Brain-Dead Teen, Only Capable Of Rolling Eyes And Texting, To Be Euthanized

via Brain-Dead Teen, Only Capable Of Rolling Eyes And Texting, To Be Euthanized – YouTube. Similar:Writing, Coding and Education: Why They MatterBack in my grad school days, I was calle…AcademiaThey've got magic to do. Carolyn is the Leading Player. (Pippin, Oct 21-29) AwesomeShutting the Door on the Hard-Knock LifeIn sync with the resurgence of labor…

Hackers and Makers

A longer-than-usual introduction to a reading assignment in my “Media and Culture” class turned into a useful opportunity to reflect. We are all busy people; yet somehow, many people who say they are too busy to take on another task spend hours reading, interpreting, and debating Harry Potter; some post stop-motion Lego spoofs; some do…

Zombie Code and Extra-Functional Significance | Play The Past

Useless code and comments in code—these are the zombie figures of software. They serve no purpose in a program’s execution, but they exude what Mark Marino calls extra-functional significance. They have meaning beyond the program. They speak not to the machine or the compiler, but to a different audience, another reader. In software development, that…

Tantalizing Details for Colossal Cave Adventure Enthusiasts

The most detail I’ve ever seen about Will Crowther’s other creative projects; here, in a conversation dated 1996, he discusses “different ‘adventures’”, and reveals that he wrestled with many of the same challenges that interactive fiction programmers faced through the 1980s and on to the present. I have at various times made different “adventures.” Two…

Facebook can be used to predict academic success, job performance | ZDNet

A good example of correlation. (Simply changing your Facebook content won’t automatically make you a better worker or student, but certain Facebook details do correspond to achievement in the offline world.) Researchers spent about 10 minutes looking at photos, wall posts, comments, education, and hobbies on Facebook profiles, while answering personality-related questions including whether the…

Bag a Bot Day

At midnight tonight, participants in the FIRST Robotics Competition must stop working on their robots and seal them up in a plastic bag. Here’s the working bot my son’s team built. Pretty good for a rookie team.     Similar:How do I cite a tweet in MLA Style?According to the Modern Language Associa…AcademiaAny pasta can…

Wonderful Performance of Raymond Scott’s “Powerhouse”

Fantastic composition, deeply embedded into the brains of any kid who grew up watching Looney Tunes. Raymond Scott recorded “Powerhouse” on this day 75 years ago. Similar:This is what happened when a KDKA-TV journalist showed biasSocial media platforms are full of peopl…CulturePagers, Pay Phones, and Dialup: How We Communicated on 9/11For much of the day,…

Gamasutra – News – Second Life developer acquires experimental game studio LittleTextPeople

LittleTextPeople, founded by writer Emily Short and Maxis veteran Richard Evans, has so far focused on the development of software that replicates complex social interaction. For instance, among its internal technology is a simulator that models social behavior and individual personalities. —Gamasutra – News – Second Life developer acquires experimental game studio LittleTextPeople. Similar:California Political…

You are standing in a field. There is a meme here.

Via David Thompson Similar:We Need to Talk about the Burgeoning Robot Middle ClassMaybe it’s not the super-robots we need …BusinessStudents who grew up with search engines might change STEM education foreverThe headline is oddly STEM-specific, but…CybercultureAnother 10 sq cm section of a #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dart #designAestheticsFacebook's director of media tries to appease news…

Twitter / Search – “couldn’t remove your contacts” – All Tweets

Twitter / Search – “couldn’t remove your contacts” – All Tweets. Similar:I ordered a box of composition books. Low-tech response to AI.I felt like a capitalist, buying in bulk…AcademiaExplore – Laconic history of the world in a typographic map…Explore – Laconic history of the world i…AestheticsMy 13yo and 18yo enthralled by WarGames.Wife likes movies. Son…