I recently gave a brief presentation on games to our school’s education faculty. One faculty member (I believe he used to be a school principal) got fairly excited, asking me whether he could use Crazy Machines to set up a scientific experiment to show his students. I suggested that he was thinking of the game…
You are pleased to find scientific evidence of a phenomenon that you had been familiar with all along through your love of interactive fiction. You check BoingBoing, where you find exactly the same lame second-person intro gimmick. When the volunteers read statements that began, “You are…” they pictured the scene through their own eyes. However,…
Great little feature on a nostalgic pleasure. The Ferris wheel takes you nowhere but up and around. And it is precisely the lack of direction that makes you feel as if you are going everywhere. It doesn’t feed us, doesn’t clothe us, doesn’t give us a home. But man, we’re told, does not live on…
This is fairly recent news, and at the moment I only see press releases and mission statements, and bloggers. So I’m still not sure what to make of this, but it’s definitely something to watch: an elementary school with a curriculum built from the ground up on the procedural principles of gaming. Out of school…
I’ve had a recurring dream since I was a teenager, somehow riding along behind my old car — it’s always the car I’ve most recently traded in or otherwise lost — with a remote control in my hand. I’m controlling my car, which keeps rushing ahead of me, eventually disappearing around the corner where I…
What does my ten-year-old son think he has learned from playing Civilization 3? Similar:Carolyn featured on Steel City News for The Nutcracker The credit at 0:30 should read “Caro…AestheticsAmazing show. Young lovers, a witty (but often stupid) servant, speeches, rants, exaggerat… PersonalAvoiding Spoilers Gives You a Superficial Appreciation of ArtI very much appreciate that nobody spoil…ArtWFAA…
Disturbing, yet cool. Biotele.com A beam of white light is made up of all the colours in the spectrum. The range extends from red through to violet, with orange, yellow, green and blue in between. But there is one colour that is notable by its absence. Pink (or magenta, to use its official name)…
Update: The AP posted the correction within 18 minutes. Not bad. However… Similar:Jack Rollins-Frosty the Snowman I voiced Jack Rollins, writer …HistoryAbout that Cough, Rough, Pony, Bologna MemeDo the spellings of cough & rough, p…BooksPreview of "The Fantasticks" (thanks, Tribune-Review, for covering the arts community)For Luisa, Jerz’s character, “the world …CultureLet's talk about books, old…
Just as I spent the afternoon of 9/11/2001 making a web page, because it helped occupy my mind, I’m spending a few minutes while my daughter is otherwise occupied, observing the phrasing of the WTAE-TV news article: A Seton Hill University student is dead following a police investigation off campus in Greensburg early Sunday morning. …
Interactive Fiction Writing Month (Feb 15 – March 15) This is the blag for Interactive Fiction Month 2009, an attempt to lure beginners into learning Inform through a series of easy tasks with concrete deadlines, and to promote discourse on game design in general. Similar:The Game (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 5, Episode 6) Cadet Crusher…
I bugged out of work a few hours early today so I could meet up with the family for a matinee showing of Coraline. The local theater had a rather defensive home-grown sign explaining that the extra $2.50 they were charging per ticket pays for the cost of renting the 3D projection equipment from Disney.…
I didn’t buy a personal Kindle — the price was too steep. But I did ask our library to buy one, and I have been experimenting with reading PDFs on my new tablet PC. So I was interested when I first heard the hype surrounding what may be Amazon’s announcement of the next version of…
If you have a Facebook account, you’re probably familiar with the “25 Things About Me” meme. Mike McPhaden unearthed “Wm. Shakespeare’s Five and Twenty Random Things Abovt Me,” of which the best (IMHO) is the following: 14 On the topic of dating, my daughter Susanna loues to remind me: ~Jvliet was only thirteen! And I…
Keats can keep his urn with its leaf-fring’d legend. I’ve got a much better slice-of-life to share. When I called my parents tonight, my father reminded me of an exchange he had with my daughter when she was about four. My Daughter (to her grandfather): This is my teddy bear. My Father (to his granddaughter):…
News about a free-speech dust-up in the department where I used to work at the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire: This fall, the English department, the publication’s then “administrative home,” voted unanimously to sever its ties to Flip Side, citing, in a statement, interest in “fostering the responsible use of free speech and the mutually respectful community…
My brother-in-law, who lives in New Jersey, is a Steelers fan. He asked for a keepsake issue of the local paper, so I sent out an e-mail to my colleagues to beg for their used copies. The truth is, I wouldn’t even take a free subscription to the print edition, since it would mean more junk piling…
What appears to be a smiley winks out from an 1862 transcript of a speech by ==|;o)> NY Times City Room Similar:The LA Times deletes tweets that used passive voice, as details emerged about police killi… Several journalist-involved tweet dele…Current_EventsOne of the benefits of teaching at a small college, with small classes…In a final reflection…
A nifty little primer, compiled by Nate Piekos. CROSSBAR I This is probably the biggest mistake seen amongst amateur letterers. An “I” with the crossbars on top and bottom is virtually only used for the personal pronoun, “I.” The only other allowable use of the “crossbar I” is in abbreviations. Any other instance of the letter should just…
Great piece from Ben Kuchera at Ars Technica. Today I decided to conduct an experiment. I started calling people I knew, and I asked if they had one or more video games in the house. Then I asked if they breast-fed their children. To my great shock, most answered “yes” to both. One couple I contacted switched to formula after…
Cantina The current management of this rather seedy venue doesn’t much care about appearances, apparently. Nonetheless, it’s become one of the hottest spots in the area, attracting surly alcoholics from all around. A variety of local acts, the vast majority unrelentingly terrible, play here every Tuesday night. Coincidentally, it’s Tuesday night. A host of unsavory-looking…