Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:Lounge area of a steampunk villain’s lair. Still needs a light fixture or two. #blender3dAestheticsTop: flat, monochrome rectangles. Middle: rectangles with a flat bitmapped texture of butt…AestheticsNellie Bly statue to be unveiled at Pittsburgh airport ThursdayIn 1889,…
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:Second Skin (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season 3, Episode 5) Is Kira a Cardassian sleeper age… Rewatching ST:DS9 Quark notices D…MediaReturn…
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:Open Access Journals in the Field of EducationUpdate, June 2015: New URL for the Direc…AcademiaToday's annoying adventures of adulting: fixing the bathroom ceiling fan.Not fun, but done. ModdingConnecting the Dots…Madeline Cash reflects on…
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:Scratch 3.0 beta is available. Try out the text-to-speech blocks!PersonalColossal Cave: The Board Game by Arthur O'DwyerThe kids and I enjoy nerdy board games. …CultureIn praise of the sci-fi corridorCorridors in science-fiction movies. I l…AestheticsDesk blotters, with procedural leather and wood materials by Blendermada. #blender3dAestheticsKittenwar”May the cutest…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:Why We Forget Most of the Books We ReadIt was pleasurable to encounter a famili…BooksListening to the Text: The Medieval Speech BubbleFrom a culture where silent reading was …AestheticsSeton Hill's Griffin Holds an iPad in Front of Admin Steps (Blender 3D Models)I textured the model I created…
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:Dan Rather reflects critically on the so-called "Heroic Age" of TV newsCBS’s Dan Rather infamously dismissed bl…CultureThe AI Mirror Test: Why Even the Smartest People Keep Falling ShortWhat is important to…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:Hong Kong: journalist permanently blinded in one eye amid increased police violence A rubber bullet shot by the Hong Kon…Current_EventsThe Horror… The Horror! How Music in Horror Games Effects Player ExperienceFrom one of my students, a blog-based pr…AcademiaBeauty and the Beast (St. Vincent Summer Theatre)The girl (blue skirt…
“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.…
I usually carry a digital voice recorder with me. In most states it’s legal to record a conversation if all parties consent, although Pennsylvania law requires that all parties to a conversation be notified that a conversation is being recorded. “It is always legal to tape or film a face-to-face interview when your recorder or…
For the one-credit journalism class that I teach every semester, I’m teaching a unit on editorial writing. Students will take a leisurely 10-chapter journey through Style: The Basics of Clarity and Grace. It’s the first time I’ve taught a whole unit focusing on sentence-level phrasing. The class meets once a week, for just one hour,…
I’ve sometimes pointed out to my students that in my generation, graduating from high school and leaving your peers behind to go to college mostly meant that you were saying goodbye. Since then, I have gotten back in touch with a couple dozen high school friends, and even some elementary school friends (including the smartest…
Personal comment, with embedded links to recent postings indicating that I’ve actually had independent thoughts about this issue and I really do have something to contribute other than just reposting something that I found on BoingBoing. A brief quote from something noteworthy or controversial, offering an opinion and inviting readers to comment. Similar:Paleo-Future: robotsThis is…
Studying the faked predictions was more fun than finding out the actual gadget. I’m very interested in seeing how this shakes up the competition, but I’m not going to be one of the early adopters. Plato’s Phaedrus tells the story of Theuth, inventor of the alphabet. The god Thamos said, “O most ingenious Theuth, the…