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:RIP Flash: Why HTML5 Will Finally Take Over Video and Web in 2014I am not a fan of Adobe Flash, which is …BusinessWhy the British Tell Better Children’s StoriesIf Harry Potter and Huckleberry Finn wer…BooksPreparing for some serious nerd time…

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:A day may come when the strength of the girl fails and she must make more…

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:We are cruel. We always have been. The Internet did not make us soWe didn’t start the flame war. Scandalou…CultureReading-Is-Fundamentalists Slaughter 52 IlliteratesCommitted to the eradication of illitera…CultureIs Breakfast…

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:Do you…

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

Via David Thompson Similar:Empty InboxMy to-do do list and my “Follow Up” fold…CybercultureToday's 10 sq cm of retro #steampunk control panel. #blender3d #blender3dartAestheticsTurnitin.com UI Woes: One-click, No-confirmation Deletion of QuickMark SetsIn general, I find Turnitin.com’s GradeM…AcademiaAnother 10 sq cm of #steampunk control panel. #design #aesthetics #blender3d #blender3dar…AestheticsIn May, 2002, I was blogging about… typefaces in…

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

Twitter / Search – “couldn’t remove your contacts” – All Tweets. Similar:Happy Father’s Day One of my favorite pictures of my fa…Current_EventsIPads in the classroom: The right way to use them, demonstrated by a Swiss school.The devices are not really valued as por…CybercultureChildren of Time #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 22) Defiant crew meets…