Janet Sternberg
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janetphd.bsky.social
Janet Sternberg
@janetphd.bsky.social
270 followers 53 following 400 posts
scholar/professor, Portugal/Brasil/USA, media ecologist, linguist, cat lover, a voice on NASA Voyager Golden Record (Português), author of Misbehavior in Cyber Places
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janetphd.bsky.social
Well of course she does! Jimmi Pickles is a tortie and according to my tortie Luna, they do random things under the influence of their random colored fur. 😻🐈‍⬛️🐈
Head shot of dark, almost black chocolate tortoise shell cat Luna giving the sly side-eye expression.
November 19, 2025 at 8:03 PM
janetphd.bsky.social
Not sure what my girl Luna thinks of dogs, although she'd probably appreciate that her fur matches Trinket's. Boy cat Asa would probably just like to play.
Head shot of dark, almost black chocolate tortoise shell cat Luna giving the sly side-eye expression. Grey and white tuxedo cat Asa lying across a white table, dazzled by his mother's coloring pages and pencils laid out beside him.
November 19, 2025 at 9:27 AM
janetphd.bsky.social
Of course she knows, she's a tortie! 😻
Head shot of dark, almost black chocolate tortoiseshell cat Luna giving the sly side-eye expression.
October 29, 2025 at 9:29 AM
janetphd.bsky.social
Reminds me of "SNERTs" (snot-nosed-eros-ridden-teenagers), a phrase coined by John Suler in the 1990s. See, for instance: www.psicopolis.com/psicopedia/P...
Paragraph from John Suler's "Adolescents in Cyberspace: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" describing what he calls SNERTs (snot-nosed-eros-ridden-teenagers).
October 26, 2025 at 8:48 AM
janetphd.bsky.social
Can't help thinking of the also pointless telecommunications exercise of breaking up AT&T into the "Baby Bells" in the 1980s, only for them to be recombined in new ways from the 1990s onward en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup...
Screenshot of text from Wikipedia about the Breakup of the Bell System, section on "Subsequent evolution: Regulatory changes brought about by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 allowed the Baby Bells to merge with each other or with non-Bell companies. Subsequently, a series of mergers and divestments has left six companies owning parts of the former Bell System as of 2024."
October 21, 2025 at 2:33 PM
janetphd.bsky.social
Confused Math Lady (Renata Sorrah, known in Brazil as "Nazaré Confusa") would like a word.
Four images of a white woman with blonde hair looking confused, overlaid with mysterious mathematical symbols.l Meme often called something like Confused Math Lady (Renata Sorrah, known in Brazil as "Nazaré Confusa")
October 2, 2025 at 9:24 AM
janetphd.bsky.social
@shannonmattern.bsky.social I remember sitting behind you in the media ecology PhD seminar with Postman et al. You were starting in the program, I was finishing. I admired your very short haircut, which later inspired me to cut mine. Small world indeed ;)))
Me holding facsimile of Voyager Golden Record used in The Farthest, on my way to 2018 Irish Film and Television Awards in Dublin, photo by film's director Emer Reynolds. Film won best documentary!
September 23, 2025 at 10:18 PM
janetphd.bsky.social
Great work that reminds old-timers like me of linguist Henry Lee "Haxie" Smith, who would identify American accents on his radio program "Where Are You From?" Not in Wikipedia but should be, here's a blurb from U of Buffalo www.buffalo.edu/ubreporter/a...
Article from the archives of the UB Reporter. Henry Lee Smith, linguist Published: October 27, 2011 (trimmed for Alt text limit) “It’s the most fascinating thing in the world,” Henry Lee Smith said about the study of linguistics. Language is “what makes us human beings.” In 1956, UB established the combined Department of Linguistics and Anthropology—the first such department in the country—and recruited Henry Lee Smith to head the new program. After receiving his PhD from Princeton and lecturing at Barnard, Columbia, and Brown, Smith headed the Language Section, Information and Education Division of the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946. Prior to the war, there were no foreign language materials for the bulk of the military and civilian personnel, and Smith, along with linguists he recruited, produced language guides, phrase books and military and general-purpose dictionaries in many different languages. Under Smith’s direction, the linguists also developed what came to be known as the Army method of language instruction—later adopted by colleges and universities—emphasizing the use of phonograph records on which a native speaker recited the foreign words and allowed a pause for repetition by the student. Smith founded the State Department’s School of Language and Linguistics in 1946, and served as the school’s director prior to coming to UB. But it was for his national radio program—“Where Are You From?”—that Smith was best known. Launched in 1940, the program featured Smith asking members of the studio audience to pronounce such shibboleths as Mary, marry, merry. Smith would then—with 80 percent accuracy—identify the dialect or dialects to which that person had been exposed, usually pegging it exactly, even within a few miles. For someone from Manhattan, Brooklyn or the Bronx, he could locate them within a few blocks of their homes. —John Edens, University Archives
August 24, 2025 at 8:14 AM
janetphd.bsky.social
Me and Tortie Queen Luna stand corrected. Cheers to all almost-black kitties!
Head shot of dark, almost black chocolate tortoise shell cat Luna giving the sly side-eye expression.
August 2, 2025 at 4:21 AM
janetphd.bsky.social
Something to remember him: Neil Postman's Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life
www.academia.edu/1984314/Neil...
Neil Postman's handwritten notes for his "Advice on How to Live the Rest of Your Life" (image taken from Austin Kleon's blog post which he based on the original photos I took of these notes and posted on Twitter)
July 14, 2025 at 10:24 PM