (which is not the same thing as bad journalism — some bad actors take journalism out of context in order to deceive). Responsible journalists are aware that sensational headlines can harm the public. The truth is…

Which of my colleagues wants attention?

Similar:The Girl at rehearsal (where else?).PersonalArchitecture in Video Games: Designing for Impact Deanna Van Buren writes: I wonder w…BusinessWhy It’s So Hard For Foley Artists To Make Footstep SoundsAccording to Foley artist Stefan Fratice…AestheticsAnnie 2012 with Annie 2017. Annie 2012 with her Warbucks. "Together at last. Together …PersonalMasks serve many purposes. How sad that they’ve…

The girl asked me to read R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) to her. #quarantine #partylikeaprofessor

Similar:Typeset In The FutureWhile watching classic science fiction f…AestheticsA new headshot for the girl.PersonalPippin! Last show today at 2pm.CultureMoonBot is back. This time he fights a new adversary. #Blender3D physics practice.I submitted midterm grades at about 11 l…AestheticsOh that sweet, sweet feeling of progress.PersonalShakespeare’s Choose-Your-Own AdventureIf meeting three strange ladies in the s…Amusing

In “World Drama” I’m adding the absurd, optimistic “The Skin of Our Teeth” (dropping bleak “Waiting for Godot”)

In light of current events, I’m dropping the bleak Waiting for Godot from my World Drama class (actually I’m making it optional; students could drop a different play) and adding Thornton Wilder’s absurdist but optimistic The Skin of Our Teeth.   Writing while World War II was still raging, Wilder depicts a representative American family…