First Person: Do I know you?

I suppose that my face-blindness has made me the person I am. I don’t much like movies or People magazine, not because I’m above caring about movie stars, but because I don’t recognize most of them. I became an addictive reader, an author and an English professor because, in the world of words on paper,…

All-text video games make comeback

There’s nothing really new in this story, but it’s still good to see my favorite game genre get some good press. Along with simulated space battles and table-tennis matches, interactive fiction (IF) is one of the oldest of computer-game forms. Though far gone from its commercial heyday in the graphics-impaired ’80s, when it was still…

PAX East 2010

One of the many interactive fiction events at this now-even-more-awesome event that I cannot attend. The current plan: the main GET LAMP episode at 9:30, followed by a panel on stage of people interviewed for the film, and then some showings of a few more features of the DVD, including the Infocom and Bedquilt episodes.…

Family cashing in on ‘David After Dentist’

The viral clip has been viewed almost 54 million times and gave riseย to the catchphrase, “Is this real life?” It was the second most-watchedย video of 2009, according to YouTube, trailing only Susanย Boyle‘s appearance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” It’s also beenย an unexpected bonanza for the boy’s Orlando, Florida-area family, who,ย despite some criticism that they exploited their…

Day of Digital Humanities

This wordle was composed from word frequencies in definitions of “Digital Humanities,” submitted by participants in Day in the Life of the Digital Humanities 2010. About all we can conclude is that the participants know how to repeat the phrase “Digital Humanities” in their definitions. Similar:IPads in the classroom: The right way to use them,…

Back to the Classroom

As an administrator, I worked with other professors and administrators. As an instructor of graduate creative writers and upper-division English majors, I was teaching students who also loved words and writing, students who aspired to be what I was, a published author employed in a bookish field. Believe me, I am no longer preaching to…

The Immortal Henrietta Lacks

“Oh yeah! Scientists I’ve talked to say you cannot overestimate how important HeLa cells have been.” Yet no one in the Lacks family had been informed by Johns Hopkins of the existence of their mother’s cells, until a researcher called in the early 1970s wanting to test the family. “Henrietta’s husband basically got a phone…

Epic Game Design Tour

Epic Game Design Tour / Final Exam Review from Adam Marshall Smith on Vimeo. Similar:Nested (procedurally generated game of expanding drop-down lists)A text game that you play by opening fol…AwesomeMelissa Terras' Blog: Male, Mad and Muddleheaded: Academics in Children's Picture BooksLabcoats, suits (but not if you are fema…AcademiaNarrating "A Christmas Carol" for WAOB Audio Theatre.…

Doritos Tablet (iPad Spoof)

Similar:Schisms (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 6, Episode 5)Rewatching ST:TNG Riker is having troub…DesignAllegiance (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 18) Picard plays 'Escape the Roo…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….EthicsThe Complete Deaths: all of the Bard's 74 scripted deaths in one new play.Over the past four centuries, the brutal…AmusingHas life in the age of casual…

Change The Code, Keep the Text

Today, programmers, web-developers and designers possess countless different ways to display digital words online, much like an artist with a blank canvas. As words float across our computer screens, code may be considered the underlying thought and form of expression that supports online words, preventing the words from physically or metaphorically “disappearing into [cyber]space” (Richards,…

Teaching Online Journalism ยป 21 examples of Flash journalism

These are interactive news packages I’ve selected to show to journalism students as we discuss some of the capabilities of Adobe Flash. Many are very recent. —Mindy McAdams Similar:Sports Illustrated Published Articles by Fake, AI-Generated WritersThe AI authors’ writing often sounds lik…CybercultureWriting Computer Games with InklewriterIf brass lanterns or slathering-fanged g…CybercultureToday's 10sq cm of #steampunk…

Academy Award Winning Movie Trailer

Link pointing to blog entry about a different self-referential clip, and also a different (more vulgar) self-referential clip.   Similar:Shattered Mirror #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 20) Jake Meets Mirror Jennifer …Rewatching ST:DS9 Lonely Jake frumps …MediaOur family has seen David Whalen in the persona of Sherlock in five or six different shows…Our family…