Videogames vs. Television (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) He’s done his homework, taken his bath. The six-year-old boy has an hour or so before bedtime. He’s already read a book to his little sister, and plans to listen to a book about elections as bedtime reading. What to do in the meanwhile? Watch a TV show or play…
Online Syllabus Not “Official” Enough? (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) I just got an e-mail from an administrative assistant who wanted a copy of the syllabus for one of my current courses. I sent her the URL of the “syllabus” page of the course website, as well as links to the “outline” and “projects” pages. She responded that…
“Our mission is to look at how such a robot should be programmed to respect personal spaces of humans.” The research also focuses on human perception of robots, including how they should look, and how a robot can learn new skills by imitating a human demonstrator. “Without such studies, you will build robots which might…
Ah summer camp. It’s a great time for us kids to get away from our parents and enjoy the great outdoors. Actually, it’s really just something your parents are forcing you to do because they hate you and want to enjoy some privacy for a change. Still, you wouldn’t mind getting away from the home…
Ubisoft’s presidential election game, “The Political Machine,” is enjoyable, particularly if you’re caught up in the political hoopla and just can’t get enough of it. The designers have produced an entertaining game that involves making the electoral college system work for you. By default, the game starts you off as John Kerry playing against George…
Last month, Drs. Joshua Freedman and Marco Iacoboni of the University of California at Los Angeles finished scanning the brains of 10 Republicans and 10 Democrats. Each viewed images of President Bush, John Kerry and Ralph Nader. […] Freedman came to political brain scanning through his brother Tom, who served as a consultant to President…
Obi-Wan Kenobi is pretty weak. His articulation is minimal with a limited ball-jointed neck, ball shoulders, angled cut joints at the elbows, cut wrists, waist, and hinged hips. I know Sir Alec wasn’t exactly leaping around like a ninja, but c’mon! Speaking of Alec Guiness, Hasbro still hasn’t nailed a likeness with this figure, although…
Traditional gender binaries such as male/female, science/nature, mind/body, are replayed and reinforced again and again in sci-fi films, in which (male) scientific creativity is continually represented as a dangerous affront to “natural” human (female) values. Supercomputers in film are created by male scientists–I can think of no exceptions–and what makes them valuable (according to their…
Eve[r] wondered how low-tech we can seem in a high-tech society? Three words: wire punching tool. —Karissa Kilgore —Fancy Absenteeism (Sugarpacket) “Definetly NOT a hoax! I was there when the picture was taken!!!” says Karissa. See “Why Usability Testing Matters — Palm Beach County Ballot Design Raises Questions about Election 2000“ Similar:Getting a little bit better…
“Like all games, computer and video games entertain while promoting social development, and playing and talking about games is an important part of young people’s lives,” said project manager Caroline Pelletier. “Games literacy is a way of investigating how games are means of expression and representation, just like writing or drawing,” she said. —Games ‘deserve…
A typical male search query uses just two words, compared with three for women. Women are also more patient about investigating different potential routes. While women are happy to look through six or seven results returned by a search query, men typically only refer to two or three before becoming impatient and refining their search…
The Continental health and welfare systems John Kerry so admires are, in fact, part of the reason those societies are dying. As for Canada, yes, under socialized health care, prescription drugs are cheaper, medical treatment’s cheaper, life is cheaper. After much stonewalling, the Province of Quebec’s Health Department announced this week that in the last…
[P]rogressive American educators at the beginning of the twentieth century instituted a utilitarian system of education that had its roots in the anti- intellectualism of the American frontier. This funnelled large numbers of students into vocational training programmes, depriving them of the benefits of a liberal education. The Language Police offers a kind of sequel…
German archeologists say they have discovered the toilet on which Martin Luther wrote the 95 Theses that launched the Protestant Reformation…. “This is a great find,” Stefan Rhein, director of the Luther Memorial Foundation, said. “Particularly because we’re talking about someone whose texts we have concentrated on for years, while little attention has been paid…
The flourishing community of Web-based blogmeisters – some of them skilled journalists, many of them fervent partisans – is transforming the climate in which ideas are floated and tested…. One recurring theme in Internet comment targets the unwillingness of journalists in mainstream media (known as MSM, generally a pejorative) to admit to having opinions of…
A University of Florida scientist has grown a living ?brain? that can fly a simulated plane, giving scientists a novel way to observe how brain cells function as a network. —UF Scientist: ?Brain? in a Dish Acts as Autopilot, Living Computer Similar:Closing the Door on the Video Store Era (with tweets) · chutry · StorifyNow…
Let me just come at this one from sort of a big picture point of view. (the sound of a million Slashdot readers hitting the “back” button…) —Neal Stephenson —Neal Stephenson Responds With Wit and Humor (Slashdot) Link found via MGK. Similar:Faculty lining up for #SetonHill's "Go Orientation" — new ceremony hands students from th…AcademiaThe Lost…
Evil, Evil, Evil (Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) For the past few days, this blog has been getting comment-spammed one or two times per hour, and my network of student blogs is getting hit with spams that contain URLs with increasingly crude language. I’ve spent over an hour today, and between the two different sites (and two different…
The key to a successful defense is not answering the questions they ask you, but figuring out how to give them the answers you have prepared, no matter what questions they ask. The same, I understand now, is true of television or radio interviews. If they aren’t soliciting the answers you’ve rehearsed, you have to…
At 6pm tonight at the Geological Society of London, scientists will raise their glasses to James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh … who in 1650 used the chronology of the Bible to calculate the precise date and moment of creation. Working from the book of Genesis, and risking some speculation on the Hebrew calendar, he calculated…