See also my resources on interactive fiction (text adventure games), programming in Inform 7, making games in Scratch, and coding hypertext stories in Twine.
It isn’t clear whether Linden Lab simply took the Woodbury island offline, or actually destroyed the software behind it. Dori Littell-Herrick, an assistant professor and chairwoman of the animation department, said she believed it was the latter. If so, the university would need to build another island if it re-established a presence in Second Life.…
—Text to Speech (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Over the summer when I spend little time in the office and a lot of time outdoors, I often fall behind in my reading. The past few weeks I have been using TextAloud, a fairly simple but interesting program that converts text files to MP3s. I then put the MP3s…
However, perhaps this is not a simple matter of cause and effect. Perhaps it‘swrong to assume that the availability of good graphics technology caused the decline of games like Zork. If “interactive fiction” has migrated to the margins of the computer gaming industry, it could be due simply to a lack of good marketing, not…
Doctors backed away on Sunday from a controversial proposal to designate video game addiction as a mental disorder akin to alcoholism, saying psychiatrists should study the issue more. —Experts oppose video game addiction designation (Reuters | C|Net)
The division is cleanest in communities where the predator panic hit before MySpace became popular. In much of the midwest, teens heard about Facebook and MySpace at the same time. They were told that MySpace was bad while Facebook was key for college students seeking to make friends at college. I go into schools where…
At a packed session for academic librarians attending the annual meeting of the American Library Association, in Washington, the topic was how to help students who have learned many of their information gathering and analysis skills from video games apply that knowledge in the library. Speakers said that gaming skills are in many ways representative…
He is full of high sentence, like J. Alfred Prufrock. But beneath it all, one finds a sense of cultural history combining one part idyllic idealization with two parts status anxiety. Gorman only appears to be facing hard questions about the new digital order. Actually he is just echoing debates on “mass society” from five…
Of course he would expect I was in the pay of those whose interests I advanced. Why else would I advance them? Both he and I were in a business in which such shilling was the norm. It was totally reasonable to thus expect that money explained my desire to argue with him about public…
WATCH out YouTube lovers – the online video service are trialling new technology to prevent people posting unauthorised material they don’t have the copyright for. YouTube will trial the new technology with two of the world’s largest media companies, Time Warner Inc. and Walt Disney Co. —YouTube no longer yours (Sunday Telegraph)
Jorn Barger, a Joyce enthusiast whose many creative electronic endeavors include coining the term “weblog,” offers this animated map of Dublin, showing the progress of Leopold Bloom and other characters from the “Wandering Rocks” chapter of Ulysses. The chapter takes place on June 16, which has of late been celebrated as Bloomsday. Last week was…
I designed this site to enable those of us who are having difficulty in solving Adventure / Colossal Cave to work together to solve the game. This is not a hints site, and there is no spoiler space. Information is presented as fully as I can, though the information in the walk through tends to…
Sony Corp. apologized Friday to the Church of England for a violent computer game that features a bloody shootout inside an Anglican cathedral. —Jill Lawless —Sony: Sorry for Cathedral Shootout Game (Brietbart)
When the steam train roared into history, hissing smoke and howling into the night, it was an awesome beast, adorned in the finest woods, ivory, gold, and intricate inlays, like some Serpent King on a sacred tapestry. The automobiles of the 20’s to 60’s, each was a work of art. The television and radio affected…
The Los Angeles Police Department on Tuesday announced plans to pursue improvements to the city’s 911 system, saying callers in the future will be able to use text messages, photos and even video from cellphones to seek emergency assistance. —Richard Winton —LAPD plans to accept 911 text messages (LA Times) Will future dispatchers have to be…
I graduated from SHU this may and I took your American Literature course in Spring 2004. I just wanted to write you an e-mail because I came across my own blog while doing a search on the internet and I starting reading through them. I must admit, I HATED doing them during class because it…
A Courier-Journal sports reporter had his media credential revoked and was ordered to leave the press box during the NCAA baseball super-regional yesterday because of what the NCAA alleged was a violation of its policies prohibiting live Internet updates from its championship events. —Rick Bozich —Courier-Journal reporter ejected from U of L game: Bennett removed…
According to the Courier-Journal, staff blogger Brian Bennett was approached by NCAA officials in the fifth inning of a game between the University of Lousville and Oklahoma State, told that blogging “from an NCAA championship event ‘is against NCAA policies (and) we’re revoking the (press) credential and need to ask you to leave the stadium.’”…
We are aware that the decision to place Google at the bottom of the ranking is likely to be controversial, but throughout our research we have found numerous deficiencies and hostilities in Google’s approach to privacy that go well beyond those of other organizations. While a number of companies share some of these negative elements,…
Mr. Singhal is the master of what Google calls its “ranking algorithm” — the formulas that decide which Web pages best answer each user’s question. It is a crucial part of Google’s inner sanctum, a department called “search quality” that the company treats like a state secret. Google rarely allows outsiders to visit the unit,…
Cutler has spent much of her time fending off a lawsuit by ex- boyfriend and fellow DeWine staffer Robert Steinbuch, who claims Cutler’s blog publicly humiliated him. He is seeking more than $20 million in damages. […] The lawsuit is being closely watched by online privacy groups and bloggers because the case could help establish…