Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:New Ground (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 10) Worf's Son Visits, Acts OutRewatching ST:TNG As LaForge nerds ou…AmusingGingerbread USS EnterpriseMr. Sulu, set phasers to delicious! Whic…AestheticsElementary, Dear Data (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 3) When a holodeck bet spawns a fict…Rewatching Star…

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:How to Lie with Data VisualizationData visualization is one of the most im…DesignIs Google Making Us Stupid?Nicholas Carr, in The Atlantic: As the …BooksWatched "Apollo 11" at local library with my…

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:Mr. Chen Goes to WuhanA Chinese media personality with over ha…CultureThirteen seconds. Dozens of bullets. One explosive photo.Forget for a moment that the picture is …CultureEpiscopal bishop on President Trump: ‘Everything he has said and done is to inflame violen… “I am the bishop of the Episcopal Di…Current_EventsLong Live the LARPers –…

Frisbee inventor dies at 90

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:More modular low-poly background buildings. I’ll do some more facades then move to the nex…More modular low-poly background buildin…AestheticsWhy We Forget Most of the Books We ReadIt was pleasurable to encounter a famili…BooksThe Abandoned (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch,…

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:Forgive and Remember: How a Good Boss Responds to MistakesI’m thinking about risk. When my twee…BusinessAnother social media post attacks…