AP started as a cooperative. Today, it is a cooperative in name only. It’s time to take a lesson from music swappers and invent the new AP – a digital cooperative, a Napsterized news service. The 21st Century news business needs a peer-to-peer network that lets local operations drive cost out of their non-local news…
Pick Up Ax Link-O-Rama (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) This year, I’ve taught Anthony Clarvoe’s play Pick Up Ax in two of my courses — Intro to Literary Study and Media Aesthetics. If you’re just itching to find out what my students had to say about this play about geeks who listened to rock music that was recorded…
A gauzy Skein of Propylene — That sways with slightest Breath — This bag holds smocks — and Bread and Milk But — in its folds — lies Death. It sways and puffs — this Thistledown, Balloonlike in its joy — Each tiny mouth a perfect fit — This bag is not a toy. —…
Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new ‘libraries’ that have arisen in recent years…
The game scene is resorting to faddish ideas from years ago to try to appear original. I’m surprised they haven’t come out with Pet Rock software yet. None of this will save a doomed industry. The business is going to attempt to sustain growth and creativity by making game players buy newer and newer machines.…
Telling ourselves we have “so much” to do and that it is “so hard” and that we’ll “never get done” is conterproductive. Instead of talking about these things we should just haul off and do them! And don’t let friends that don’t get this concept to drag you down with them. Let them list their…
Adams had a knack for describing thorny space-time problems and then squeezing them until they sprayed out juicy absurdity. The novels could be silly — Adams was a comedy writer — but they also made dark sport of humans’ self-importance. We look pretty small, he constantly reminded us, against the backdrop of a nearly infinite…
In the minority are those teachers who have setup their blog/cms as the main home page for their site, integrated into their blog or CMS or at least provide obvious links to their CV, teaching experience, etc, off of the main page of their blog. The blog/CMS is thus positioned as the main public face…