Quick Reaction to the Google Books App: No highlighting? No thank you.

If you like highlighing, you can pass on Google Books. The press coverage I’ve seen is mostly about how Google’s new ebook store will likely threatens Amazon, but Google’s reader software is just meh. All politics about Google’s digitization of library archives aside, I love the ready access to full-page scans from out-of-copyright titles. The…

Sharing music files: Tactics of a challenge to the industry

Fascinating exploration of the relationship between official responses to torture and official responses to file-sharing, and possibly a useful way to introduce a big-picture concept (the issue of justice and its relationship to power) to students who have a strong opinions about the importance of their own file-sharing activities. [P]owerful perpetrators commonly use many or…

Transformation of e-mail is under way

E-mail may not totally disappear, but experts say in five to 10 years, it may look far different than it does today. “Within five years, we think the questions about social networking versus e-mail will be largely moot, as the two elements will have been fused together,” said the report by Gartner analysts Matt Cain…

Abandoned Six Flags New Orleans Tour

  Similar:Those mean fake news people at the Washington Post are at it again, this time publishing a…Those mean fake news people at the Washi…CultureMars Panorama — 10yo with iPad Pretends Her Bed Is NASA Roverhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4rCkr0oA…Current_EventsFrozen opens tonight. (All shows have been sold out for over a month.)DramaJust a #steampunk captain inspecting the æther power…

Dying on Facebook

“Last week, his cousin announced on his Facebook wall that he was missing and asked everybody to contact her if we’d seen him,” my friend told me. “The next day she wrote that they’d found him, dead. Just like that.” We’re finally getting used to learning about our friends’ and acquaintances’ lives through Facebook. Will…

Vanity Post

My entry in the IMDB, as viewed on my iPod Touch. Similar:Mount St. Mary's president fires two faculty members, one with tenureMount St. Mary’s fires two faculty membe…AcademiaSharing a root beer float with your dad doesn't fix everything that's wrong in the world, …AestheticsA support sloop on deck and in the landing bay. #steampunk #neovictorian…

Uniforms

The second and, sadly, last of Douglas Johnson’s play-a-day experiment. (The three open the box and rummage in it, and pull out shirts with the Starfleet insignia.) DARNELL: Mine’s blue! TOMLINSON: Mine’s yellow! RAYBURN: Mine’s red! (DARNELL and TOMLINSON cough uneasily, and sidestep away from RAYBURN.) RAYBURN: Oh, very good. Top notch observational comedy there,…

Writing with the iPad

Seton Hill English major Theresa Conley describes capturing poetry inspiration with her iPad, and my colleague Laura Patterson describes how she uses the iPad to help students plan their writing. From a collection of clips on the website iPad on the HIll.   Similar:Meet the 12-year-old boy who makes games instead of going to schoolTurning…

Writing in the Age of Distraction

There is never perfect silence, or happiness. Until my kids have gone to college and are out of the house, I will never get a full weekend of unbroken time to concentrate on writing (or reading, or coding, or whatever). I used to be able to bang out a blog entry or mark a few…

Livetweeting Buck Rogers: Planet of the Slave Girls

Soon I’ll start livetweeting the first episode of the 1970s #BuckRogers series. I livetweeted the series-opening movie a few weeks ago.http://jerz.setonhill.edu/weblog/2010/10/livetweeting_the_1970s_buck_ro_1/ Remote battery died. Crisis! #BuckRogers Planet of the Slave Girls. Clearly they are going for high concept SF. Still, Buster Crabbe and was that Jack Palance? #BuckRogers Nameless, sweaty extra under attack by pirates……

Interactive Fiction Projects

Recently I noticed a cluster of student blogs on interactive fiction. Interactive Fiction: Literature or Not? My Experiences with Interactive Fiction IF Can Be Quite the Process Similar:Long Live The English Major—If It’s Paired With An Industry-Recognized CredentialWhat does this simple question and its r…AcademiaMobile is a "really punishing format" for indies, says inkle's Jon…