Austenbook (Pride and Prejudice, as it would appear if all the characters interacted on Facebook.) Similar:Moon for the MisbehottenEven though I wrote about some of Eugene…CultureFor some reason, I saw a bump in traffic to a page that linked to a "make-your-own-Trump-e… This sort of thing was funnier back …AestheticsGoogle Docs "Writing to Learn" ActivityI…
Are you a politician? a candidate for real political office? an MP in the UK? A Senator or member of the House of Representatives in the US? or the equivalent anywhere in the world? If so, I…a humble games programmer from the UK would like to give you a free gift. a FREE copy of…
A wonderful post by Whitney Anne Trettien, who examines the reception of a feminist spoof of Pepys famous diary, in order to explore the strange human desire to trust those who reveal shameful private failures. (That is, unless her whole blog is just another learned example of a literary spoof, and I’m being too trusting…
Now maybe the Huffington Post could be worth more if it further cut its burn rate. For instance, rather than not pay its bloggers, it could charge them — for the privilege of getting to help maintain the jetsetting lifestyle of the Great Arianna, of course. As for some of the people the site does pay, like its tech…
I was digging through my archives and came across this e-mail from caver and author Roger Brucker, responding to my request for anything he might remember about the well house — described so vaguely in Will Crowther’s 1976 game “Colossal Cave Adventure,” but such a real-seeming place. The wellhouse was one of a series of…
A nicely done feature on the closure of the last player-piano roll manufacturer. One machine dates back to the 1880s when it was used to make shoes, and for the past 100 years has made the tabs with brass eyelets used to hook the roll into a piano. There are also aging machines to perforate…
Another article that’s on my mind as I consider how to integrate group work into an unusually large literature class. In an undergraduate genetics course, students were, on 16 occasions during the course of a semester, asked a pair of “isomorphic” questions, which have different facts but require students to apply the same principles or…
Journalism is changing. Watchdog journalism — the perusal of thousands of pages of official records in search of anomalies and other signs of abuse and corruption — is much harder to do than reporting on celebrity shenanigans or fashion trends. John Mecklin writes: On a disaggregated Web, it seems, people and advertisers simply will not…
Nick Montfort just e-mailed a link to his brilliant textual interpretation of Star Wars. Great use of characters in a purely linear narrative environment. Similar:Lighting really makes a difference! A glimpse into the captain's ready room, off the offic… AestheticsLower Decks (#StarTrek #TNG Rewatch, Season 7, Episode 15) Junior officers star in a comin… Rewatching…
Gaah! Is there anyone out there who’s experienced with Wikipedia templates, who can help me resolve this mess? I uploaded a screenshot of Will Crowther’s original Colossal Cave Adventure (freeware, c. 1976), but the Wikipedia copyright-protection policies are written for current programs (where the visuals are much more important). Licensing This is a screenshot of…
A former student writes: I need to find a simple book that sort of explains the trends of Web 2.0. Nothing too techy, but something that would talk about what makes it special, what people are doing with 2.0, and the best ways to utilize its philosophies. Basically, my company is moving towards plenty of…
Admissions officers are looking for the “silver bullet” to uncover the secret to social networking. But, as this latest controversy illustrates, there is no magic solution in a space whose content is controlled by users, and policed by a community. To be part of the conversation of any social network to the point you can…
Let’s face it–each new stage in life brings dramatic changes that are difficult to anticipate. No matter how smart you can be in college, you will still get surprised by the working world. I faced these surprises myself. I thought the working world would be hard since it lacked the freedom I had at Stanford. I was wrong.…
I like to think of the cosmos as a theater, yet a theater cannot exist without an audience, to witness and to celebrate. Robot craft and mighty telescopes will continue to show us unimaginable wonders. But when humans return to the moon and put a base there and prepare to go to Mars and become…
The McCarthy purges were a disgraceful blot on the national record of any nation aspiring to free speech, and are still, evidently, a matter of passionate concern. When Elia Kazan, who sang like a bird, was awarded a lifetime Oscar 40 years later, many in Hollywood made it plain that his betrayal was a matter…
Should local papers get a slice of the bail-out pie? Nicastro and fellow legislators want the papers to survive, and petitioned the state government to do something about it. “The media is a vitally important part of America,” he said, particularly local papers that cover news ignored by big papers and television and radio stations.…
What’s happening to video is like what happened to word processing. Back in the ’70s and early ’80s, publishing was a rarefied, expert job. Then Apple’s WYSIWYG interface made it drop-dead easy, enabling an explosion of weird new forms of micropublishing and zines. Laptop audio editing did the same thing, giving birth to the mashup…
This NYT overview of the NASA craft designed to replace the space shuttle is a great example of 3D animation in a news context. Similar:Male Supporting Characters in Recent Disney Princess Films Dominate the DialogueThe silly click-baity headline in the Wa…BusinessMythbusting UX design: 7 misconceptions about user experiencePerhaps the most common mistake of any b…BusinessTroy…
Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary responds to the urban legend that his song “Puff, the Magic Dragon” is an extended metaphor for drug use. He then mockingly applies the critical lens of drug metaphors to The Star-Spangled Banner, before the group launches into “Puff.” During the song, we see a montage of people…
I haven’t been to the Modern Languate Association’s annual conference in the last several years, in part because the time slot (between Christmas and New Year’s) is horrible if you want to spend time with your family (imagine that!). Some of it is just sour grapes — I pitched a few proposals to the MLA…