A little context… a popular internet meme involves adding creative subtitles to a movie in which Hitler reacts to some very bad news. Here we see the evil dictator responding to some recent developments in academia. Similar:Communities of Play: The Social Construction of Identity in Persistent Online Game WorldsI played the open-source version of Uru…
On the Internet, news articles get to the point. Newspaper writing, by contrast, is encrusted with conventions that don’t add to your understanding of the news. Newspaper writers are not to blame. These conventions are traditional, even mandatory. Take, for example, the lead story in The New York Times on Sunday, November 8, 2009, headlined…
I have watched none of the TV coverage of the Haiti earth quakes. That’s not to say I haven’t been following the story — I just prefer to get my news online. So I’m blogged this story which discusses what appears to be a trend in TV coverage. The aftermath of the Haitian earthquake is…
Great collection of essays that capture the wonder of now-ubiquitous technology that was once strange. Oliver Wendell Holmes on photography in 1859, Mark Twain on telephones in 1880, Philip G. Hubert Jr. on the phonograph in 1889, up to James Fallows on the personal computer in 1982. These eight excerpts show the attempts of writers,…
The number of crayons in a Crayola box doubles every 28 years. What colors have been in said box over the years? See the full-size version at weathersealed.com Similar:Elementary, Dear Data (TNG Rewatch: Season 2, Episode 3) When a holodeck bet spawns a fict…Rewatching Star Trek: The Next Generatio…AmusingWhat's a Snollygoster? Even lexicographers are wrong sometimesThis…
I’m getting ready to teach a one-credit journalism course on editorial writing, which will also be a test case for a potential “topics in advanced composition” course. This essay looks like a good way to start the class. The good nouns are the thousands of short, simple, infinitely old Anglo-Saxon nouns that express the fundamentals…
Two Seton Hill sources are mentioned in this local story. Millennials appreciate professors who bring technology into the classroom, whether it’s YouTube, PowerPoint or posting grades online after assignments, said Theresa Conley, 27, a junior at Seton Hill University in Greensburg. “That way, you can see where you’re at and what you’re getting, so you’re…
I will miss it, but honestly, I do not see myself likely to start paying for this news source. Were I a media professional living and working in New York, I might have a different opinion. I’ll check out a copy in the library if I hear of something that’s a must-read. The argument for…
One of the great parts about this job is stumbling upon nuggets of discussion not often talked about on other gaming sites. One such cornucopia of information is the various colleges that teach classes on videogames and the blogs posted by students and professors in reference to those classes. I’ve pointed out a few in the…
What are the capabilities of MIT’s Scratch, a kid-friendly programming tool? In about 30 minutes, I create a working ball-and-paddle game. The last two videos show some further tweaking for another 15 minutes. I presented these videos to my students in the context of a unit on games and education. HTML5 HTML5 480p FLV360p FLV360p…
Wisdom to keep in mind as I plan for this semester’s “History and Future of the Book.” FAIL Blog. Similar:Internet Explorer and Murder Rates: More Fun with Causation and Correlation IE.png – mlkshk.AmusingOn the Ethics of Rebranding a Former Trump Administration Official as an Amusing TV Person…It’s also a disservice to readers to rep…CultureMaking…
Violent video games have triggered substantial controversy due to highly publicized incidents of youth violence that have been allegedly inspired by the content of such games. Several jurisdictions have passed legislation penalizing the distribution of violent video games to minors and used psychological research to support the justification for such laws. However, courts have consistently…
I am far less interested in turning my students into good bloggers, or good podcasters, or good YouTubers, and far more interested in helping them develop the big-picture synthesizing and evaluative skills that will enable them to learn whatever comes along next, and to keep learning whatever comes next. Of course, I also ask students…
The price of printer cartridges has long irritated consumers and their advocates, and they say the lack of information from manufacturers only aggravates the situation. One recent study even estimated that consumers could save billions of dollars a year if they were armed with full information about how much it would cost to operate various…
An interesting spin on Tetris. Similar:Versu's Epilogue: How an Interactive Fiction Pioneer's 15 Year Project Ended Up in Limbo a…However there’s a particularly sad tale …BusinessComputers and Writing workshop on Inform 7. (Happening now. In an asynchronous way.)https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLa8nP…AcademiaThe Pointlessness of UnpluggingWhat sex was for the Puritans, technolog…Current_EventsCrazy-looking keyboards that never caught on As the typewriter…
Google just got slightly less evil in my eyes. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at…
Why did Brian Wilson use Cooper Black on the cover of Pet Sounds? Why did Obama use Gotham for his election propaganda? It has long been apparent that typefaces reflect the character of the person using them, and that type choice, as well as the words that are typed, is a powerful conveyor of meaning. At…
Hero. No question about it. Miep Gies, who ensured the diary of Anne Frank did not fall into the hands of Nazis after the teen’s arrest, has died. She was 100. […] “More than 20,000 Dutch people helped to hide Jews and others in need of hiding during those years. I willingly did what I…
More online discussion of the digital humanities. This post helped me as I start prying some piece of my brain away from the 3-week online course on gaming I’m currently teaching, and thinking about the “History and Future of the Book” course I’ll be teaching in 2 short weeks. One of the essays I most…
Very catchy tune. I love the way the meter of the refrain sputters, not unlike the sporadic posts of a blog that won’t die. Similar:An interesting analysis of Trump's rhetorical strategy.In the Washington Post, Greg Sargent ana…CultureGoogle, AI Announcements, and the Future of LearningGlenda Morgan does not sound that impres…AcademiaFacebook’s Censorship Problem Is What Happens…