Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:Understanding 9/11: A Television News ArchiveStunning collection of thousands of hour…CultureCreating Games for JournalismWe as journalists can learn a lot from v…CybercultureGoogle Trends: blog, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook (2004-2012)I rather expected this — popularity of …Current_EventsOpinion: Don't link video games with mass shootingsContrary to…

"By Their Sidewalks You Will Know Them"

There are no sidewalks where I live, but if there were, my sidewalk, and my conscience, would be clear. Here’s the first stanza of a five-stanza poem by TImons Esaias. Originally there were eleven CommandmentsMoses, perhaps confused by the unfamiliarsnow, ice, and sidewalk,botched one, and left it out. Similar:I'm honestly not sure where that came…

The ABCs of Adventuring

Thanks for this find, Mark Sample (via Twitter). The ABCs of Adventuringby Admiral Jota, Dylan O’Donnell, G. Kevin Wilson, and Dan Shiovitz.A is for Adventure, the first of them all;B is for Brass lantern, so you don’t take a fall.C is for Compass, an unseen one you keepD is for Drinking, eating and sleep.E is…

What Makes a Great Teacher?

Gripping story of an effort to use data to predict teaching excellence. As Teach for America began to identify exceptional teachers using this data, Farr began to watch them. He observed their classes, read their lesson plans, and talked to them about their teaching methods and beliefs. He and his colleagues surveyed Teach for America…

Why Google Has Become Microsoft's Evil Twin

Google Buzz combined the openness of Twitter with the “whoo-hoo look at me!” aspects of Facebook. The result? A total face plant. —PC World Similar:Final week of Pict Classic Theatre's Oliver Twist (NEXTpittsburgh)Today is Carolyn’s day off from Oliver T…BooksUpdated a "Gender Neutral Language" handoutMTV recently ditched the “Best Actor/Act…AcademiaSymbiosis (TNG Rewatch, Season 1 Episode…

Critical Code Studies Working Group — Colossal Cave Adventure Annotation

This week, I’ll be facilitating a week-long collaborative annotation project, as part of the Critical Code Studies Working Group online conference, on the source code to Crowther’s original Colossal Cave Adventure (a classic text-only computer game from the 1970s). According to Donald Knuth, designer of the “literate programming paradigm,” Colossal Cave Adventure is the “ur-game…

Happy V-Day: Valentines for Journalists

Valentines for Journalists. Similar:Liaisons (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 2) Picard is Marooned with a lovelorn …Rewatching ST:TNG Worf grumbles about…AmusingRob Rogers' firing is a frightening omenPulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Nick A…CultureHermann Zapf, the font designer behind Palatino and Zapf Dingbats, has died at 96Hermann Zapf, the designer of fonts such…AestheticsDown with Fake Politics! Down with…

Frisbee inventor dies at 90

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:Inheritance (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 10) Data's mom talks a lot, young …Rewatching ST:TNG Within minutes of hea…EmpathyGrading the MOOC UniversityThe MOOC classrooms are growing at Big B…AcademiaResearch Before Google Books (from 2006)Me: It took…

Peter West, Trying the Dark: Mammoth Cave and the Racial Imagination, 1839-1869

Interesting examination of role-playing, illusion, identity, and power in Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave, one small branch of which was the inspiration for the 1976/7 computer game Colossal Cave Adventure. In the middle decades of the nineteenth century, Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave was a popular tourist destination for travelers from around the United States and beyond. The cave…

Typography and Textuality

Zach Whalen is turning his dissertation into a blog-web-thing, in the hopes of developing a book-thing. In whatever form it takes, it’s an interesting approach to a textual study of video games. This study asks how the design and configuration of text in videogames contributes to their textuality. I argue that videogames are texts in…

The Superbowl, Technology, and the Police State (1984-2010)

There’s a dissertation in here. All I have the energy to do today is imply a connection. Using a police state to market technology in 1984: Using a police state to market technology in 2010: Similar:Yes, I do feel rather awesome right now.Lost brand-new earbuds. Reached in pocke…PersonalShakespeare on EclipsesPrepping for tomorrow’s first meeting of…AcademiaThe…