Even the most nimble-minded among us have pondered that question after walking into a room with some purpose in mind — to get something, perhaps? — only to blank on what that purpose was. Now a new study suggests that it’s the very act of walking through a doorway that causes these strange memory lapses.…
An analytical piece dissecting a woefully inaccurate local TV news segment. This isn’t to say that people aren’t still being arrested for recording cops in public—in Pennsylvania or elsewhere—or that cops aren’t still threatening people who attempt to record them with cell phones or other devices. In fact, in spite of those court rulings, a…
My sister used to send my wife and me videotapes full of Babylon 5 and Mystery Science Theater 3000, when I was a graduate student in Toronto. Since we often ended up watching six or seven B5 shows in a row, we got a good sense of the show as an overall story, rather than…
“People don’t want to be sword,” learns this little gamer. Similar:Youth Can Check Out Briefcases, Neckties via NYPL Grow Up Work AccessoriesThe New York Public Library has a progra…BusinessDr. Seuss Racism Controversy: A Dr. Seuss Expert Unpacks the Author's History With Racism,…Nobody is banning, cancelling or censori…BooksMy Summer Project: A WordPress Website for Stage Right,…
Stuart Glogoff wrote up his experiences teaching with blogs. The article is from 2005, and its main usefulness for me is that it validates some of my own practices — giving students individual blogs, requiring students to read and comment in peer blogs, and acknowledging that students will quickly abandon their blogs if they feel…
A public elementary school in Texas that was given “exemplary” status for student achievement only taught reading and math to third graders last year and made up grades for each student in social studies, science, music and other subjects. — ‘Exemplary’ Texas school taught only two subjects – The Answer Sheet – The Washington Post. Similar:Shatner's…
For the Open Source movement, the issue of whether software should be open source is a practical question, not an ethical one. As one person put it, “Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.” For the Open Source movement, non-free software is a suboptimal solution. For the Free Software movement,…
AUTOMAKER Nissan Australia was trying to put the brakes on a social media backlash today after handing out a car as top prize in a Facebook competition to a friend of the employee managing the contest. The PR disaster came only a day after iconic national airline Qantas experienced a similarly negative reaction when it…
Qantas on Tuesday invited users of the micro-blogging site to enter a “Qantas Luxury” competition, asking people to describe their “dream luxury in-flight experience” and possibly win a pair of Qantas first-class pyjamas and a toiletries kit. The timing of the PR exercise was questionable, coming just a day after Qantas and its unions broke…
This is the first moment I’ve had in months to think a bit about my upcoming 3-week online course, “Video Game Culture and Theory.” The class went well the last time I offered it, though there is always room for improvement. Best practices include deconstructing single longer assignments into frequent shorter assignments, scheduling the first…
Now, we’ve shown that Facebook promotes captive content on its network ahead of content on the web, prohibits users from bringing open content into their network, warns users not to visit web content, and places obstacles in front of visits to web sites even if they’ve embraced Facebook’s technologies and registered in Facebook’s centralized database…
See more at Pepper Spray Cop Squirts the Internet in the Eye Similar:High Schooler's Fake Story of Stock Riches Fools New York Editors”If your mother says she loves you, chec…BusinessUp the Long Ladder (ST:TNG Rewatch, Season Two, Episode 18) — The Enterprise Visits the Pl…(Rewatching Star Trek: TNG after a 20-ye…EthicsStop sharing those unsourced memes…
I wonder what kind of a government we would have, if laws were written as collaborative Wikis. Looks like Iceland’s new constitution came close. To write the new constitution, the people of Iceland elected twenty-five citizens from among 522 adults not belonging to any political party but recommended by at least thirty citizens. This document…
I posted this several years ago, but it’s worth a repost. Look ye! A fair lady has dropped her scented handkerchief and now laughs into her sleeve as I stoop to proffer the sundry to her coquettish hand. Is she the young and flirtatious Anne Boleyn, brought once more to life by the holodeck’s vast…
I might be able to use this in my “Media and Culture” class next term. The handwritten word or the hand-drawn line is a material object as well as a sign — as is whimsically demonstrated in the silent cartoon “Comicalamities” (1928), where Otto Messmer draws Felix the Cat in pen, and Felix then starts…
No, I’ll never watch any Twilight films, but I will enjoy reading reviews of the Twilight films. Perhaps the single funniest thing that I’ve seen happen as a result of the popularity of “Twilight” is that horror sites run stories on it now. Horror sites. “Twilight” is to real horror as cotton candy is to…
Some people have taken in The Code passively, by simply watching the broadcast episodes; some have played the Flash games as casual gamers; some have turned their hand to real-world exploration or artistic photography for the Prime Number Challenge; some have used pen and paper to individually work out the classic puzzles; some have turned…
As you are probably aware, you cannot side-load or run any Google app that requires a login on the Kindle Fire. That means no Gmail, Google+, Google Voice (I need to text my peeps) or Google Docs. I should have carefully researched the Amazon app store before I bought the Kindle Fire. I falsely assumed…
Gary Garcia (pictured on the right), one-half of pop duo Buckner & Garcia and co-creator of early ’80s hit single “Pac-Man Fever”, reportedly passed away at his home in Englewood, Florida yesterday. Long before MC Frontalot, Mega Ran, and other geek-themed musical acts made a living out of video game songs, Buckner & Garcia rose…
Two hierarchies enmesh themselves in the routine of consuming pellets and hunting phantoms, producing a single myth. The first is familial, the patrilineal logic that tells us Pac-Man and his partner, who we know only by her relation to Pac-Man, should bear a son in the image of themselves and in the image of modern…