You could cure a toothache or make snowshoes using the original Britannica, of 1768-71. (You could also imbibe a lot of prejudice and superstition. The entry on Woman was just six words: “The female of man. See HOMO.”) If you look up “coffee preparation” on Wikipedia, you will find your way, via the entry on…
Dodge Intrepid is hammy and satirical, following the adventures of a Beaver County librarian and his Sancho-like intern. The mode is decidedly retro, and the company has eschewed any kind of seriousness. If there’s a blue note, Rubino says it’s this: “My ulterior motive is to promote the library system, really.” —Radio Serials Revived Via…
Computers & Composition: An International Journal invites contributions for a special issue, Reading Games: Composition, Literacy, and Video Gaming While video gaming has been a strong cultural force since the advent of the popular coin-operated arcades of the 1970s, it is only within the last few years that video/computer gaming has been an academic focus:…
The following list is made up of a few things I’ve noticed in a lot of the interactive fiction games I’ve tested or tried out. I’ve tried these games for reasons I can’t entirely fathom; admittedly, it’s easier and leaves fewer disfiguring scars than self-flagellation. It is not necessarily any less painful though. —Michael J.…
You rarely see, for example, a faculty member from an Ivy League university alongside one from a community college on a Modern Language Association panel, regardless of any research interests they might share. That shows the dangerous classism that pervades academe, something I admittedly did not see for myself until I began teaching at a…
Until recently entertainment reporting was in the hands of respectful, publicist-friendly titles such as Vanity Fair and The Los Angeles Times. Indeed, the latter recently opened one of its celebrity articles with this gem of a sentence: “One doesn’t so much interview Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne as sit back and watch as their friendship,…
The blog hurt the administration in two key ways: First, administrators were unable to focus on correcting the problems that led to the creation of the blog, and second, the administration’s clumsy and futile efforts to combat the blog simply compounded the anger and contempt on campus. —Daniel W. Barwick —The Blog That Ate a…
—Wintergreen ”When I Wake Up” (KeithSchofield.com) Is this for real? I’m not so sure the song goes with the images, but it’s still awesome. Similar:It's “Alexander’s Ragtime Band” 111th birthdayInteresting introduction to the history …BooksThe Library Adjacent to My Ethership Control Room Needed BooksFor me, summer vacation means spending h…AestheticsMisplaced Auto-playing ABC Video Clip (with No…
“It would have been a major oversight to ignore this portentous anniversary,” said Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales, whose site now boasts over 4,300,000 articles in multiple languages, over one-quarter of which are in English, including 11,000 concerning popular toys of the 1980s alone. —Wikipedia Celebrates 750 Years Of American Independence: Founding Fathers, Patriots, Mr. T.…
Infocom, king of the text adventure and the first behemoth of American computer game development, began not with a bang, but with an internet meme. —Lara Crigger —The Short, Happy Life of Infocom (The Escapist) There are some details about Infocom culture that are nicely placed. I like what Jeremy Douglass wrote about the genre of…
Capitalizing on youthful passion for video games, school leaders hope to keep more kids in school by offering the chance to conceive, design, build — and sell — their own video game. “That’s what they love,” said David White, the school’s chief academic officer. “That’s the hook.” —Scott Elliott —Reading, writing and video games (Dayton Daily…
—Blender Basics, 2nd Ed (pdf) (Central Dauphin High School) Where was this book during the last 3 weeks when I was struggling with random half-finished tutorials? Thank you, James Chronister! Similar:My meme about the distracted boyfriend memeAmusingNews report from 1981 about the Internet.A human interest story about an early ex…BusinessFDR in AnnieI’ve accepted the role of…
In hiring, I look for individuals who demonstrate insatiable intellectual curiosity, critical thinking and analytical skills as well as firm control of the English language. Today, it is important for journalists also to have a sound grounding in science and business/finance. Sadly, I find that it is common to find journalism grads that lack all…
RideMax is a computer software program guaranteed to help you save time waiting in line at Walt Disney World and Disneyland. RideMax allows you to specify the attractions you wish to ride during your visit, then uses a sophisticated scheduling algorithm to order your attractions so that the amount of time you spend in line…
The report, written by Senior Research Specialist Amanda Lenhart and Associate Director Susannah Fox, says that bloggers are avid consumers and creators of online content. They are also heavy users of the internet in general. Forty-four percent of bloggers have taken material they find online — like songs, text, or images — and remixed it…
There are serious logical problems posed by any attempt to prove conclusively that a person does not (or did not) exist. No matter how many searches fail to prove the existence of someone, that failure does not negate the person’s possible existence. However, when a specific person’s specific occupation or background are made relevant as…
Summer Blogging Slowdown (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I’m going on a little family vacation, and won’t be back until Tuesday. We’re visiting my brother-in-law in New Jersey, and plan to visit Philadelphia, too. I hope this trip goes better than last year’s. Similar:You come very close to successfully combining argument and explication here… I recently came across…
—Knights of the Round Table — Star Trek TOS (YouTube) Amusing. Not side-splittingly funny, like that Bush/Blair mashup that was circulating last year. But still amusing. Thanks for the suggestion, Rosemary. Similar:Why Is Othello Black?To us today, the word “black” carries wi…CultureEducation: Teaching teachers how to teach readingI’m definitely seeing students in my fre…BooksPlaywright #AugustWilson Takes…
—Blender for the Faint Hearted — 06: Material Basics, Part 2 (SciFi Meshes) I’ve been working with the open source 3D design tool “Blender.” It’s powerful. Very powerful. It’s got an overwhelming number of buttons, and the existing documentation is incomplete. I have asked Seton Hill to purchase a handful of copies of a professional 3D…
Angry mother to preteen girl: “Don’t ever tell me to shut up again. That’s totally disrespectful. Now go and fill your damn water.” Similar:Kimmel's Jab at Pence's "empty box" joke illustrates a bi-partisan #fakenews problemIf, like pollster Matthew McDermott, you…Current_EventsWhy Computers Will Never Write Good Novels If it were possible to build a digit…BooksVery Berry…