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…
“People thought what they had was an address book for an e-mail program, and Google decided to turn that into a friends list for a new social network,” said Marc Rotenberg, executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, an advocacy group in Washington. “E-mail is one of the few things that people understand to…
This eagerly awaited restored version of Fritz Lang’s silent classic uses what it said to be nearly an hour of footage long thought to be lost.This is one of the the most important film archival discoveries in history, as surprising as if the missing ending of “The Magnificent Ambersons” were found. —Roger Ebert According to…
Valentines for Journalists. Similar:Student journalist experiences the 'trickle down' of hostility toward the pressMy own students haven’t described encoun…AcademiaMerry Christmas 2013Current_EventsThe t-shirt many professors would enjoy wearing Inside Higher EdAcademiaABC News executive placed on administrative leave after reports surface of insensitive, ra…The Huffington Post reports that dozens …CultureA college tells faculty it's illegal to speak…
[O]n this chilly morning, as bus No. 92 rolls down a mountain highway just before dawn, high school students are quiet, typing on laptops. Morning routines have been like this since the fall, when school officials mounted a mobile Internet router to bus No. 92’s sheet-metal frame, enabling students to surf the Web. The students…
Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:Misleading Publisher Email Promises Paid Stipend, Delivers LotteryAn email from a reputable higher educati…AcademiaWhy Fan Theories Are Destroying Film Discourse Fan theories are no substitute for cri…CultureQpid (#ST:TNG Rewatch, Season 4, Episode 20) Q and Vash and…
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…
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…
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:Time Might Only Exist in Your Head. And Everyone Else'sTired brain can’t quite process this Wir…NatureCopspeak, "the past exonerative" tense,…
None of this is a surprise to me, but I’m glad to have statistics to back up my impressions. A very small handful of students whose first introduction to online social networking was the SHU blogosphere, before blogs went really mainstream around 2005, are still blogging here, after they have graduated. In 2003-2005 it was…
I didn’t watch the game, but I did catch the buzz about this ad. Yes, I did tear up. (Wired has details.) Similar:I just finished recalibrating the port scanner station and lookout post. If you need help … AestheticsLet's talk about AI art (long, scrollworthy post from The Oatmeal)https://theoatmeal.com/comics/ai_artAestheticsOpen Access Journals in the Field of…
It is dangerous to use local weather events (such as a heavy or light winter) to make judgments about global climate. With that caveat, I’m blogging the following because I’ve noted a shift in the online discussion about “global warming,” or the more general “climate change”. This essay does a good job exploring the events…
Coming up… we’ll tell you whether you’ll be impaled by sharp, radioactive icicles hurled by mobs of rampaging robots in your neighborhood. But first, people panicking, filling up three shopping carts of toilet paper and canned food. Hear the techno-pop pulse of our theme music, and know that you’re being conditioned to think of us…
Here’s hoping I left gas in the snow-thrower. Similar:Son Doong Cave in Viet Nam Featurers Skylight, JungleAs a fan of Colossal Cave Adventure, I’m…AestheticsKimmel's Jab at Pence's "empty box" joke illustrates a bi-partisan #fakenews problemIf, like pollster Matthew McDermott, you…Current_EventsThe exposition officer needs instant access to a pencil case, logbook and mission-critical…AestheticsReuben Klamer, designer of…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:Aging Gen-Xer Doesn't Find Bad Movies Funny Anymore”I got this cool tape off eBay containin…AmusingWhy Did Dial-Up Modems Make So Much Noise?Screeeech . . . hisss . . . squaawk. The…CybercultureMy simulated city has 1000 capsule inhabitants that are just smart enough to gather around…My simulated city…
Our first few readings in my freshman writing course were personal essays, with a clear narrative. We read an academic paper today, and there’s another assigned for Friday. A few students are already reporting feeling a little lost in the detail. I gather this is because they are used to reading textbooks, where all the…
I wish I’d seen this a few weeks ago, before my Video Game Culture and Theory class ended, but it’s still a welcome find. Similar:Fake Kitsch! Not Really the 80s! There is a part of me that misses …AestheticsAnd yes, that's her picture in the program (from the PPT Shakespeare contest).At PPT’s The Diary of Anne…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:Eye of Sauron, Hobbit Door, Palantir and One Ring Easter Eggs.Aesthetics6 Problems with our School SystemI spend a lot of time re-educating my st…AcademiaInfinite Scrolling: XKCD's Creative Insight on a Common Interface IndignityAmusingSo important to be teaching research skills and critical thinking at a time when powerful …So…
“One of the deepest questions in this field,” Nass says, “is whether media multitasking is driven by a desire for new information or by an avoidance of existing information. Are people in these settings multitasking because the other media are alluring–that is, they’re really dying to play Freecell or read Facebook or shop on eBay–or…
I know, I know: Amazon relied on those $9.99 prices to give it a head start in the digital books market. And raising prices to the $12.99 to $14.99 being talked about could certainly slow sales if consumers don’t bite. But here’s the thing: it’s not as if Macmillan is only raising prices for Kindle.…