I teach humanities and writing at The King's College in New York City, co-edit Comment, and write.

So, I’m going to be in Paris, with a tiny bit of free time, and (very briefly) Rome in August. What shall I do? Bonus points for non-touristy suggestions.  So, I’m going to be in Paris, with a tiny bit of free time, and (very briefly) Rome in August. What shall I do? Bonus points for non-touristy suggestions. 

    So, I’m going to be in Paris, with a tiny bit of free time, and (very briefly) Rome in August.

    What shall I do? Bonus points for non-touristy suggestions. 

    theatlantic: NIH Study: Coffee Really Does Make You Live Longer Caffeine addicts, rejoice: all the coffee you’re downing over the course of a day could be lengthening your lifespan. For real.  According to research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who drank four or five cups of coffee a day tended to live longer than those who drank only a cup or less. The benefit was more pronounced for women, but men also stand to gain somewhat from pounding joe. Read more. [Image: antwerpenR/Flickr] Thank goodness, huh?

    theatlantic:

    NIH Study: Coffee Really Does Make You Live Longer

    Caffeine addicts, rejoice: all the coffee you’re downing over the course of a day could be lengthening your lifespan. For real. 

    According to research published today in the New England Journal of Medicine, people who drank four or five cups of coffee a day tended to live longer than those who drank only a cup or less. The benefit was more pronounced for women, but men also stand to gain somewhat from pounding joe.

    Read more. [Image: antwerpenR/Flickr]

    Thank goodness, huh?

    “The importance of learning to code isn’t so that everyone will write code, and bury the world under billions of lines of badly conceived Python, Java, and Ruby. The importance of code is that it’s a part of the world we live in. I’ve had enough of legislators who think the Internet is about tubes, who haven’t the slightest idea about legitimate uses for file transfer utilities, and no concept at all about what privacy (and the invasion of privacy) might mean in an online space. I’ve had enough of patent inspectors who approve patents for which prior art has existed for decades. And I’ve had enough of judges making rulings after listening to lawyers arguing about technologies they don’t understand. Learning to code won’t solve these problems, but coding does force engagement with technology on a level other than pure ignorance. Coding is a part of cultural competence, even if you never do it professionally. Alsup is a modern hero.

    A federal judge learned to code - O’Reilly Radar (via everythingisdisrupted)

    (via theatlantic)

    Oh well

    My summer has somehow gone from (a month ago) oh, I’ll just laze around the park and read books all summer to sorry, I’m out of town every other week and hey what should I do when I’m in Paris? and man, so many things to write and a big project in the works … but you know, obviously, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Vacays are for the birds.

    Anyhow, if you need me, I’ll be at the coffeeshop down the street typing, or somewhere entirely out of state/country (beginning with a quick trip to Ontario next week). God was good to let us invent MacBook Airs.

    #professorproblems

    The best thing about being a professor - except for (most of) the students and the good conversations and at least a generous percentage of colleagues and getting paid to talk about what you love … okay let me restart this.

    One of the best things about being a professor is academic summers. Witness: I am now technically on summer break, and will be until the second week in August. Of course, the summers are crammed with all the work you couldn’t get done in your (minimum) sixty-hour weeks during the semesters, but still, it’s a change of pace. If you’re the sort of person who gets bored very easily, I recommend academia.

    That said, the days of transition from a highly regimented set of deadlines and meetings to the loose, free-form scheduling of summer can be - at least for me - sort of a nightmare. And even though I’m still a bit of an introvert, I find that going from being only a holler or a knock away from a colleague to days spent in quiet writing and reading is similarly difficult. 

    This is only my second summer, so I’m still trying to remember when I’ll stop feeling kind of bummed out and start reveling in it. I do remember that around the middle of June I start to remember why I teach and don’t write full-time. Maybe this is the summer where I write that article about why writers should teach.

    Anyhow: hi, it’s summer, for me. Anyone want to go to the beach?