PLAY-PEN: Games Due for a Lit Course

Modern interactive fiction, much more than its technically limited earlier counterparts, displays an incredible range of literary influences, tributes and styles. For Sherwin’s part, science fiction is an inspiration, but the greater part of his text adventures’ efficacy comes from the unique and anarchic style of his characters’ dialogue. “I have been greatly influenced by…

Deleted Scenes

—Deleted Scenes (StarTrekHistory.com) An awesome collection of painstakingly-restored still shots and script excerpts, from scenes that were filmed but never aired. Similar:Close Reading of Sonnet 130: Form, Theme, and Cultural Context (and a Rage Comic)I’m preparing to teach Shakespeare again…AcademiaThis Is What Summer Vacation Is For: Designing a Steampunk Airsloop with Blender 3DSummer vacation means if I…

A Fair(y) Use Tale

—A Fair(y) Use Tale (YouTube) Amazing demonstration of creative repurposing of Disney’s copyrighted material. Similar:I'm having scads of fun designing #steampunk control panels. #blender3d #blender3dart…AestheticsLos Angeles sheriff appears to back down after signaling he was investigating reporterVillanueva has repeatedly singled out LA…Current_EventsIf I don't design the control panels for my fantasy #steampunk project, who will? #blender…AestheticsIn…

Mastering podcasts with Audacity

Open source software makes podcasting easy — too easy. Listening to a playlist of first-timer podcasts can leave your ears ringing from sudden changes in playback volume. The problem is audio mastering. Recording sound is simple, but mastering that sound — compressing volume differences, maintaining a decibel ceiling, and similar operations — is anything but.…

Why We're Doing This

We know that pro-am journalism can work only if people are persuaded to give their time, lend their knowledge, pool their intelligence. Those are donations, but not of money. Often they are more critical than money. To succeed in this, we have to persuade several hundred people to donate good work to one big story…

Objections to Turnitin

We should be jumping for joy every time a student plagiarizes, because that means our existence as teachers of composition is validated, as we have something to teach them – citation, research, the need for critical thinking. We should get down on our knees and thank the Internet for making it easier to plagiarize, because…

Who Isn't Afraid of Google?

In this strange, strange tale the Davids are the size of companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, rumoured to be discussing an alliance to take on the search leader. The list of detractors is longer than other search providers, though; privacy experts, advertisers, startups, and Hollywood executives are all frustrated with the company for one reason…

Mixed Reception

This activity is set in a research group that is developing an antivenom for spider bites. In the opening scene, Nelson Pogline, a talented graduate student, dies unexpectedly at a university reception. As a detective, you must use chemistry concepts to determine if this was murder and if so, solve the case. You can interview…

On Media in Our Lives: Embarrassment forever

It’s now common for companies to Google potential employees to uncover peccadilloes from the past. It took me all of 30 seconds, via Google, to discover one applicant’s very public infatuation with indecorous sexual escapades and another’s unhealthy fondness for abusing industrial strength pharmaceuticals. Needless to say, neither was hired. —Jim Louderback —On Media in…

A Nice Little Story to Cap off EL312

He said, “Mr. Moio, I have something that I would like you to have.” Without hesitating, he handed me an old, leather-bound book with an embossed title reading, “English Poems.” I thanked the student and opened the front cover to discover that the book was published in 1902. Explaining to my student that the book…

20 Sided Fuzzy Dice Danglers

—20 Sided Fuzzy Dice Danglers (Think Geek) Now those are my kind of fuzzy dice. Similar:xkcd: Types of Editorsxkcd: Types of Editors.Amusing5 Characteristics of Successful Work Groups (at Google)Google’s internal study of work groups f…BusinessCarolyn Jerz featured on Tap Titans TodayI love watching my daughter perform. Her…AestheticsI’m fairly satisfied with this version of a medieval building…

Atari Candleholder

—Atari Candleholder (Wonderland | Mixko) Wonderland credits a designer called Mixko, but I couldn’t find it on that site. (And even I did find it there, I couldn’t link to it, because the site uses Flash in a horribly user-hostile way.) Similar:Opinion: Don’t Be Fooled by America’s Flattening CurveAnother example of effective new media d…Current_EventsMultitasking while…

Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting: A New Method to Enhance Online Reading

The VSTF process converts display of text such as this first sentence from the U.S. Declaration of Independence into this: —Visual-Syntactic Text Formatting: A New Method to Enhance Online Reading (Reading Online) Fascinating. The indented version really does seem a lot easier to read, perhaps chiefly because the first word in each line is often a…