Video games are a viable storytelling medium, but the trouble is that video games always have the same protagonist, which is the player. And he always has the same set of motivations, which is to kill and don’t die. That’s not conducive to great novels. We have a character with this negative motivation and that…
Video news releases are pre-packaged broadcast segments designed to look like television news stories, that are funded by and scripted for corporate or government clients. (See “Fake TV News: Introduction.”) On April 6, 2006, the Center for Media and Democracy released a comprehensive report detailing TV newsrooms’ use of VNRs. The report, “Fake TV News:…
Plunge should appear in the hed; the piece should be only a couple of sentences long; and it should “include the number feared dead, the identity of any group on board”?a soccer team, church choir, or students?”as well as the distance of the plunge from the capital city.” The words ravine or gorge should appear.…
Having started with a single video of a trip to the zoo in April of last year, YouTube now airs 100 million videos–and its users add 70,000 more–every day. What happened? YouTube’s creators had stumbled onto the intersection of three revolutions. First, the revolution in video production made possible by cheap camcorders and easy-to-use video…
Whack-A-Moliere (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I made this with cleverpig.com’s Whack-A-Pig tutorial. Similar:Microphowned .AmusingTeaching “The Odyssey” at San QuentinThe opening of “The Odyssey” describes O…BooksTeenage Usability (Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox)Teens often work on laptops with track p…CybercultureWhen the Reporter Becomes Part of the Story (Aggressive Reporter Covering Pittsburgh Zoo D…Students who are new to journalism often…AcademiaAir miles be…
FAR! FAR away, the Google lives, in a land which only children can go to. It is a wonderful land of funny flowers, and birds, and hills of pure white heather. […] The sun is setting ? Can’t you hear A something in the distance Howl!!? I wonder if it’s ? Yes!! it is That…
One day when we’re literally halfway through SQ4, Mark and I were called into Ken’s office. We were asked what we thought about using the (dumbass) point-and-click interface that they were using, in I guess it was King’s Quest 5 then, and what we thought about putting it in SQ4. We said we wanted to…
[C]hocolate chip cookies (CCCs) have eight times the energy as the same weight of TNT. How can that be true? Why can’t we blow up a building with CCCs instead of TNT? —Physics for Future Presidents Via Metafilter. My eight-year-old son is a physics junkie. I can’t wait to show him the videotaped lectures and…
For example, let’s imagine that the protagonist’s problem is that he is being bullied at school and he doesn’t know how to deal with this. In order to simulate his problem, he could use a Pac-Man template and modify the original game. He would replace the Pac-Man with a cartoon version of himself and replace…
“I’ve been making up bedtime stories for my children and suddenly I’ve had a brainwave. These stories are good! These stories are brilliant! I would be failing in my moral duty to my adoring public if I did not put them down on paper.” If my theory holds true, it is scary, because it suggests…
7. Become a Public Intellectual. Write a column for The Chronicle or an opinion essay for a major paper saying what you really think about something controversial, even if you have to risk burning some bridges in the process. One well-read column can have more impact than years of obscure scholarship. Or work in some…
“All kinds of disciplines are going to have to converge. People with all kinds of skills are going to have to work together to build a new web which is going to be even better,” he said. He also said employers were now beginning to complain that there were not enough people who fully understood…
Given a sufficient amount of server space and the commitment to maintain it, a resource already exists that may not only sound the death knell of archaeology, but also the opportunity to enable a greater depth and sophistication of anthropology than has ever existed before. So radical an innovation would this new anthropological methodology represent…
Seton Hill University encourages self-expression and open communication as part of the student experience, in balance with the mission of Seton Hill University and the ideals of sensitivity, dignity and respect for self and for others. —Seton Hill University Information Technology’s Special Comments about Internet Usage and Web Postings (Seton Hill University) More and more students…
—Best. Costume. Ever. If your geek quotient isn’t high enough to recognize it, this is a mock-up of the power loader from Aliens. Similar:Joyful white guys finish ahead of struggling woman and black man in this university’s cata…Looks like the quality control process a…AcademiaDetails on the disappearance of the Utah monolith Mr. Bernards, 34, of…
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Approving or Ignoring Comments on Old Student Blog Entries (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) It’s that time of year — students elsewhere in the world are going to Google, and finding old blog entries that my former students posted as homework. Sometimes the visitor will leave a comment that says “Great site! You really helped me save my…
—Stephen Colbert on Blogs (Youtube) My student Gabby Blanchard posted this on her blog. Hilarious. Similar:The Visitor #StarTrek #DS9 Rewatch (Season 4, Episode 3) Old Jake Reflects on the life-cha…Rewatching ST:DS9 On a dark and storm…BooksTake my feedback if you want to pass.I won’t be so assertive in the first wee…AcademiaSet Phasers to Teach!Fans of Star Trek have…
In the new SDK it is necessary to build the client and server DLLs before running the MOD. Please build them if you see this message when trying to run the MOD. —Source SDK Known Issues (Valve Sofware) Chris Sherman from SHU’s helpdesk has spent several hours helping me try to get the Half-Life 2 SDK…
Aside from a brief flirtation with Pong, Jenkins never really paid much attention to games until the mid 80’s, when he first connected his son’s new Nintendo Entertainment System — and was blown away by what he saw. “Ever since I’ve been passionate about games,” he says. “I want a serious game that engages me…