The ABCs of Adventuring

Thanks for this find, Mark Sample (via Twitter). The ABCs of Adventuringby Admiral Jota, Dylan O’Donnell, G. Kevin Wilson, and Dan Shiovitz.A is for Adventure, the first of them all;B is for Brass lantern, so you don’t take a fall.C is for Compass, an unseen one you keepD is for Drinking, eating and sleep.E is…

What Makes a Great Teacher?

Gripping story of an effort to use data to predict teaching excellence. As Teach for America began to identify exceptional teachers using this data, Farr began to watch them. He observed their classes, read their lesson plans, and talked to them about their teaching methods and beliefs. He and his colleagues surveyed Teach for America…

Why Google Has Become Microsoft's Evil Twin

Google Buzz combined the openness of Twitter with the “whoo-hoo look at me!” aspects of Facebook. The result? A total face plant. —PC World Similar:University disavows chocolate milk, concussions studyThe University of Maryland on Friday dis…AcademiaIn December 1999, I Was Blogging About Joseph Heller, E-Journalism, and Travel WritingIn December 1999, I was blogging about: …BusinessMy…

Critical Code Studies Working Group — Colossal Cave Adventure Annotation

This week, I’ll be facilitating a week-long collaborative annotation project, as part of the Critical Code Studies Working Group online conference, on the source code to Crowther’s original Colossal Cave Adventure (a classic text-only computer game from the 1970s). According to Donald Knuth, designer of the “literate programming paradigm,” Colossal Cave Adventure is the “ur-game…

Happy V-Day: Valentines for Journalists

Valentines for Journalists. Similar:Seton Hill Virtual Commencement Fall 2020  AcademiaDance of "the awkward nerd trying to act really cool" Carolyn (doing a really cool dance m…AestheticsWood pile stacking animation (Blender 3D)For a medieval project, I wanted a wood …AmusingLatest on Napster(See also: Digital Hollywood- No Resolut…Current_EventsAsteroid 2012 DA14 brushes by EarthAn asteroid is making the…

Frisbee inventor dies at 90

Walter Frederick Morrison, the man credited with inventing the Frisbee, has died at the age of 90. —Guardian Similar:Random gauge design, for background details in a fantasy #steampunk project. #blender3d #b… AestheticsFirst time experimenting with depth of field. The pilot's perch in a fancy #steampunk crui…   AestheticsMicrosoft's Bing AI Now Threatening Users Who Provoke…

Peter West, Trying the Dark: Mammoth Cave and the Racial Imagination, 1839-1869

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…

Typography and Textuality

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…

The Superbowl, Technology, and the Police State (1984-2010)

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:Five myths about daylight saving timeNo, Daylight Saving Time was not created…BusinessKindle App Vs. iBooks. (Spoiler: They’re Virtually Identical Now!)I…

Google’s Super Bowl Ad: A Romance in Search

I didn’t watch the game, but I did catch the buzz about this ad. Yes, I did tear up. (Wired has details.) Similar:The iPad Falls Short of Expectations—But What Does That Mean? The iPad market is saturated. Table…BusinessStanford to offer new undergraduate majors integrating humanities, computer scienceTraining humanists who can code like a t…AcademiaDay of…

The great global warming collapse

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…

Obligatory Snowpocalypse Photo

Here’s hoping I left gas in the snow-thrower. Similar:I had a singular time voicing Sherlock Holmes in The Mystery of Dr. Watson (WAOB Audio The… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azja…CultureBetween static hand-coded HTML pages and modern content-management systems, there used to …When I started my blog in 1999 (by addin…CybercultureWashington Post Cartoonist Who Quit Over Bezos Cartoon Wins Pulitzer…