If you were to draw a Venn diagram including fans of They Might Be Giants and those of interactive fiction (“text adventures” to the layperson), chances are there would be some significant overlap. From that overlap springs Apollo 18+20: The IF Tribute Album, which is in fact not an album, but a collection of interactive fiction commemorating…
“If you strip out marketing and advertising from the Internet, nothing would be left,” says a worried suit, who seems to have forgotten about, you know, all that content. —New FTC “Do-Not-Track” Recommendations: Clueless? | PCWorld. Similar:CNN Profiles Former White House "Chief Calligrapher"Today was the last day of the manuscript…AestheticsFacebook shrinks fake news after warnings…
Space seems like a fitting locale for the casual gaming franchise Angry Birds, considering its meteoric rise in popularity since launching 2009. —Review: Angry Birds Space out of this world. Excuse me, but do meteors actually rise? Similar:In April, 2001 I was blogging about interactive fiction, Roget's Thesaurus, John Lennon, H… A student newspaper article…
To find the best academic sources for your paper… Close this web page. Walk, drive, skateboard, ride your unicorn, or otherwise physically go to your library. Talk to a reference librarian. You’ll save yourself time and aggravation, and you will get better results. Maybe your unicorn is tired, and you can’t get to a library just now.…
Since its November release, Skyrim has won award after award and led reviewers to call it the “greatest role-playing video game ever made.” In its first month, it made $650 million, almost double the entire year’s gross in the United States for “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2,” the bestselling movie of 2011.…
After taking a whole bunch of new high-quality images, I found myself running out of space on my production machine. I briefly toyed with the idea of uploading a big chunk of files to The Cloud — thinking I could just get it back if I ever needed it — but then the voice of…
A Twitter friend made a critical comment about homeschooling that I thought warranted a reply. I won’t repeat his comment here — after a brief reflection, he modified his statement, and suggested that people who are doing homeschooling right have a too-low profile. While I don’t pretend my kids are perfect, or that they don’t…
why aren’t there more women in technology? Hmm, let’s see if Twitter can help us find out.
I blogged about this controversy the other day, so it’s only fair that I follow up. A Schofield Middle School teacher embroiled in a controversy after reportedly reading to his students from a science fiction book that one parent described as “pornographic” will not face criminal charges, police said. —Schofield teacher won’t face criminal charges…
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Apparently there is an allegation this teacher read to the class from the internet some age-inappropriate material about prostitutes, but as I undrestand it, the school says it is responding to complaints about three books. In addition to a science fiction novel, a Schofield Middle School teacher now on administrative leave allegedly read excerpts from…
“I can understand why readers like them so much, and in my position I have to follow the trends,” she said. “Even when I can’t stand them.” So until the trend dies, we’ve compiled a list of do’s, don’ts and best practices for creating and using infographics, whether you’re a blogger looking for content or…
My talented wife wrote this lesson plan, in honor of our local performing arts school (Stage Right! Greensburg)’s production of Joseph this weekend. Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, with music by Andrew Lloyd Webber and lyrics by Tim Rice, draws its story from the (Old Testament) book of Genesis: Jacob gives his favorite son,…
An Apple iPad has never looked so awful. No, I’m not referring to the new iPad, the one with the ballyhooed Retina display. I’m referring to last year’s iPad 2, whose screen now looks grainy and pixelated when viewed alongside Apple’s latest tablet. The improvement in display quality smacks you in the face as soon…
The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid…
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We’re horrified to have let something like this onto public radio. Many dedicated reporters and editors – our friends and colleagues – have worked for years to build the reputation for accuracy and integrity that the journalism on public radio enjoys. It’s trusted by so many people for good reason. Our program adheres to the…
Roughly 30 to 50 years after their birth, they either enter the long-term lexicon or tumble off a cliff into disuse. The authors suggest that this may be because that stretch of decades marks the point when dictionary makers approve or disapprove new candidates for inclusion. Or perhaps it’s generational turnover: Children accept or reject…
Whittaker says that CEO Larry Page, who took over the company from Eric Schmidt, had a focus on ‘beating’ Facebook in advertising – which led the company to shift its focus from established products such as Google Mail onto its controversial social network Google Plus and other ‘social’ products built for advertising. –via ‘Google is…
I call what I’m doing “digital humanities” when I shift from treating technologies as objects of inquiry (e.g., a cultural history of magnetic recording) to actually expressing my work through them (e.g., using a platform like Scalar). In this regard, my work is significantly influenced by scholars such as Cheryl Ball, Tara McPherson, and Virginia…