If that’s not good enough for you, try Similar:The Post drops the ‘mike’ — and the hyphen in ‘e-mail’When I announced these style changes, an…CultureStopping By The Woods On A Snowy Evening – By Donald J TrumpI have a pretty good idea whose woods th…AmusingGirlhood 2014They don’t even seem to want to watch Fr…CultureDress Rehearsal…
While reviewing proposals for a new games journalism assignment in my video game culture and theory course, I found myself thinking about Floyd the Robot, from Planetfall. Some students were commenting excitedly about the emotional impact of the airport scene in Modern Warfare 2 (you are infiltrating a terrorist cell, and the game requires you…
What are thou, Pez, that must needs be dispensed? T’ be merely wrapped would leave thee so incensed? T’were better still to leave the fingers sticky, Than be vomited up by the likes of Mickey. — Mark Janello Curtis Allina, 87, Put Heads on Pez Dispensers Similar:Rejoined #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 6) Dax…
What would be more awesome than a colorful display of iconic images from 100 beloved games? How about a colorful display of iconic images from 100 beloved games on cupcakes? Similar:That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent ItProfessional disinformation isn’t spread…CultureKnow your rights: photographers — what to do if you are stopped…
Looks like the rumors of an Apple tablet are creating ripples… the HP tablet apparently has two hinged screens, which seems to put it into the smartbook category. On Wednesday, Mr. Ballmer, Microsoft‘s chief executive, will unveil a novel take on a slate-type computer during his evening keynote at the Consumer Electronics trade show in…
Americans’ print consumption has declined since 1960, but words delivered by computer have more than made up the difference. (Image courtesy of the University of California at San Diego’s Global Information Industry Center) Conventional wisdom holds that YouTube, videogames, cable TV and iPods have turned us away from the written word. Glowing streams of visual…
I’ve just finished my final training run as a nanotech-augmented super-agent. Nasty terrorists holed up in the ruins of the State of Liberty have captured one of my fellow agents, and it’s my job to get him out. In real life, it’s 2002, and I’m just a guy in Wisconsin. My four-year-old son is asleep…
My online three-week course will start tomorrow morning. It will lean heavily on blogging, so chances are I’ll be a bit more productive than usual in that area. Video Game Culture and TheoryThis course isn’t about learning how to “win” a game, nor is it about programming or design. In fact, according to a recent…
Thanks, John, for sending me this link. Smart phones are great. But I’m not going to blog on my Blackberry. Reading texts from my mom is easy, but I’d rather not read a New Yorker story she emails to me on a 1.5”-by-1.5” screen. The ability of smart phones to do pretty much everything doesn’t…
It’s a spoof, but it’s well-researched and contains plenty of insight. Similar:‘Tentacles squelching wetly’: the human subtitle writers under threat from AIArtificial intelligence is making steady…ArtAnnoyed and Bored by Lazy Anachronisms in The Great Gatsby MovieI just watched the recent Great Gatsby m…AestheticsGame night at our local library.GamesCoding Bootcamps and the New For-Profit Higher EdThere…
The Jurupa Oak tree first sprouted into life when much of the world was still covered in glaciers. It has stood on its windswept hillside in southern California for at least 13,000 years, making it the oldest known living organism, according to a study published today. —Independent Reading this story reminded me of a story…
I canna give the furnace any more power! I hope the lithium crystals are still under warranty. Furnace.mp3 Similar:Again with the chess.I try to go to Planet Fitness or chess w…PersonalIt's been a Dwarf Fortress afternoon. AwesomeOut for a walk during some downtime. Paused to appreciate this beautiful city of #Pittsbur…AestheticsMaking more retro props for…
I just played this Every Day the Same Dream. Simple, stark, and in places charming. I smiled and thought a little. Similar:Creative writing majors getting rich as demand skyrocketsSee, it’s funny, because poets need to s…AmusingStephen Greenblatt's The Swerve racked up prizes — and completely misled you about the Mid…Recently on Facebook I made some…
I’m gearing up to teach Video Game Culture and Theory for the third time. It’s a 200-level elective, with no prerequisites. Students will have taken a basic comp course, but some won’t have done any academic research yet. I’m conscious that some students may have difficulty switching from playing the games they want to play,…
The first part of a walkthrough of the classic (1993), a moody, contemplative point-and-click adventure that defies the stereotype of games as violent and chaotic. Popular with women and causual gamers, but also appreciated by expert gamers for its puzzles and graphics (photo-realistic CGI, with pre-rendered animations), it was the top-selling game for nearly a…
Do students who report enjoying a teaching style actually learn more from that style? This study suggests that there may be an optimal teaching method for a given task, and that whether students like it or not, that optimal method does a better job teaching them. (As usual, beware of any new article with “may”…
Is this for real? On Christmas Day, for the first time ever, customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books. —Amazon.com Hold on, though… who goes online to shop for more books on Dec 25, before the spines have been cracked on the new books that were under the tree? Amazon was heavily promoting its…
Fascinating student project from Zach Whalen’s “A Videogame Canon” course. Adventure. Rules, Representation, and Meaning in Colossal Cave Adventure Analysis of Colossal Cave Adventure Social Impact Colossal Cave Adventure as an interactive narrative and similarites [sic] to fictional novels Other projects include coverage of PONG, Half-Life, and Super Mario Kart. Similar:Rebooting “Rossum’s Universal Robots” for…
I’ve re-set and cleansed my psyche a bit over the last week or so, delving into a little visual and spatial creativity, rather than the reading and writing (and marking) that I’ve been doing for the previous few weeks. While his face is still cartoony, the craggy eyes, puffy cheeks, and red nose all required…
The Baltimore Sun is offering a year’s subscription to its weekend papers for one cent, in an effort to boost circulation numbers and attract more advertising revenue. Even if you only want the coupons from the advertising flyers, it sounds like a great deal. “But,” my brother-in-law, Robert Frezza, writes, “I would be killing trees.” …