Blogs

Old friend of The Education of Oronte Churm, Duff Brenna has a new novel out that's worth your attention.

Pinterest is the latest social media network to hit the interwebs, and has done so with a flurry. The tool itself is simple: when you find something you think is interesting, you "pin" it to a topical Pinterest board that you have created. This reveals a collection of "pins" about different topics or themes. For the most part, its early success has been linked to shopping: people create boards that include fashion items they want to get, ideas for their wedding, interior design, or recipes and food they'd like to eat. Pinterest is heavily visual, so these types of objects are tailor-made for "pinning".

I've turned into a grading machine.

Why does she have to hit my keys so hard and so fast? It’s as if her brain is running to break the Olympic record in Academic Writing, or as if she would forget her next thought if she waited one more second to write the last one (to be honest from the way she looks so blankly at my screen from time to time, I sometimes think this is the case; she forgets what she’s going to write because obviously her brain is faster than her fingers).

A few years ago, my college started a January intersession in which students take a single course for two weeks. It was a runaway hit; enrollments have grown every year, course completion rates have hovered around 90 -- off the charts by community college standards -- and faculty feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

What are some of the dumb things you have done with e-mail?

News broke this weekend about the University of Florida's plans to restructure its computer science department. What are the ramifications -- on the department, on the discipline -- of this decision?

In a recent post, David Roberts describes the downside of being reasonable during discussions about ecological sustainability and climate change. His main point is that in order to win (effectively, if not technically), all that unreasoning climate denialists have to do is to refuse to budge regardless of the evidence and logic against their position. Eventually, any reasonable person gets to the point of walking away or dismissing them as stupid or agreeing to disagree. Any of those leaves them as the last combatant in the arena, such that the last man standing wins by default.