[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:Tonight's Supermoon.AestheticsThe world's population is lopsided.AwesomeIf you think I'm wrong that the media fairly covered the Cannon Hinnant murder, but you're…Plenty of news organizations have report…Current_EventsThe girl around the house casually dressed "as a Jacobite."AmusingDrumhead (#StarTrek #TNG…
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:What if thinking is underrated?What if the most underrated skill in sch…AcademiaCredible case that a lost Shakespeare sonnet has been…
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:Google engineers mined the text adventure game "Zork" for AI image promptsYouTube commenter Bob Hepple writes, “Tw…AestheticsA Book Itself Is a Little Machine: Emily Short's Interactive FictionWords do some things much better than…
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:Feeding a Neighbor's LambsA neighbor invited us over to help feed …AmusingLegos and M&M’s Bulge IllusionThese are straight vertical and horizont…AestheticsWho is the more dramatic — my extroverted tween or my philosophical teen?Stoked from a morning show-choir perform…AmusingPolice, citizens and technology factor into Boston bombing probeIn addition…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:Many things in the world are awful right now but my latest section of a #neovictorian them…AestheticsIrrational Geographic : snopes.comBoosting the signal. This is a real Nati…BusinessPerseverance lands on Mars today! Here's what you need to know Today, February 18, 2021 at 20:44 UTC …AwesomePrime Stage's THE…
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:Vanessa Otero's Complex vs. Clickbait, Liberal vs. Conservative Media ChartUpdate, June 2020: See Vanessa Otero Ad …CultureTeaching with iPads: Motivation, Inspiration and Alienation in the AppleverseHere are the slides for the…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:First Day in the Theatre for Twelfth Night (May 3-12) Daughter: (is sad her “first day in …CultureA Quick and Comprehensive Guide to Type A Quick and Comprehensive Guide to T…AestheticsTaking the Lid Off the McDonald’s Coffee CaseHave you heard the story about the lady …BusinessCaroll "Big Bird"…
“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:I did not…