It’s great to see the more current interactive fiction works getting critical attention. The “text adventure” genre has come a long way from mazes and inventory puzzles; these works emphasize the literary effects that can only be generated by manipulating the player’s sense of agency. This study examines how themes, conventions and concepts in Gothic…
A pre-release critique of the tablet culture. Compared to other kinds of information that computers process today, text has an exceptionally small footprint. With the arrival of the tablet, we have crossed a critical threshold: Where text is concerned, we effectively have infinite computational resources, connectivity, and portability. For decades, futurists have dreamed of the…
Yes, it’s stunning to watch the spinning images in the table of elements ebook that comes with the iPad. But what does the brave new world of ebooks hold for educational and nonfiction authors? In order for electronic books to live up to their billing, we have to fix a system that is broken: getting permission…
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The iPad is mentioned a couple times during this feature on how wonderful Seton Hill University is. Just kidding. Seton Hill is mentioned twice about a minute into the clip (after the advertisement). Similar:Line breaks are really, really importantI’m sure that whoever wrote this headlin…Current_EventsNational Day on WritingNCTE, the National Writing Project, and …CultureWet Book…
The digital photography course that SHU’s journalism students are supposed to take typically fills up, so that students can’t take the course until they are seniors. That rather defeats the purpose of requiring the course — I was hoping that students who take the course will be able to take photos for the student paper…
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Doctorow is a do-it-yourself tech maven who hates the iPad, specifically because it makes it so easy to access online content on Apple’s terms. We don’t own the content we pay for on the iPad, and we aren’t trusted with owning the insides. The way you improve your iPad isn’t to figure out how it…
It’s a scary time. After all, people are learning to make their own iPhone apps to help their films stand out (something Who Shot Mamba by Brian Spaeth is actually doing really well.) Many filmmakers groan at the thought of learning such a complicated skill, or paying someone who has the skill a lot of…
At PAX we debuted the “How to Play Interactive Fiction” postcard. If somebody is sitting down in front of an IF game for the very first time, this card should give him or her an idea of what commands are likely to work — and what commands are *likely* to work. It’s not trying to…
I was told I needed “followers.” These were people who would sign on to receive my messages, or “tweets,” whatever those might turn out to be. I hummed a few bars from “Mockingbird Hill”–Tra-la-la, twittly-deedee–and sacrificed some of my hair at the crossroads, invoking Hermes the Communicator. He duly appeared in the form of media…
Here’s just a sampling… zecool À la Seton Hill University, chaque étudiant aura son iPad http://is.gd/b7hcR (via @willrich45) afujimura たまんないですね！ RT @Techmeme: And so it begins… Seton Hill University to give all students an iPad (@stevensande / TUAW) http://techme.me/=MFZ 24 minutes ago from EchofonIndritMaraku (Giusto per sottolineare quanto qui siamo indietro) Un iPad in regalo…
I can finally post about this. Seton Hill University will give a new Apple iPad to every full-time student in fall 2010. http://www.setonhill.edu/ipad/The word went out on the SHU campus about an important announcement. The room was packed. A familiar face appeared on stage. The wire-rimmed spectacles on the dancers were a nice touch, as…
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In addition to providing better supervision and overall direction, school-homing has become popular among mothers and fathers who just want to be less involved in the day-to-day lives of their children. “Parents are finding creative ways to make this increasingly common child-rearing track work,” Miller said. “Whether it’s over-relying on after-school programs and extracurricular activities,…
Someone tell me why this industry deserves to survive. Those paydays that New York Times Co. Chairman Arthur Sulzberger and President Janet Robinson received last year are once again coming back to haunt them. The Boston Newspaper Guild, which absorbed more than $10 million in pay and benefit cuts to members last year in order…
RECESS is no longer child’s play. Schools around the country, concerned about bullying and arguments over the use of the equipment, are increasingly hiring “recess coaches” to oversee students’ free time. […] For children in past eras, participating in the culture of childhood was a socializing process. They learned to settle their own quarrels, to…
Allagash At the #pax Get Lamp screening and panel. Don Woods! Steve Meretzky! Infocom forever! http://twitpic.com/1b5yo2 1 minute ago from Echofon Reply Retweet DenisMoskowitz GET LAMP was pretty fascinating. Now watching impessive IF panel. Meretzky is hilarious. 4 minutes ago from Twitterrific Reply Retweet Gingko1 RT @potteryfanatic: Grayshott Pottery Small Conical Lamp…
I’m not at PAX East tonight. (I wanted to be there. I really, really wanted to be there. By my wife said she needed me elsewhere. Enough said.) According to the chatter on Twitter and the blogosphere the interactive fiction panel was standing-room-only, and there’s already a line for seats in tonight’s Get Lamp premiere. Similar:Past…
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