Tumblr Has Banned Adult Content, RIP the Tumblr That Was (The Mary Sue) For a couple of years after my family moved back into our house post-reconstruction (following the fire we had back in 2001), we didn’t have cable television. My father claimed that he did this to encourage us to talk more with each other, but as with so many of his similar plans, he just wanted more excuses to spew out his inane prattle on any and all topics under the sun. Right after he…
Apple CEO Tim Cook on Facebook data leak: Regulation is necessary (Yahoo! Finance) Part of the preparatory work I do as a teacher of college-level English is to make myself aware of the technological and pop culture elements of society that my students are likely to be aware of and use in their everyday lives. This process is known as gaining “cultural literacy,” and although it’s ultimately not as important in my preparation as knowledge of the intricacies of the English language, I’d argue that…
Craigslist ditches personals ads following passage of sex-trafficking law (Miami Herald) Female homicide rate dropped after Craigslist launched its erotic services platform (thinkprogress.org) In 2011, when the nation was transfixed by the “Craigslist murders” in Ohio, I had a unique vantage point to what was going on. Not only was I living in Ohio, but I was going through a period of very low employment; I had some freelance writing work to help me pay my bills, but I wasn’t teaching, and I really needed…
The original Star Trek television series was the backdrop for a lot of the bonding I did with Mom when I was young. Back before we had cable, reruns of the original Star Trek were one of the few things my mother made a point of catching whenever they were on, because she’s always had a huge crush on William Shatner dating back to before he even appeared on The Twilight Zone. For my part, I identified a lot with Spock, if only because he was the closest…
Google Play Music All Access: search giant launches rival to Spotify (guardian.co.uk) I’ve had three “Internet radio stations” since I launched the .org back in 2000. The first was from a very primitive service that I could never program right; no matter what I did, it just kept churning out classical music all the time, so I hardly ever used it. The second was programmed through Launchcast when it was still a part of Yahoo!, and that worked a lot better for me, even introducing…