The Internet Bible: The Fall of Eve

Via Similar:Clickbait writers hate this English professor's time-saving trick!Defeat clickbaiters with this one weird …CybercultureIn July, 2002, I was blogging about military close reading, weblogs in journalism, UX evan…In July, 2002, I was blogging about …CybercultureMy Son Plays Mozart Too Fasthttps://youtu.be/gXAtRI1NLxs He says “M…AmusingMultimodal Composing, Sketchnotes, and Idea GenerationUsing the mixed media of sketch notes,…

Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:The dangers of short form content – The Woke Salaryman: Source: The dangers of short form co…AcademiaPope Leo XIV names AI one of the reasons for his papal name…I chose to take the name Leo XIV. There…Current_EventsLong Live the LARPers — My daughter…

"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:The Booming Japanese Rent-a-Friend BusinessWe had a…

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:Vanessa Otero's Updated Media Bias Chart (Liberal/Mainstream/Conservative; Facts/Analysis/…Otero goes into…

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:Touch Me Now: York Plays 2025A cast of hundreds participated in a pub…AcademiaSeton Hill Student Journalists Launch Local Election Coverage Students in my journalism class are pu…AcademiaGoogling Is for Old People.…

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:Refreshing my memory of working with reel-to-reel tape as a radio news intern (c. 1989).HistoryInternational Studies Association proposes to bar editors from blogging “I think it’s a really strange propo…AcademiaDoctor Bashir, I Presume #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 16) Smarmy hologram des…Rewatching ST:DS9 Quark watches with …AmusingAmanda Knox responds to high-profile…

Frisbee inventor dies at 90

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:A Man, a Plan, a Pointless(?) ProgramI readily admit that my accomplishment h…AmusingVanessa Otero's Updated Media Bias Chart (Liberal/Mainstream/Conservative; Facts/Analysis/…Otero goes into great detail describing …CultureImprobable Cause (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 20) Odo investigates an…

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:Liaisons (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 2) Picard is Marooned with a lovelorn …Rewatching ST:TNG Worf grumbles about…AmusingNot bad…