Frank J. Rybicki, a professor at Valdosta State University “shut the laptop of a student who was allegedly web surfing as opposed to taking notes”. She filed a complaint and, voila, he was arrested for battery. Another classic legal overreaction.
All evidence reported in the article points to overreaction. But in a country where a woman once won $2.68M for spilling hot coffee on herself, what hope does a non-tenured professor have?
All professors be advised: you will be arrested for shutting laptops, but not for delivering angry rants that go viral.
$2 million – What the networks have spent, on average, to cover each Mid-Eastern uprising $1.5 million – What one network said it spent covering Japan’s earthquake/tsunami in a single day.
In the first quarter of 2011 alone, the media has been overloaded with “a year’s worth” of coverage, reports The Wrap.
Budget constraints being what they are, if big networks can’t afford to cover everything in a saturated news industry–and they will not if the first quarter of this year tells us anything– people will get their news elsewhere. Perhaps they will read it in a local magazine, or on Twitter (my personal favorite). Maybe they will read it on a blog, or get linked to it from a news aggregator app on their smartphone (second favorite). But they’ll get it from somewhere. (more…)
Conspiracy Rivalry: Alex Jones Says Glenn Beck is Ripping Off His Work
“Glenn Beck is like orange juice. It’s nutritious. It’s delicious,” Alex Jones declares in the video. “But I didn’t tell you the rest of what Glenn Beck is. He’s a teaspoon of cyanide. Enough to kill 10 elephants in every pitcher.”
Besides plagiarizing the “hardcore” research done by Jones and his team of 25, Beck also dilutes the truth when he presents it to the public. That’s why Jones claims it’s poison.
This New York Magazine feature explains in more detail how the conspiracy theories that Jones puts forward are gaining traction. Whether the question is 9/11, the gold standard, mouse pox, or the existence of an elite cabal of globalist conspirators, Jones has an answer. And his rising popularity is induspitable evidence. Of something.
But he does make one statement that pretty much everyone, wherever in the politico-cultural universe they may reside, can agree on: “The fact that Alex Jones is becoming widely accepted,” says Alex Jones, “that’s prima facie evidence right there that we’re in deep crap.”
Like Wikileaks (and other groups and movements), Alex Jones is powered by a desire for truth and transparency. He wants to expose secrets, to trace the strings by which the puppets dangle to the hand that holds them, and then to cut the strings.
“Both men view themselves as antidotes to secrecy. If all the information comes out, they maintain, the conspiracy will be proved; ipso facto, it will be eliminated and the righteous will be victorious, with Assange and Jones as insurgent heroes. As Jones says to his listeners: “If you are receiving this transmission—You! Are! The resistance!”
But what you believe has always been up to you. Is Glenn Beck entirely wrong? Is Alex Jones entirely right? What do you think?
You thought your movie stars and rap artists were the OGs? Think again. A copy-writer and designer decided to a do a fresh take on history with some fake ads for the Smithsonian Institute. They called it Historically Hardcore. When the images surfaced online, many people thought they were legit; the Smithsonian trying to keep modern and reach a younger crowd. Eventually, the artists had to remove the Smithsonian logo, but ain’t nobody callin’ them busters now.
LOL, OMG, ♥, and FYI Added to Oxford English Dictionary
I was just saying that it was about time that LOL made the cut. I didn’t expect a symbol to make an appearance as a verb, but I guess the OED knows best. Anyways, language is always is transit, and it’s a wasted effort to gripe over rampant modern usage. Even if it gets under your skin, these “initialisms” aren’t going anywhere. Not as long as your kids are allowed to use instant messengers. Read the full report from GOOD here.
Early on Gandhi was dubbed a ‘mortal demi-god’—and he has been regarded that way ever since
But there is more than one side to every story. The new biography by Joseph Lelyveld also shows Gandhi as racist towards the blacks of South Africa, as well as politically fractious towards the political leaders of the Muslims and the lowest caste of Hindus, the so-called Untouchables. This divisiveness probably delayed India’s reaching independence, and left many people in jail when Gandhi repeatedly abandoned his civil disobedience campaigns “just as they were beginning to be successful.” Read the full article at the WSJ.
These kids literally built their dreams, one plank, one nail at a time. That’s the way to do it.
This film is based on a true story. In 1986 a football team that lived on a little island in the south of Thailand called “Koh Panyee”. It’s a floating village in the middle of the sea that has not an inch of soil. The kids here loved to watch football but had nowhere to play or practice. But they didn’t let that stop them. They challenged the norm and have become a great inspiration for new generations on the island.
Animators have always struggled to make human characters appear realistic. As viewers, our eyes have been trained to notice fakery now more than ever thanks to the saturation of computer enhancement in almost every visual medium available. Gamasutra has an interview with Brendan McNamara, Founder of Team Bondi, who is working on the upcoming game, L.A. Noire. McNamara discusses the technology that was developed for realistic facial animations in the game. Critical to the unique gameplay of lie detection, the characters express real emotion that the player can detect and respond to, giving us a taste in the next step in video games and the future of computer animation.
Graphic Patrick has a series of minimalistic posters that display various mental disorders. They are effective visual representations to educate and inform people that may recognize the names but not the effects, nor what it might feel like to actually have a disorder. The concept has promoted discussion, awareness, and even controversy.
