The whole “reality is an illusion” idea has been kicked around by everyone from Siddhartha to the existentialists. It is Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom who is most often associated with the idea that we are living in a computer simulation. His premise is based on a series of assumptions: 1). A technological society could eventually…
I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate,…
Doug Reside writes an informative blog about the digital legacy of the author of Rent. Like paper palimpsest drafts in which a revision is written over an early text (which is itself still visible), Jonathan Larson’s Microsoft Word files provide scholars and artists a fascinating glimpse into his creative process. For textual scholars practicing genetic…
Okay, I’ve posted enough of these to Twitter. Here are some more that I’ll leave here. That Can Be My Next Tweet reads your recent Twitter posts and mashes them up. These are probably only funny to me, but I’m chortling uncontrollably. Here are some more of the best ones. P. G. Wodehouse co-wrote the…
Julie Meloni put together this panel. When she invited me to submit a paper, I had already committed to another panel, so I offered to chair. I started with the joke about how the computer programmer died in the shower. (He read the instructions: “Wash, rinse, repeat.” Â I also invoked Cory Doctorow’s urgent plea, in…
I’m very interested in this, since I’m hoping to teach “Video Game Culture and Theory” again this January. Atari’s Greatest Hits brings the best of retro gaming to iOS with 100 Classic Atari Games. This suite brings you the hottest Arcade and 2600 titles from Atari. For those who love the classic gaming experience this…
Sharing content is cool. Sharing tools is even better. Sharing tools to make new tools would be even better still. As a professional Final Cut Pro videomaker myself, I was personally frustrated that Apple kept making it easier and easier for anyone to replicate my technical skills with much simpler tools. Now Apple’s making these…
What if each ebook came with a black box with wires and a red LED.. Or maybe a computer voice intoning a countdown… HarperCollins has informed libraries that henceforth, ebooks will be sold on the condition that they can only be circulated 26 times before they self-destruct. HarperCollins argues that this reflects the usage characteristics…
My blog title is from a comment on this story: The estate of JRR Tolkien is embroiled in a fierce legal battle over an American novel that uses the author of The Lord of the Rings as a central character. via JRR Tolkien novel Mirkwood in legal battle with author’s estate | Books | The…
At Seton Hill, Christina Michelmore is about to speak on the Egyptian Revolution. Packed house at Reeves Theater. #Michelmore 7:00 PM Feb 22nd Michelmore is chair of the History Department at Chatham University. She studies images of Muslims in the Western world. #Michelmore 7:07 PM Feb 22nd Setting up extra chairs for “What’s Happening in…
I’m fine-tuning my WordPress multisite blog installation. A blog is designed to look into the past, not the future. While it was a simple matter to turn MovableType into a rudimentary course management system by simply post-dating blog entries, WordPress goes out of its way to hide future content. I use the plugin “No Future…
The Great Gatsby for NES.
This is my “Super Earth,” about 2.75 times the volume of our planet, orbiting very close to a wimpy Class M star. (Thanks for the link, Jefe.)
How did it go?
The other day, I was thinking about how much I like YouTube, how much I like classic Choose-Your-Own-Adventure narratives, and how much I like zombie films. And I thought to myself, what a shame that someone hasn’t found a way to let me enjoy all three, at the same time. Well wouldn’t you know…
Bottom line: effective group assignments do not require students to collectively author a paper or make a presentation. Writing and presenting are often individual tasks, and charging a group with these tasks, without special guidance on how to perform them, is to set up yourself (and your students) up for frustration and mediocrity. On the…
OpenOffice.org is (was?) an amazing, free alternative to Microsoft Office, that was originally developed by Sun Microsystems. If the geeky details don’t excite you, what all this means is that instead of being a corporation’s neglected project, the legal groundwork is being set so that enthusiastic volunteers can develop the project according to the needs…
Google News made its debut on September 22, 2002, after several months of experiments with ranking and organizing technology by Krishna Bharat, who was working on Google Product Search at the time of the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C., on September 11, 2001. A self-described “news junkie,” Bharat found it difficult in the…
Part of the take-home message, that applies equally to my own children and the college students I’m teaching right now. Before you can master a device, program or invention, it will be superseded; you will always be a beginner. Get good at it. Be suspicious of any technology that requires walls. If you can fix…