New Media Journalism Professor Uncovers Source Code — And Source Cave — of Forerunner to Modern Computer Adventure Games

Here’s an excerpt from an article that appeared in the Winter 2008 issue of the Seton Hill University alumni magazine, Forward. Page 1 | Page 2 Similar:MoonBot (from the family steampunk bedtime RPG 2007-2013) vs. a crate and lamps.https://youtu.be/h2P2Ve-oZ1U AestheticsURL Hacking (new graphic for an older page that’s surprisingly popular on my site)CybercultureThe internet’s memory…

Authority and the Procrastinating Student

I made this slide up for a conference presentation a few years ago. (Of course, it applies to the procrastinating professor, too.) Similar:Stem subject snobbery: a student’s view on why arts subjects matterWhile everyone complains about the subje…AestheticsMicrosoft Research Launches Code Hunt Game to Teach ProgrammingAnother item for the “when I’m finished …BusinessIn the Salary…

Pre-golden Age: The Coolest Robots of Pre-Golden Age SF

Forget WALL-E and GORT. Forget sexy Summer Glau and Tricia Helfer in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles and Battlestar Galactica. OK, don’t forget them. But check it out: Long before Autobots, Fembots, and the Urkelbot, PGA SF authors obsessed over electricity-, steam-, and clockwork-powered machine-men or “robots” (a term introduced in 1921) that might free…

At M.I.T., Large Lectures Are Going the Way of the Blackboard

At M.I.T., two introductory courses are still required — classical mechanics and electromagnetism — but today they meet in high-tech classrooms, where about 80 students sit at 13 round tables equipped with networked computers. Instead of blackboards, the walls are covered with white boards and huge display screens. Circulating with a team of teaching assistants,…

Guarded Optimism for the Future of Reading

Naturally, as an English professor, I’ve got a vested interest in the future of reading. But you can’t have an intellectually healthy society without literacy. I had a high school physics teacher — Admiral Peebles (a retired nuclear submarine expert) who praised literacy as a core skill. “Give me students who can read and write,”…

End Times

Not if, but when. The collapse of daily print journalism will mean many things. For those of us old enough to still care about going out on a Sunday morning for our doorstop edition of The Times, it will mean the end of a certain kind of civilized ritual that has defined most of our…

I Had A Shoggoth

Thanks for the silly, wonderful suggestion, Josh. Similar:Troy Sterling and the Active and Passive VerbsJerz > Writing > Grammar…AestheticsMicrosoft Publishes Garbled AI Article Calling Tragically Deceased NBA Player "Useless"This is what we have to look forward to,…BusinessAwesome 1935 Soviet Movie Deploys Saxophone-Controlled Robots to Crush Tophat- and Bowler-…I wish I understood Russian, so that I c…AestheticsWhere Silence…

Global Warming: A Tale of Two Writers

While the Church gets a lot of guff for its skeptical responses to Galileo’s astronomical findings, some Jesuit astronomers not only listened to his ideas but repeated his observations, and some university faculty members flatly refused to look through a telescope. Simplistic representations of scientific issues, with heroes and villains, make good stories, but rarely…

Recent Teaching

Spring 2009 LA101: Seminar in Thinking & Writing EL200: Media Lab & Setonian EL267: American Literature 1915-Present EL312: Literary Criticism Fall, 2008 LA100: Basic Composition EL200: Media Lab & Advising of The Setonian EL236: Writing for the Internet EL405: Mew Media Projects Spring, 2008 EL150: Intro to Literary Study EL200: Media Lab & Advising of…