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:Is Babylon 5 secretly the most influential TV show of the past 25 years?When my wife and I were grad students in…CultureCarolyn's performance as Ariel #bardinbloom @ThePublicPGHSo good to see her preforming live on st…CultureCandy Land Was Invented for Polio…

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:I Made Cheerful Maze Game in ScratchWell, it’s cheerful unless you touch som…AestheticsAmazing birthday cake, created…

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:"What Teachers Make" Sequence of AssignmentsEvery year I rewatch Taylor Mali’s passi…AcademiaSTEM Needs a New LetterCreativity alone does not foster innovat…Art‘A slow-motion disaster’: Journalism museum in talks about possible…

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:Lie to…

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

Via David Thompson Similar:8 Questions for 'Star Trek' Superfans Restoring Galileo ShuttlecraftThis nerd’s geek heart grew three sizes …AestheticsWhy ‘Cats’ the Movie Fails So FlamboyantlyI can’t seem to get into superhero movie…AestheticsRespect the Text: Teaching Textual Primacy to Non-English MajorsIn the past, I have used the first day o…AcademiaLeftovers from the food my colleagues brought…

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

Twitter / Search – “couldn’t remove your contacts” – All Tweets. Similar:During a modest snowfall, I’m passing the time in a public place where someone else has tu…Stay tuned for more live footage of Stor…CultureThere, in my morning snapshot of the kids home-schooling in the kitchen, is the cable I sh…EducationTerminated for Reading an Allen…