See also my resources on interactive fiction (text adventure games), programming in Inform 7, making games in Scratch, and coding hypertext stories in Twine.
“Searls and Weinberger are hippies, and they see a Free and Open Internet as a key building block of a free and open world, in much the way that Timothy Leary saw LSD in a previous generation. They’re concerned that commercial interests will spoil their metaphor through misunderstanding, and somehow pervert it into a tool…
“The advocacy organization that crusades for the protection of privacy rights sent its online ‘Safe and Free Newsletter’ out to about 860 people last week but mistakenly made every recipient’s e-mail address available to everyone else.|The ACLU sharply criticized pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly for making a similar error two years ago.” —ACLU in Hot Water…
Fortunately, the true nature of Internet isn’t hard to understand. In fact, just a fistful of statements stands between Repetitive Mistake Syndrome and Enlightenment? The Nutshell The Internet isn’t complicated The Internet isn’t a thing. It’s an agreement. The Internet is stupid. Adding value to the Internet lowers its value. All the Internet’s value grows…
“If Google went in this direction with the Blogger acquisition, it would hearken back to one of the seminal documents of the computing age: Vannevar Bush’s 1946 ‘As We May Think’ essay, which envisioned a new tool to augment human memory. Bush’s imaginary device, called the Memex, would help manage the ever-accelerating explosion of information…
“Massively multiplayer games require a huge world to support and sustain a user base (few people would keep playing if they can explore everything in the game in under a month). The amount of content required is IMMENSE. Walton estimates that creating a world 3 times bigger than a single-player game is at least ten…
“Yesterday I had midterm grading conferences with my journalists. (Just for the record, I abhor grades, for a list of reasons too long to post here.) It was interesting to me how Web logs have changed the whole process, and it has me thinking more seriously about the assessment issues that come along with this…
“Despite one website creator’s plea to stay away from his site, people just can’t stand not clicking on the Don’t Go There button. The site, programmed to go dark after 100 visitors, stayed live just shy of one hour.” Michelle Delio —Keep Out Sign Irresistible OnlineWired)
I AM THE WIDOW OF THE LATE SANI ABACHA OR HEAD OF THE PAN-AFRICA BANK IN LAGOS OR EXECUTOR OF THE WILL OF THE LATE SIR WALDO POPPYSOCKS.|I AM IN THE UNFORTUNATE POSITION OF NEEDING TO MOVE $315 MILLION OF SOMEONE ELSE?S MONEY OUT OF MY COUNTRY. AS THIS IS HUGELY ILLEGAL I NEED THE…
What kind of a sicko uses keywords such as “teddybear hamster cages teddybear invitations miniature teddybear kits teddybear” in order to draw traffic to a website featuring haiku about masturbation and child rape? The sickos at www.harmlove.com, that’s who. Teddybear Keywords = Sick StuffHarmlove) While I can’t say I care much for the content of…
“Attendance is up. Detentions are down. Just six months after Maine began a controversial program to provide laptop computers to every seventh grader in the state, educators are impressed by how quickly students and teachers have adapted to laptop technology.” Sarah Mahoney —Laptops Win Over the Skeptics, Even in MaineNY Times) According to the article,…
“My smmr hols wr CWOT. B4, we used 2go2 NY 2C my bro, his GF & thr 3 : kids FTF. ILNY, it’s a gr8 plc.”|[T]he 13-year-old’s teacher could not decipher what the youngster had written. “I could not believe what I was seeing. The page was riddled with hieroglyphics, many of which I simply…
“Persuasion in itself is obviously not new. From Cicero’s oratory to modern TV commercials, communicators have tried to persuade audiences. What’s different is that websites and other computerized designs are going beyond one-way rhetoric and becoming interactive. For most people, doing something is much more engaging and thus potentially more compelling and persuasive than passively…
“This project, the Memex Simulator, examines the ideas of the Memex and implements them as faithfully to Doctor Bush’s original specifications as is possible given the small amount of information available on the as-of-yet unrealized physical design. Because of the prohibitive complexity and cost of film and hardware for a device such as the Memex,…
The lone link on this page disappears when you try to click it. Actually, your browser automatically loads another page that is completely blank. That link is labeled “FAQ”. I’m sure the most frequently asked question on this page is “What the…!?” –DGJ —From the “I Don’t Get It” DepartmentPurple)
“That happened to Cornell University on Wednesday: It sent welcoming letters to 1,700 high school students who had submitted early-decision applications, including nearly 550 who had already been rejected in December. ‘Greetings from Cornell, your future alma mater!’ the e-mail letter began… Within a couple of hours the university followed with an ‘oops’ letter, admitting…
“Hence its note to Word Spy, an online dictionary that compiles and defines new words popping up in the media. At issue is this Word Spy entry: ‘google (GOO.gul) v. To search for information on the Web, particularly by using the Google search engine; to search the Web for information related to a new or…
“And now with Blogger, they can watch the people who are building the pages that comprise Google’s map to gain knowledge about their map that they can’t get from scraping.” Jason Kottke —Google is Not a Search CompanyKottke.org)
“Israeli scientists have devised a computer that can perform 330 trillion operations per second, more than 100,000 times the speed of the fastest PC. The secret: It runs on DNA….|hink of DNA as software, and enzymes as hardware. Put them together in a test tube. The way in which these molecules undergo chemical reactions with…
This article will whip your head around a couple of times… take it slowly, and don’t stop until you get to the Looney Tunes references. “To mainstream researchers, Loebner is a self-aggrandizing fool and his contest is hokum: at best irrelevant and at worst a public disservice that encourages bad science….. [T]he closer one looks…
“When the company receives a call from someone who’s clearly lost it — which can happen several times an hour — [psychologist]Chessin comes on the line to help the caller rediscover their happy place. Then the engineer returns to discuss the technical problem in detail.” —Psychologist Helps Victims of Data LossSFGate) At first I thought…