All of these tracks were then installed into a device known as, appropriately enough, a laugh machine. | This 28-inch-high apparatus resembles an organ, having 10 horizontal and four vertical keys and a foot pedal. The engineer “orchestrates” the laugh track by using the keyboard to select the type, sex, and age of the laugh,…
Stan Wagon, a mathematician at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn., has a bicycle with square wheels. It’s a weird contraption, but he can ride it perfectly smoothly. His secret is the shape of the road over which the wheels roll. Stan Wagon rides his square-wheeled trike over a special roadway. Courtesy of Stan —Riding…
I am sanitaryware enthusiast (I have no idea why) and have been restoring and supplying antique bathroom fittings for the past fourteen years. I also collect trade catalogues, salesmen‘ssamples and even full size W.C.‘sand washbasins. —Simon Kirby —Flushed With Pride – The Story of Thomas Crapper (JLDR) Oh, those eccentric Brits. Much more colorful, and far…
‘Click Cancel to Proceed’: Pop-Up Dialog Rhetoric A little while ago, I got an e-mail from a Ph.D. student working on a research project. Would I mind filling out an online form that asked questions about leadership and religion? The form says I can leave certain questions blank. So I do. After I’ve filled out…
To cut to the chase: The game industry currently doesn’t believe in “game research”. You’re either working on a shippable product, or you’re bullshitting around. Shippability implies minimizing risk; minimizing risk implies minimizing innovation. There are regions of design space that cannot be reached incrementally. That is, there exist new game genres that can’t be…
Do you know the origin of term BSOD aka ?Blue Screen of Death?? Well, the term ?Blue Screen of Death? was not the original acronym for BSOD. The original term meant the ?Black Screen of Death? and was seen when running under Windows 3.0. A user would attempt to run a DOS application and instead…
The only way to get the industry to take risks on games that explore the missing themes of human experience — heartbreak, betrayal, anticipation, jealousy, despair, eternal hope, grief, and so many others — is to nurture students who are inspired and who are capable of inspiring others with their vision…. If academics can help…
The faithful, in order to be more true to the ‘Jedi Code of Honour’, crouch before each other and duck their ‘heads’ down as a mark of respect before enjoining battle. Some people think that’s silly. I thought it was silly, the first time I saw it. Then I saw everybody was doing it. And…
Before proceeding, the reader should fully understand that, within the University, esteem is defined in a special way. If something in held in high esteem, that thing has been judged likely to improve the University’s rank in the greatly feared annual college survey published by US News & World Report. This rank is, of course,…
One jarring aspect of proposals to reform scholarly publishing is that, all too often, they implicitly consider ‘journals’ as a single homogenous entity, to which one universal publishing model can be applied. On the contrary, diversity is everywhere. In any discipline, journals range from high quality ‘must reads’ with high rejection rates — which in…
In an online world where bloggers’ frenzied mutual promotion seems increasingly the norm, the Wiki emerges as an oasis of dignified restraint. It was invented in 1995 by Ward Cunningham, who now works for Microsoft. But the underlying idea of the Wiki – a Web page that anyone can edit or even delete – could…
I’d like to propose a little exercise, so I beseech you, the readers of this blog, my teachers and friends, to think of a cliche` and provide an alternate solution to it. —Neha —Thinking Outside the Box (Wanderlust) I have the image in my head of a chameleon trying to hide on a TV set that’s…
A new development in composition appears and those interested in that development use CCCC as a place to find each other, to learn just how much interest exists in the new development. Often the SIG tries to map the field, figuring out what’s in and what’s not, trying to locate the work in relation to…
Gonzalo: That‘sbetter. Now, let me tell you something: narratology is a sham. It‘sfor losers who can’t get laid. You know what I‘m saying? Narratologists can go suck it, as far as I‘m concerned. Kiss my sweet ass, Vladimir Propp! You?re not going to put that in the transcript, are you? Walter: Of course not. Well,…
Gelotology-(root word, gelos (gr) meaning “laughter”) is the psychological study of laughter. More and more, scientists are beginning to realize the value of laughter on a physiological level. For instance, laughter reduces levels of certain stress hormones and contributes to overall strengthening of the immune system. As the field of gelotology grows, practicing “laughter clubs”…
Maybe PowerPoint is soo powerful that the mounting of critiques creates some kind of karmic vacuum–PowerPoint skepticism met cosmically by a surge of colorfully-themed shows rushed to the doubter’s inbox. Two shows were sent my way in the past week. One was a self-evaluation for whether or not you (dear reader) would be a fit…
Crutches, Pills, Insomnia, and OversleepingJerz’s Literacy Weblog) I had every intention of getting up this morning to attend several presentations at the writing center conference that took place here at Seton Hill this weekend. My wife called me at the office last night… (she’s in Texas visiting her parents). It turns out my son is…
After looking at my teaching evals from last term and talking with the boss, I can see I need to spend more time discussing my assignment expectations. I’m teaching mostly freshmen, which means they are perhaps more needy than the students in the upper-level tech writing classes I used to teach every term. But I’m a freshman too.…
Many advocates of computer-mediated distance education emphasize its positive aspects and understate the kind of work that it requires for students and faculty. This article presents a qualitative case study of a Web-based distance education course at a major U.S. university. The case data reveal a taboo topic: students’ persistent frustrations in Web-based distance education.…
Prometheus, who stole the secret of fire and shared it with man, is often represented as a thinker; his name means ?forethought,? and is credited both with founding civilization and inciting Zeus to curse mankind with the necessity of labor. In 1929 Eugene O?Neill examined the power of both religion and technology in his expressionistic…