[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:Travel trouble, gun restrictions and no more ‘Mr Trump’: the trials of life as a felon It’s unlikely to be at the forefront o…CultureChecking sources back in 2006 involved using this *steampunk* contraption.Research Before Google Books AcademiaFox…
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:Having a rough day. But in a span of about 24 hours, three former students reached out to …One former…
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:How it feels to watch a user test your product for the first time Jonathon Shariat.AmusingJust a handful more of these elegant #steampunk control panels and I can move on to the ne…AestheticsHe…
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:Commentary: The unbearable smugness of the pressMore on how their desire to control the …CultureHiggs Boson VideoGreat video about subatomic particles, f…AcademiaI apologize for this one. R2-D2 stars in Andrew Lloyd Weber's musical CATS.PersonalShrek: The Musical (Nov 22-24; Stage Right! Greensburg)Come see me as the Captain of…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:20 Things 20-Year-Olds Don't GetI expect my English majors not to balk w…AcademiaSnap's share price sinks, trades just above IPO priceNASDAQ.com throws shade via Reuters: Sn…BusinessThis is about half of the #steampunk control panel details I've created in the past m…AestheticsPagers, Pay Phones, and Dialup: How We…
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:After you finish your brass-polishing shift, join me at the Gear and Heart to swap stories…AestheticsLiberal Arts Majors Are the Future of the Tech IndustryMy sister the computer programmer benefi…AcademiaMaking Interactive…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:Tuxedo Pooh Reads Oscar Wilde I spent an hour on this. Below is the …AestheticsMaking the Switch to GMail Our wonderful IT folks have set up a…CybercultureNo girl wins: three ways women unlearn their love of video games – OffworldSeveral times I assigned Brenda Laurel’s…BusinessBurgh to Burg, episode…
“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:Vincent Connare, Inventor…