The Powerpoint Anthology of Literature

–Daniel Radosh —The Powerpoint Anthology of Literature Via KairosNews. Similar:YouTube distortion after the same clip is re-uploaded 1000 timesIn theory, technology lets people make a…AestheticsStar Wars' Original, Scum-Caked BrillianceThe B-movie shoddiness of actors and aes…AestheticsChecking sources back in 2006 involved using this *steampunk* contraption.Research Before Google Books AcademiaGinger Christ Superstar!AestheticsI let her tend the rabbits.Great…

Tales That Let You

But can IF ever be great art, the type which people go back over and over to read or play? A similar question would be: can computer games ever be as evocative or lasting as cinema? While these forms have undeniably not produced anything as transcendent as a Bergman film or a Nabokov novel so…

IF Comp 2004 Results

—IF Comp 2004 Results (IFComp.org) Luminous Horizons, by Paul O’Brian, is the winner. Similar:I ditched Google for Bing with ChatGPT for a month — here's what happened | Tom's Guide Occasionally, when I don’t know exactl…CybercultureEaster Blessings 2021 Current_EventsNested (procedurally generated game of expanding drop-down lists)A text game that you play by opening fol…AwesomeVincent Connare, Inventor…

How 'Dungeons' changed the world

From then on, I never had another forlorn afternoon. And to think, from that first fateful day when I decided I would be known as the half-elf wizard Vendel, I was joining a revolution. But what exactly were we transforming? To put it simply, Dungeons and Dragons reinvented the use of the imagination as a…

Interactive Fiction Glossary

This glossary is an ongoing volunter project that aims to define terms that have developed special meaning among those who write, play, and study interactive fiction (which in this case means a specific kind of parser-based computer game, not literary hypertext). The wiki philosophy is that any page in a wiki text is part of…

An interesting question, ''What is the value of a Galleon?''

I know that Ms. J.K.Rowling provided the approximation of the value of a Galleon (“about 5 pounds, but the exchange rate varies”), in an interview, but I think it is off a tad. This is not Ms. Rowling’s fault, but it is the fault of Scholastic Books. The price tag on my copy of Quidditch…

Personal Publication and Public Attention

So, is the academic attention to blogs the same as “selling out,” the way punk-rockers sold out when they received public acclamation rather than evoke the sensation of disgust? The attention given to weblogs in the media, elevating blogs to journalism or at least commentary, is one way of colonizing the field. If blogging can…

Firefox 1.0 Makes Flashy Debut

Firefox 1.0 has excellent bookmark-management features, some of which were present in earlier versions of the browser. Users can, with one click, sort bookmarks according to site name, location, date last visited, etc. The newest bookmark feature is Live Bookmarks, which allows users to browse RSS feeds from their favorite websites directly from the site’s…

Liberal Groupthink Is Anti-Intellectual

After Nixon crushed McGovern in the 1972 election, the film critic Pauline Kael made a remark that has become a touchstone among conservatives. “I don’t know how Richard Nixon could have won,” she marveled. “I don’t know anybody who voted for him.” While the second sentence indicates the sheltered habitat of the Manhattan intellectual, the…

Interactive Fiction Review Sampler

Some students who were willing to give interactive fiction a chance felt frustrated by the postmodern structure of Photopia. Others who reported being extremely frustrated by IF nevertheless put in significant effort trying to solve the game. For the next exercise, students were asked to choose four games, play each for just fifteen minutes, choose…

Blogging As Typing, Not Journalism

After repeating some of Wonkette‘snumbers, Sullivan mused, “A Kerry landslide? Could be. Could be.” He cautioned the numbers could be misleading, even as he was publicizing them. This is the kind of stuff we used to run in my aforementioned school paper, when the speculation surrounded who was going steady. The difference is that the…

When Good Technology Means Bad Teaching

Colleges have spent millions on “smart classrooms” packed with the latest gadgets to assist teaching — computerized projection systems, Internet ports at every seat, even video cameras with motion detectors that can track the movements of a lecturer. But colleges have spent far less time and money giving professors the skills to use even the…

Patience and the Reign of Witches (1798)

A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous…

9 Interviews

Each year, on the day after Christmas, scholars and teachers of Modern Languages convene for their annual North American conference. At that conference, countless job interviews take place — an early step for some toward achieving a coveted academic position. 9interviews.com documents the progress of nine such scholars, each one committed to attaining a place…

Out of site

Many people come here, just as many people seek out the stage, because they know it is a place where they won’t have to grow up too quickly, where the fickleness and irresponsibility of youth are a way of life. Pasts and past relationships are shed like so much old luggage. The unspoken, winking conviction…

Group as User: Flaming and the Design of Social Software

And for roughly thirty years, almost any description of mailing lists of any length has mentioned flaming, the tendency of list members to forgo standards of public decorum when attempting to communicate with some ignorant moron whose to stupid to know how too spell and deserves to DIE, die a PAINFUL DEATH, you PINKO SCUMBAG!!!…

Sci-fi fans called into an alternate reality

Part of the appeal may be that, unlike many of its antecedents, I Love Bees could not be played just by sitting in front of a screen. Over the Internet, players were able to work together on puzzles, usually hidden in corrupted image files on ilovebees.com. Those answers were just starting points, however. Players then…

Reflections on an Emerging Academic Weblog Community

Reflections on an Emerging Academic Weblog Community (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) The Seton Hill blogging community has a small number of dedicated bloggers who generate the vast majority of the activity (at one point I estimated that 5% of our bloggers generate 50% of the activity, though that number changes based on how close we are to…

An Introduction to the Imagined Community of Instant Publishing

At the core of the blogosphere lies a minority of active and engaged bloggers who post, comment, and link frequently, creating a kernel of conversational community based on personal networks facilitated by blogging tools and associated technologies. However, for the vast majority of users who blog casually, infrequently, and for the benefit of their real-world…

Blogs Blamed for Exit Poll Fiasco

News organizations promised Wednesday to look into why their Election Day exit polls showed an initial surge for John Kerry, but also blamed bloggers for spreading news that gave a misleading view of the presidential race. —Blogs Blamed for Exit Poll Fiasco (Wired | AP) The headline is a bit incendiary, but the article makes…