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:A Time magazine with Trump on the cover hangs in his golf clubs. It’s fake. #fakenewsDonald Trump has a lot to say about “fak…BusinessReporters accurately repeat what VP spokesperson says; different official cites "misreport…The media reports that on an official tr…Current_EventsNo, the Fed Did Not Just Give Stock Traders $1.5 TrillionI don’t…
[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:Updated Syllabus for Journalism 101By the end of the semester you will be a…AmusingHe Googles for some random memes to connect with weak prose, but what he does next is shoc…BusinessComing up for the girl is another…
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:My J-Term course on August Wilson doesn’t actually start until tomorrow, but the first ass…We’ll cover all 10 plays, but…
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:This 1960s teenager knew the neighborhood that inspired August Wilson’s plays“Aw, man, you know the brother um takin’…AestheticsIn April, 2001 I was blogging about interactive fiction, Roget's Thesaurus, John Lennon, H… A student…
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:Dear daughter, let Miley Cyrus be a lesson to youI am intrigued by the possibility that M…CultureFall 2022 Grades: SUBMITTED AcademiaClosing the Door on the Video Store Era (with tweets) · chutry · StorifyNow that Blockbuster Video has officiall…BusinessRandom eye candy for props in my #Blender3D #retrotech…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:I MacGyvered myself a heat sinkI’m getting ready to record about 18hrs …DesignPicture Books Languish as Parents Push ‘Big-Kid Books’Picture books are so unpopular these day…BooksThe secret police: Cops built a shadowy surveillance machine in Minnesota after George Flo…Many of the same people who reject maski…Current_EventsAnother 10…
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:Okay, a lot of the world is pretty awful right now, but here's an uplifting video about th…https://youtu.be/umW4koJU3e0Amusingthe history of computer games: from 'pong' to 'pac-man'”in the beginning, there was nothing.…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:What Happens When Digital Cities Are Abandoned?“The great paradox about these digital c…CultureMe (glares in iambic pentameter)Me: I need to post the opening lecture f…AcademiaReuben Klamer, designer of Trek's "phaser rifle" and Milton-Bradley's "The Game Of Life" d…Although more modern-looking rifles appe…AestheticsIn September, 2003, I was blogging about…
“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,…