Thursday coffee break: the big picture

Human landscapes from above (from boston.com's Big Picture series)

New URMA issue on my desk

Volume XXXI, No. 2: the Spring 2009 issue of Research & Creative Activity (Indiana University)

Wednesday coffee break: stand by me

"This cover of Stand By Me was recorded by street artists in a virtual studio all around the world. It all started with a base track -- vocals and guitar -- recorded on the streets of Santa Monica, California, by a street musician called Roger Ridley. The base track was then taken to New Orleans, Louisiana, where Grandpa Elliott, a blind singer from the French Quarter,added vocals and harmonica while listening to Ridley's base track on headphones. In the same city, Washboard Chaz's added some metal percussion to it. The producers took the resulting mix all through Europe, Africa, and South America, adding new tracks with multiple instruments and vocals that were assembled in the final version you are seeing in this video. All done with a simple laptop and some microphones."

Friday coffee break: course description and prereqs

"Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness...."

From INTERNET-AGE WRITING SYLLABUS AND COURSE OVERVIEW, ENG 371WR:
Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era (mcsweeney's)

New URMA issue on my desk

Vol. 38, No. 1: the Spring 2009 issue of ugaResearch (University of Georgia)

All-American Space Fleet:1950s

Twenty-four vintage "Space Fleet" collector's cards from Skelly Gas.

Thursday coffee break: like weird stuff?

American Stonehenge: Monumental Instructions for the Post-Apocalypse "The Georgia Guidestones may be the most enigmatic monument in the US: huge slabs of granite, inscribed with directions for rebuilding civilization after the apocalypse. Only one man knows who created them -- and he's not talking." (wired.com)

Earth Day 2009

More at boston.com's Big Picture series

Friday coffee break: infinite photograph

Thursday coffee break: The mother of all finales

New URMA issue on my desk

The Spring 2009 issue of Research Frontiers (University of Arkansas)

Today's writing quote:

"The greatest merit of style is, of course, to make the words absolutely disappear into the thought." Nathaniel Hawthorne (as quoted in Sherwin B. Nuland, "The Uncertain Art," Am. Scholar, Winter 2001, at 129, 130).

Yikes.

Texas lawmaker: Asians should change their names to make them ‘easier for Americans to deal with.’

New URMA issue on my desk

The Winter 2009 issue of Odyssey (University of Kentucky).

Tuesday coffee break: "the best statistical graphic ever drawn"

"Napoleon's March to Moscow, 1812: Beginning at the left on the Polish/Russian border, the thick band shows the size of the army (422,000 men) as it invaded Russia in June 1812. The width of the band indicates the size of the army at each place on the map. The path of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow is depicted by the darker, lower band, which is linked to a temperature scale and dates at the bottom of the chart. The crossing of the Berezina River was a disaster, and the army finally struggled back into Poland with only 10,000 men remaining. Charles Joseph Minard's graphic plots six variables: the size of the army, its location on a 2-D surface, direction of the army's movement, and temperature on various dates. The word 'Napoleon' does not appear. It well be the best statistical graphic ever drawn." --excerpted from Edward R. Tufte, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information

Robotics, genetic engineering, deep space...

Nine Words You Might Think Came from Science but
Which Are Really from Science Fiction

 (Oxford University Press)

Monday coffee break: Flutter (the new Twitter)

Pun for the ages

"Some stricken with pun-lust sink so far into their infirmity that their minds become trained to lie in wait for words on which to work their wickedness. They are the scourge of dinner tables and the despised prolongers of office meetings...they simply can’t help themselves."

From the New York Times, Op/Ed

Friday coffee break: Recent scenes from Afghanistan

Another set of amazing shots from Boston.com's Big Picture series