Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:Hollow Pursuits (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season Three, Episode 21) Misfit Crewmember Faces…Rewatching ST:TNG after a 20-year break….AmusingLessons from the Covington Catholic FlashpointMy social media network includes people …CultureInternet Archive puts classic 70s and 80s games onlineClassic video games from the 1970s and 1…CultureTeenage Usability…

"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:Awesome 1935 Soviet Movie Deploys Saxophone-Controlled Robots…

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…

American History: "Growth of a Nation"

This animated map of the expansion of American territory since the original 13 colonies is a bit cheesy in terms of production values, and not nearly as high-quality as the wonderful animated map of The Civil War in Four Minutes, but still a good resource. Similar:Jaz Parkinson "Colour Signatures"Amusing visual representations of the co…AestheticsThe Girl…

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:Another 40sq cm chunk of a #steampunk control panel. I'll do three more variations followi…AestheticsAmerica’s Real Digital Divide If you think middle-class children are…CultureThe Coronavirus Is Rewriting Our ImaginationsPossibly, in a…

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:Down with Fake Politics! Down with Fake Government! Long Live the Free Press!You can’t get much more American than Th…CultureJJ Abrams announces fourth rebooted Star Trek movie“We are thrilled to say that we are hard…Current_EventsNews Feed FYI: Click-baitingIt’s hard for me to think of Facebook as…BusinessSorry, Wrong NumberNumerical errors usually occur for…

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:Let's talk about AI art (long, scrollworthy post from The Oatmeal)https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_artAestheticsTime’s Arrow, Part 1 (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode…