Why Tetris is the ‘perfect’ video game

Rather than wanting to make a film about Tetris the video game as such, Baird was fascinated by this human story that pushed the game into existence. “The original title of the film was actually Falling Blocs, just like the Eastern blocs that dissolved when the Soviet Union collapsed. I thought it was a really great title. To me, Tetris is a buddy movie and this Cold War thriller, but at the heart of it is this human story between two guys who come from polar opposites of the world and are incredibly different, yet manage to create this magnificent…

Will ChatGPT Kill the Student Essay? Universities Aren’t Ready for the Answer | The Walrus

I’m still grappling with exactly how the rise of AI writing apps will affect my teaching. I don’t think it’s reasonable to ban technology from the classroom. While I will likely assign more in-class, hand-written activities, that strategy won’t work for online classes — and I am just not interested in requiring students to use surveillance software. Machines can throw balls faster and more accurately than humans, but humans still play sports. Pulleys can lift weights more efficiently, but humans still lift weights with their muscles. If we continue to ask students to do the kind of writing that bots…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

Why I disagreed with my students who said, “That was easy!”

“That was easy!”   Today three different students made some variation of that statement.   In that class, we are gearing up to write a research paper. I have broken the project up into multiple tasks, that I can grade quickly and generously.   Today’s assignment asks students to submit a paragraph that argues the “con” position, and some students happily recalled that last week I asked them to reflect on the quotes they collected from scholars who disagree with each other. Another student who was worried about something labeled “bibliography assignment” was relieved to see the task merely involved…

Which State Offers The Best Online Casino With No Deposit Bonus?

An in-person casino opened up a few years ago in the shopping mall near my house. I haven’t been inside, but I hope the rent helps the rest of the mall stay open. Just as the in-person shopping has to compete with online retailers, the in-person casino offers a restaurant and entertainment, to establish it as a go-to place that offers a different set of experiences from online gaming. Here is a good Q and A about online gaming, via Arthur Edwards. Apart from federal laws, different states in the United States have various regulations on the operations of online…

You are personally responsible for becoming more ethical than the society you grew up in.

Some people out there will never like you, no matter what you do. Some hurting and traumatized people will latch onto you as the symbol of their insecurities, and treat all your imperfections as personal attacks. It’s important not to pay that negativity forward, or to punch down, or to take it out on yourself. What is important is not always easy.

Credible case that a lost Shakespeare sonnet has been identified

A dedication in the script of a 1603 Ben Jonson play (Sejanus: His Fall) may have been written by Shakespeare, who appeared in that play as an actor. “It’s tantalising. There are so many parallels with Shakespeare’s style that it must surely make even the most hardened sceptic pause and think.” Initially intrigued, he had contacted Dr Martin Wiggins, a leading expert on Renaissance drama, telling him “I’ve got this hunch that it’s written by Shakespeare, but I can’t find anybody who’s ever said it was. Do you know anybody who has? He said: ‘yes, me’.” — Chris Laoutaris, quoted…

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My Polish grandmother used to bake these cookies, which my wife picked up at a Ukranian festival. They’re apparently called nut horns. Hadn’t tasted them for 30 years.

My grandmother shaped them a little differently, more like segments of a sphere… the name I must have given them in my childhood is just “powdered sugar crescent cookies.” She packed them in a tin with chocolate chip , oatmeal raisin, fork-impressed peanut butter, and maybe sugar cookies? I would have made a beeline for her chocolate chip cookies first, but these were a close second.

There are two factions working to prevent AI dangers. Here’s why they’re deeply divided.

We are assigning more societal decision-making power to systems that we don’t fully understand and can’t always audit, and that lawmakers don’t know nearly well enough to effectively regulate. As impressive as modern artificial intelligence can seem, right now those AI systems are, in a sense, “stupid.” They tend to have very narrow scope and limited computing power. To the extent they can cause harm, they mostly do so either by replicating the harms in the data sets used to train them or through deliberate misuse by bad actors. But AI won’t stay stupid forever, because lots of people are working diligently to make it…

False equivalency in a copspeak guide to dealing with the media

Police chief and writer Cliff Couch knows his audience. In a paragraph from an article advising LEOs how to deal with reporters, Couch begins with context he assumes his readers already accept, and carefully moves from there to the new ideas he wants them to consider. The horror tales you may have heard about reporters sneaking past checkpoints, spying on people, or outrageously violating officers’ privacy usually involve out-of-town reporters who are there for a big national story. They’re under intense pressure to do whatever is necessary to advance their career, and they might not care who they upset in…

Dennis G. Jerz | Associate Professor of English -- New Media Journalism, Seton Hill University | jerz.setonhill.edu Logo

In September, 2002, I was blogging about science writing, satire, ebonics, Google News, owl callers, astronaut Buzz Aldrin punching a moon landing denier, and an email from a former student (who thanked me)

In September, 2002, I was blogging about “The Science of Scientific Writing” (1990) from ‘pong’ to ‘pac man’ Michigan Police fall for The Onion satire about terrorist telemarketers “Ebonics” (ebony + phonics) Silly alarmist story about recessive blonde genes A scientist undone by plagiarism Google News (when it was new) Mel Gibson’s plan to film a move in Latin and Arabic A lovely little study in British ecocentrism: two amateur ornithologists in the same neighborhood have each acquired an owl whistle, and seem to be hooting at each other “with no actual owl involved.”  A composer accused of plagiarizing a…