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 is important that you understand that the concept of Toothing – beaming a sexual text message to a random phone on a commuter-packed tube train – is a bit like going into a crowded nightclub, throwing a brick at the dancefloor with a love letter attached, and hoping that the person it hits will…
11. We are faced with three fundamental options: formation, participation and dialogue. In the first place, a vast work of formation is needed to assure that the mass media be known and used intelligently and appropriately. The new vocabulary they introduce into society modifies both learning processes and the quality of human relations, so that,…
Conservatives and too many liberals view video games through a jaundiced lens: they are sources of violence and mayhem that destroy the minds of impressionable teenagers. But, as Rejeski points out, “policymakers have spent far too much time focused on the effects of a small number of violent video releases and lost sight of the…
Another traditional tipoff that a pope has died is the ritual closing of the shutters of the two windows at the side of the pope’s apartment overlooking St. Peter’s Square. Some say the closing of the shutters can be the first tangible sign of a death. Despite those arcane traditions, first official word that John…
As the first lethal robots head for Iraq, the role of the robot soldier as a killing machine has barely been debated. The history of warfare suggests that every new technological leap – the longbow, the tank, the atomic bomb – outraces the strategy and doctrine to control it. “The lawyers tell me there are…
“[B]logging is not an educational use of school computers.” — Chris Sousa, principal of Proctor Jr.-Sr. High School. —High school bans blogging (Rutland Herald) I wish this were an April Fool’s Day hoax.
“Reality is dead,” says Marx; however, according to d’Erlette[1] , it is not so much reality that is dead, but rather the futility, and some would say the fatal flaw, of reality. However, the economy, and thus the rubicon, of postmaterialist constructivism which is a central theme of Tarantino’s Jackie Brown is also evident in…
A Shanghai online game player stabbed to death a competitor who sold his cyber-sword, the China Daily said Wednesday, creating a dilemma in China where no law exists for the ownership of virtual weapons. —Online Gamer Stabbed for Selling Cyber-Saber (Reuters|My Way) But it wasn’t the stabbing that created the dilemma, it was the victim’s act…
Imagine someone coping with real discrimination — a black tanner, say, in 1897 Alabama. To expand his business, he needs capital and access to markets beyond the black business corridors in the south. Every white lender has turned him down, however, and no white merchant will carry his leather goods, even though they are superior…
Whether solving mysteries in text-based adventure games or slaying dragons by phone in multi-user role-playing games, many players still name the written word as their weapon of choice. —Jacob Ogles —Keyboard Is Mightier Than Sword (Wired) Rather than wallow in text-only nostalgia, this piece places text games in the context of modern 3D gaming, so it’s…
Because Grinnell is a small college, it‘sclear that many students make postings that assume a lot of knowledge on the part of readers, and the postings range from serious to silly — with many appearing to be the kind of thing a college student might write after a beer or three. Another Grinnell student sent…
In 1999, I wrote about the conference in my first online journal, but since I composed entries under a pseudonym, I wrote in vague terms and ended up saying very little. Whenever I met another blogger, the encounter always felt somewhat clandestine; blogging was something we did in a back room and certainly not something…
Many people think teens are technowizards who surf the Web with abandon. It’s also commonly assumed that the best way to appeal to teens is to load up on heavy, glitzy, blinking graphics. Our study refuted these stereotypes. Teenagers are not in fact superior Web geniuses who can use anything a site throws at them.…
This Yahoo! Search service finds content across the Web that has a Creative Commons license. While most stuff you find on the web has a full copyright, this search helps you find content published by authors that want you to share or reuse it, under certain conditions. —Yahoo! Creative Commons Search (Yahoo!) Slashdot is aflutter with…
An international study of about 100,000 15-year-olds in 32 different developed and developing countries suggests that the drive to equip an increasing number of schoolchildren in the UK with computers may be misplaced. In a report to be given at the conference of the Royal Economic Society in Nottingham this week, Thomas Fuchs and Ludger…
About 36 million Americans—or 27% of internet users—say they download either music or video files and about half of them have found ways outside of traditional peer-to-peer networks or paid online services to swap their files, according to the most recent survey of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. […] Current file downloaders are…
Readers are using aggregation services like Google News to save time and find news they’re interested in from one location. But the digital melting pot of news has raised questions about the need for standards that go beyond technology. —Stefanie Olsen —Tough week prompts closer look at how Google gathers its news (SFGate.com)
[University of Florida] students will not be able to forward their university mail to another account, such as America Online or Hotmail, beginning in the Fall after a technology committee decided in private that too many students weren’t receiving important university messages. —Stephanie Garry —[University Forbids Email Forwarding] (Independent Florida Alligator)
What’s a namber? A namber is a word that acts as a mnemonic for a number. For example, 65 is drum, and 181 is push. A namber address uses an arbitrarily-chosen list of nambers to represent each of the numbers from 0 to 255 in order to assemble four words to represent any IP address.…
Public, Private, Political: Social Theories and Blogging Practices (Jerz’s CCCC 05 Notes) The first panel I attended, Wednesday evening. Lanette Cadle, Bowling Green State University, presented “Their Own Space: Adolescent Girls and the Personal Weblog.” “At Livejournal, girls rule.” 67% are women, and the site features over 2 million active blogs. Yet women are under-represented in…