Doyle Redland Says Goodbye

I’m still mourning the loss of Herman T. Zwiebel.  And now this? Similar:The Most Disastrous Typos In Western History The Most Disastrous Typos In Western H…BooksAn Open Letter to Reuters Reporters Nate Raymond and David IngramHow did Reuters happen to get a picture …Current_EventsJerry Lewis’s Costars Speak Out: “He Grabbed Me. He Began to Fondle…

"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:Why Grown-Ups Keep Talking Like Little KidsFelt…

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:Anecdotal evidence reliable? One man says “yes”.AcademiaMount St. Mary's president fires two faculty members, one with tenureMount St. Mary’s fires two faculty membe…AcademiaI'm amused by the quirky way the "Thin Bread…

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:Parallels (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 11) Worf gets technobabbled into a ti… Rewatching ST:TNG After returning…AmusingThey've got magic to do. Carolyn is the Leading Player. (Pippin, Oct 21-29) AwesomeIn discord with its own rules, the AP refers to an 18yo mass-shooting suspect as a "teenag…The AP’s own rules say an…

Frisbee inventor dies at 90

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:Starship Down #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 7) During a battle with the Jem'Ha…Rewatching ST:DS9 An enjoyable “crisi…EmpathyIs Google Making Us Stupid?Nicholas Carr, in The Atlantic: As the …BooksViolations (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 12)…

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:Swiss cheese metaphor for fighting the pandemic: "Multiple Layers Improve Success"The anti-maskers are right when they say…CultureThis image of Mark…