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:The future is in interactive storytellingAn interesting piece. Easy-to-learn hype…AestheticsDisaster (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 5) Picard Trapped in Elevator with Wee…Rewatching ST:TNG A character-based b…AmusingFacebook Updates its Fight Against Fake NewsThe only reason Facebook is paying atten…BusinessMedia Bias…

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:The Hut Where the Internet Began – Atlantic MobileLet’s start at the end point: what you’r…CybercultureStudents…

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:Confessions of a Nerdy Homeschooling DadAre you unexpectedly home-schooling your…CultureReally, WCCC? AcademiaThirty Years Ago, the Challenger Crew Plunged Alive and Aware to Their DeathsThe Challenger made it through the…

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:Open Source…

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

Via David Thompson Similar:Eco-critical Code Studies: Reconfigurations of nature in the born-digital artifact “Coloss… Video game history is colliding:…AcademiaIn December 1999, I Was Blogging About Joseph Heller, E-Journalism, and Travel WritingIn December 1999, I was blogging about: …BusinessContext for Hayles, My Mother was a Computer (Ch 3 & 4)My undergraduates are working their way …AcademiaAnother…

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

Twitter / Search – “couldn’t remove your contacts” – All Tweets. Similar:Ranked First out of 2 Billion Google Hits for Something Really ObscureI just noticed a mild traffic spike over…Current_EventsHave 40 years of mobile phones given literature bad lines?The X Files did a good job of embracing …CybercultureJournalism Isn't Dying. It's Returning to Its Roots.An…