xkcd: Pathogen Resistance

This is just an excerpt. Read the whole thing. Similar:New book: basic skills for the multimedia journalistLooking forward to this promising resour…CybercultureHow to Keep Students Writing in the Age of AI Tools In a writing-intensive class, studen…AcademiaToday's Google Doodle is Mostly HarmlessFord Prefect kept a script of Godspell i…AestheticsTwo Steps Down the Interactive Fiction RoadWonderfully…

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…

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:I Don’t Know Why Everyone’s in Denial About College Students Who Can’t Do…

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:First page of a student’s Texture project. (This made me laugh.) This clever freshman writing student…AcademiaCode? Not So MuchI teach my journalism students to write …ArtPR Pop Quiz: Intro to Crisis ManagementPop quiz for public relations 101. Sc…BusinessUS regulators demand clamp down on Apple e-book contractsI made a lot of impulse Kindle purchases…BooksLotteries: America's $70 Billion…

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:All three shows have been sold out for over a month. Opens tomorrow.Drama‘Snow White’ gets a new musical There’s a buzz of excitement this week…CultureA practical application of close reading skills: Nazi-spottingWhenever I teach a literature class, I p…AestheticsChipping away at Pygmalion and GalateaPygmalion is a legendary sculptor (whose…ArtManti Te'o's Dead Girlfriend, The Most Heartbreaking…

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

Similar:The Little Girl from the 1981 LEGO Ad is All Grown Up, and She’s Got Something to SayGreat article featuring the little girl …BusinessSlow flyby of a scout shop. Starfield backdrop; particle-based engine exhaust; hull uses a…More progress as I continue to level up …AestheticsAmericans grapple with recognizing facts in news stories: Pew surveyThe more…

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:LGN Launches Quandary to Develop Ethical Thinking through PlayThe Learning Games Network, a non-profit…CultureHow to fix the internet: If we want online discourse to improve, we need to move beyond th… A teenager in Indonesia may not see …CybercultureInform 7 is now open sourceInform is a design system for interactiv…CultureDetails for a modular mid-range scoutship, from…

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:‘Snowplow parents’ may be trapping their childrenThe passing agonies of the everyday are …CultureAn afternoon with Ben Franklin. CultureMore modular low-poly background buildings. I’ll do some more facades then move to the nex…More modular low-poly background buildin…AestheticsCreate Joy with Content Management System Hexcodes for Canvas LMSI spent about 30 seconds eyeballing the …AcademiaSteampunk officer uniforms…

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:Why I disagreed with my students who said, "That was easy!" “That was easy!”   Today th…AcademiaStudents Are Using ChatGPT to Write Their Personal Essays Now: AI can replicate the shape …Students say they appreciate AI’s abilit…AcademiaMost Americans have a high opinion of the humanities, and 81% use at least one humanities-…While some survey respondents…

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

Similar:Research Before Google Books (from 2006)Me: It took a few days for the spool of …Academia#AugustWilson #CenturyCycle Three week intensive course (whew!) All the students did very …PersonalSpent the morning in a socially distanced recording studio.PersonalNarrative, Creativity, and EvolutionMy students are finishing up Hayles, My …AcademiaThis weekend… Would YOU trade a Hank Aaron rookie card…

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…