Author Archives: Robert Basil

“Bucks for Clicks” journalism

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Robert Basil

I like Virginia Postrel‘s take on the recent controversy over at Forbes.com. A popular author, Bill Frezza, published a controversial column on that website – advising university fraternities to beware of female students who show up at their parties drunk … Continue reading →

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Accent-removal class

Posted on September 19, 2014 by Robert Basil

Notes Mark Liberman at Language Log: “In a better world, the speakers of the ‘standard’ variety would take a prejudice elimination class instead.”

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The Work of Molly Crabapple

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Robert Basil

Molly Crabapple‘s only peer as an illustrator / artist / journalist is the great Joe Sacco. The tone of their work is very different, though. Whereas Sacco’s reporting is dispassionate and ironic, Crabapple’s is emotional and argumentative. Sacco’s art – black … Continue reading →

Posted in Robert's posts | Tagged art, courtesy, journalism | Leave a comment

“No Fireworks on the Fourth of July?”

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Robert Basil

Virginia Postrel‘s book The Future and Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict over Creativity, Enterprise, and Progress, published in 1999, has long been one of my favourite libertarian works: smart, funny, level-headed (that is, not dogmatic). Her more recent work has focused on … Continue reading →

Posted in Robert's posts | Tagged Visuals | Leave a comment

Where are the women in the high-tech industry?

Posted on August 23, 2014 by Robert Basil

Vivek Wadhwa crowd-funded the publication of his new book, Innovating Women: The Changing Face of Technology (cowritten with Farai Chedey). He also “crowd-created” it with the help of more than 500 women who contributed research and writing. In this podcast with … Continue reading →

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Acting Together

Posted on July 23, 2014 by Robert Basil

For its first two and a half years I was the “knowledge dissemination adviser” for the Acting Together research project. Based at Kwantlen Polytechnic University and funded by a federal Social Sciences and Humanities Research grant, the project’s goal was … Continue reading →

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Really good, free online technical communications text

Posted on July 16, 2014 by Robert Basil

A couple years ago Dave McMurrey’s online technical-writing textbook vanished from the Internet – not sure why. But *it is back*, and I suggest you bookmark it. A wonderful resource.

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When judging others is necessary

Posted on July 15, 2014 by Robert Basil

I teach my students that, by and large, the purpose of social and workplace communications is to “foster and maintain relationships” (and “to not screw up”). Blogger realsocialskills (Twitter handle: @rsocialskills) notes that this rule does *not* carry the day … Continue reading →

Posted in Robert's posts | Tagged conflict | Leave a comment

Copyright protections trump oil pipeline

Posted on June 28, 2014 by Robert Basil

Cantech News explains an Alberta land-owner’s ingenious use of copyright law: Alberta artist Peter van Tiesenhausen has provided an interesting legal precedent in his long-running battle with oil companies seeking to run a pipeline through his 800 acre territory. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Robert's posts | Tagged conflict, copyright | Leave a comment