The Internet Bible: The Fall of Eve

Via Similar:The First Programmer Was a LadyOver a hundred years before a monstrous …CybercultureMasks (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 17) Ritual symbols start appearing on the… Rewatching ST:TNG Masks (#StarTre…AestheticsWhy the trial by ordeal was actually an effective test of guiltHow could an ordeal-administering priest…CultureShould the AP Really Have Fired This Pulitzer-Prize War Photographer?The…

Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:New NASA Astronaut Wrote a Limerick to Get Hired “There was a lot of writing involved…AmusingPrice History Chart of The Associated Press Stylebook 2013 (Associated Press Stylebook and…The AP Stylebook jumped in price by more…AcademiaWhat's next in game narrative, with Emily Short Something…

"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:Melissa Terras' Blog: Male, Mad and Muddleheaded:…

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:Delightful interview with a former Setonian editor-in-chief who's now doing SEOAs a student journalist, Jessie totally …AcademiaDon’t patronize older adults by calling them ‘the elderly’In English grammar, we use the definite…

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:A Note to My Remaining Students at the Close of the 2021 Fall SemesterOf course, the power outage meant that w…AcademiaMost Christians don’t actually care about Starbucks cups. Here’s what we do know.No Christians in my social media feed ca…CulturePeople we have a hole in the floorCurrent_EventsIs the United Airlines man being…

Frisbee inventor dies at 90

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:Telekinetic Coffee Shop SurpriseBlogworthy promo for a movie I have no d…AmusingThe Internet Is RottingI do what I can. It’s disheartening how,…AcademiaMoonBot (from the family steampunk bedtime RPG 2007-2013) vs. a crate and lamps.https://youtu.be/h2P2Ve-oZ1U AestheticsVortex (#StarTrek #DS9…

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:McCain's 2008 Concession Speech: Republicans interrupt their candidate's concession speech…That moment during McCain’s concession s…CultureWhat If the Newspaper Industry Made…