“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:Is There a Santa Claus?Update, Dec 2020: https://www.youtube.c…CultureYes, Virginia, There Is a Journalist!My new hero is NPR’s Michael Oreskes. S…Current_EventsAnalysis | President Trump is losing his war with the mediaMy Media Aesthetics students are studyin…Current_EventsWhen Asking the Question is Part of the News Story (New Example: Clinton Supporters)I ask my journalism students…
[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:A news site used AI to write articles. It was a journalistic disaster. Artificial intelligence has been deplo…BusinessiMovie Glitch: Unplug Removable Media before Using iMovieI spent a few hours today working on a v…CybercultureCommon Sense Media's AI…
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:FBI launches flurry of arrests over attacks on journalists during Capitol riotImagine that. Nearly six months after t…Current_EventsUsing a Typewriter…
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:Added a splash of color to this section of a #neovictorian #steampunk control panel (for m…AestheticsOminous Darkness Descending On Webpage Portends Grim Age Of Autoplaying Ad To ComeFortune’s fool, I wagered I would…
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:If you think I'm wrong that the media fairly covered the Cannon Hinnant murder, but you're…Plenty of news organizations have report…Current_EventsIf I don’t design the sign for the pub on my #steampunk space cruiser, who will? #prioriti… AestheticsDetails on the disappearance of the Utah monolith Mr. Bernards,…
Fascinating software study of the Doom iPhone port.http://fabiensanglard.net/doomIphone/index.php Similar:My mother-in-law invited me to try out the 60- year-old tape machine that belonged to my f…My mother-in-law invited me to try out t…AwesomeThe future is in interactive storytellingAn interesting piece. Easy-to-learn hype…AestheticsThirty Years Ago, the Challenger Crew Plunged Alive and Aware to Their DeathsThe Challenger made…
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:Why won't the University of Maryland talk about the chocolate milk/concussion study it was…I took note of this University of Maryla…AcademiaWhat Does Children’s “Obsession” With Technology Tell Us About What They…
Pee-wee Gets An iPad! from Pee-wee Herman Similar:Between static hand-coded HTML pages and modern content-management systems, there used to …When I started my blog in 1999 (by addin…CybercultureMore Adventures in Suburban AdultingAbout four years ago I bought an electri…CultureRapture #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 5, Episode 10) Sisko's "visions" complicate politic…Rewatching ST:DS9 Kira is moved by…
“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…