Lunar Lander — the game — at 40. Among the millions who watched the Apollo 11 landing was a 17 year old Massachusetts high school student named Jim Storer. In the fall of 1969, around the time of the Apollo 12 launch, Storer took his inspiration to class with him. There, he programmed a simple…
Tom Wolfe (author of space program biography The Right Stuff (which incidentally was the movie I took my first-ever date to see back in 1983) ) describes how the Cold War derailed the grand adventure of space exploration. Shockingly, the decay started while the Apollo program was still underway. [I]n October 1969, I began to…
This tutorial shows how to rig the fingers in a very clever way. I’d seen this technique described in a text tutorial somewhere, but after seeing it here, I understand it. I also appreciated seeing how to adjust b-bones so that they only rotate, without bending (which results in noodly-looking joints). I really love Blender,…
The first man on the moon doesn’t feel his life is defined by being the first man on the moon? As if the world would remember much more than Armstrong’s “one piece of fireworks”? Would his name belong beside Magellan’s or Marco Polo’s if not for Armstrong’s singular achievement? —Paul Farhi, Washington Post Similar:Vanessa Otero's…
This morning, hundreds of Amazon Kindle owners awoke to discover that books by a certain famous author had mysteriously disappeared from their e-book readers. These were books that they had bought and paid for–thought they owned.–David Pogue, NYT The citizens whose Kindles needed rectification had purchased unauthorized George Orwell books. So 1984 disappeared down the…
It might sound like a logical extension from the likes of Buzz and You Don’t Know Jack, but you’ll have to believe that this [Xbox Live] game is ringing the death knell for game shows as loudly and vigorously as it possibly can. Why watch a game show, when you can participate? Why shout at the TV,…
Walter Cronkite, the CBS News anchor who famously became the most trusted man in America, died Friday at the age of 92.–NPR Similar:Can you melt eggs? Quora’s AI says “yes,” and Google is sharing the resultGoogle Search is already well-known…CybercultureWhy do so many small US newsrooms shun innovation? "The goat must be fed."We started this report…
The HD version actually came out better than I thought it would. More photos after the jump… Similar:I was briefly excited that Turnitin.com's new app works in a park with no WiFiThen I realized… I’m a guy who gets ex…AcademiaDeus Ex MemoriesI’ve just finished my final training run…CybercultureWhen students don't show up during office hours:…
The LA Times technology blog critiques the new Google Reader interface. For example, let’s say we have a news article that we like. Well, might as well click the “like” button, right? OK, now we’ve told the Internet that we think it’s cool, and we can see a list of strangers who also think it’s…
Talk about penny wise and pound foolish! NASA admitted in 2006 that no one could find the original video recordings of the July 20, 1969, landing. Since then, Richard Nafzger, an engineer at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, who oversaw television processing at the ground-tracking sites during the Apollo 11 mission, has been…
Amazing! Similar:In August, 2000 I was blogging about poetry, presidential wordplay, home-schooling, online…In August 2000, I was blogging about …CybercultureViral App FaceApp Now Owns Access To More Than 150 Million People's Faces And NamesViral app FaceApp has been giving people…BusinessIn praise of the sci-fi corridorCorridors in science-fiction movies. I l…AestheticsThe first ever photograph of light…
A great interview, on Adventure Classic Gaming. Was something like Adventure inevitable? That’s a tough question, but I think probably so. I’d say that the real wild-card here is not Adventure but rather Adventure‘s inspiration, Dungeons and Dragons. You just can’t exaggerate the importance of D&D to all of the many storygames that have followed it.…
A bit predictable, but still enjoyable. Similar:"Only You" — 11yo Carolyn Sings a Power Ballad from "Starlight Express"The observation car Pearl sings of her l…Aesthetics#Blender3D practice: #Steampunk control panel #trimsheethttps://youtu.be/4j7qAzaDg3w …AestheticsGenesis (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 19) The crew de-evolve into hominids, a… Rewatching ST:TNG After Worf lose…DesignPast Prologue (#StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch, Season…
Wired has a good piece about the value of local reporting. “In every town in America, almost, you have reporters going out and doing humble jobs and turning over rocks every day and seeing what’s under them,” says John Carroll, the former editor-in-chief of The Los Angeles Times, a man who led his newsroom to…
And you thought the secrets to academic success would involve sensible stuff like “Study for two to three hours for every hour of class” or “Keep up with the readings” and “Meet all the deadlines your prof sets.” But those won’t help you game the system, which is the strategy Don Asher presents as the…
Clearly by “Them” the sign means “dogs,” but the since the sign refers instead to “Your Dog,” so it was already in need of some attention even before this alteration took place. Via Bryan Alexander. Similar:Before I Go: A Stanford neurosurgeon’s parting wisdom about life and timeA very moving reflection by a dying man,…CultureNew handout:…
The following started out as routine e-mail feedback on a freshman essay, but I thought it came out well enough that I might want to use it again. I don’t want this to get buried in my existing handout on thesis statements, so I figured I’d just post the good bits here. A good academic…
I missed this when it came out a few weeks ago. At Hopkins, Knudson uses Twitter as an extension of the classroom, asking students to raise questions, hold discussions online, keep up with breaking news and share links to interesting stories. She believes the limited number of characters allowed is a useful way to remember…
A website will re-create the 1969 moon mission in real time (allowing for the 40-year time lag). http://wechoosethemoon.org/ Similar:Why Drag It Out?The ways that the informal speech of wom…CultureThe Hut Where the Internet Began – Atlantic MobileLet’s start at the end point: what you’r…CybercultureI just dusted off a #textadventure project I started in Inform6 around…
First, there is a general increase in use of Facebook and a general decline in use of MySpace across the board. In 2007, 79% of the study participants were using Facebook while in 2009, 87% of the sample reports doing so. In contrast, while in 2007, 55% of the group reported using MySpace, in 2009,…