See also my resources on interactive fiction (text adventure games), programming in Inform 7, making games in Scratch, and coding hypertext stories in Twine.
I’m not reallye sure if the blogosphere works like that any more, though. I find blog posts in my rss reader or on twitter or Facebook and only rarely by following links from other blogs as I used to do. Maybe I exaggerate – but it seems to me that blogs link to each other…
A shocking video of middle schoolers verbally abusing a poorly-paid, hearing-impaired grandmother of eight hired to keep them safe on the school bus went viral on Wednesday. Over 5,700 online strangers rallied to Karen’s side, donating $110,000 to fund a vacation and maybe even an early retirement!
Microsoft executive Steve Sinofsky jogs to the side of the stage to replace a frozen Surface tablet computer, during an otherwise slick product demo in Los Angeles. Video: Microsoft’s Surface tablet ‘fails’ during Los Angeles showcase – Telegraph.
This young blogger has learned a very important lesson about power and privilege. I’m sure the story does not end here. We anguish about getting kids to be enthusiastic about healthy, sustainable food — to not prefer the bad stuff, not waste the good stuff, and not be entitled little monsters who whine about when their next…
Takei’s post-Trek, post-coming-out reinvention of himself as an internet meme fusion reactor is a beautiful thing to watch. With this move, I think Takei may have officially out-nerded former TNG child actor Wil Wheaton — and I say that with total respect to Wheaton’s own post-Trek reinvention. Takei warned that a hot war between Star Trek…
“What’s a meme?” I took my daughter to the birthday party of a 12-year-old friend yesterday, and hung around with the adults as the kids splashed in the pool. After a round of Chuck Norris jokes with his dad (“When Chuck Norris goes into the water, he doesn’t get wet, the water gets Chuck Norrissed”),…
A student project explores a niche of the games market, for a class taught by Infocom legend Brian Moriarty. The video game industry has expanded rapidly in recent years, growing from a 9.5 billion dollar industry in 2007 to a 25.1 billion dollar industry in 2010. This growth is due to the common interest that…
Annette Vee posted a very helpful resource on code studies. With the recent uptick in the “everyone should code” movement, it seems that everyone’s now talking about computer programming as a new form of literacy. The terms by which people refer to the concept vary, but the central idea is shared: computational literacy; computational thinking;…
Will the need for a separate scribe tribe of programmers continue through the twenty-first century, or will the skill set of an educated person soon include programming fluency? I think that as programming becomes increasingly easy (which it will) and as the need to show rather than explain becomes important (which it will) and as…
I’m generally ambivalent about the whole “LinkedIn experience,” but if it wants to inspire confidence, the company should devote the same amount of attention it currently places on badgering its members on tightening its security. —LinkedIn: now officially the most annoying of all social media | Loren Steffy | a Chron.com blog.
Interesting collection of reflections on the status of cyberpunk, that branch of science fiction devoted to the exploration of dystopian networks and augmentations and hacking and information, rather than galactic empires, huge space objects, aliens among us, etc. It Evolved Into Birds: Ten Science-Fictional Thinkers On the Past and Future of Cyberpunk
Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer, ‘This,’ said I, ‘requires an extra dram of milk, my favorite pour.’ To the icebox I aspired, motivated to admire How its avocado pigment complemented my decor. Then I grasped its woodgrain handle – here I opened wide the door; – Darkness there, and nothing more.…
I’d argue that what’s happening is that we’re becoming like the mal-formed weight lifter who trains only their upper body and has tiny little legs. We’re radically over-developing the parts of quick thinking, distractable brain and letting the long-form-thinking, creative, contemplative, solitude-seeking, thought-consolidating pieces of our brain atrophy by not using them. And, to me,…
In the grand scheme of things, this means very little… but still, it’s kind of cool to be one in a billion. —email tips – Google Search.
A powerful essay, for the next time I teach Videogame Culture and Theory. (Some salty language ahead.) So the Hitman Absolution trailer. Do I have a problem with the existence of female assassins? No. Do I have a problem with female assassins dressing up as nuns? No. Do I have a problem with Agent 47 killing females…
Almost all the promise once held by virtual worlds has since been realized by Facebook. For every social interaction, brand engagement or persistent multiplayer social experience that Second Life or World of Warcraft or MTV’s Virtual Lower East Side was supposed to provide, there’s something the same or very similar available on Facebook — probably…
Atwood, on his blog Coding Horror, miffed by the “everyone should learn to code” meme, likens coding to plumbing. It’s not for everyone. “Look, I love programming. I also believe programming is important … in the right context, for some people,” he writes. “But so are a lot of skills. I would no more urge…
In the early 1970s William Crowther worked for the high-tech R&D company BBN Technologies as part of a team developing the ARPAnet; a computer network predecessor to the Internet. Crowther has never shown any desire to court celebrity for his achievements. Aside from a couple of interviews from books, Where Wizards Stay Up Late and Genesis II: Creation and…
My intuition is that, even for the wary, recalcitrant, or skeptical, the ways individuals connect now online and learn from one another’s connections no longer represent the pathological or aberrant (i.e. the shallow, distracted, lonely, asocial, unprofessional digital generation: you know the litany!), but “the future.” Since many are worried about “the future,” those who…
Humanities students are not used to failure. They want to get it right the first time. When they are new to the game, they want to get good grades on what are essentially first drafts. Once they learn how much work it is to write and edit a really good essay, their goals shift—from getting…