The Great Figure I’m about to teach Death of a Salesman in my “Intro to LIterary Studies” class. It’s part of a unit on literary criticism, so after we discuss such topics as “Is Willy Loman a Tragic Hero?” and the formal experimentalism called for in the stage directions, I’m hoping to ask my students…
Using voice-recognition middleware developed by ScanSoft, Lifeline can recognize over 5,000 words and 100,000 phrases. In practice, that means that the game’s main character, Rio, will understand anything that’s relevant to her predicament, as well as many things that aren’t. Lifeline is thus a unique step toward deeper player immersion in the game world, but…
“The Windmills of Your Mind” is too crazy to be anything but a piece of its crazy time, and it is almost airily psychotic: “Is the jingle in your pocket/Or is the jingle in your head?” A question like that made a lot of sense in 1968. —Mind the Windmills (http://boynton.ubersportingpundit.com) Boynton has collected a few…
A new object has been discovered in the Solar System; it’s nearly as large as Pluto, but 13 billion kilometres away. Tentatively named Sedna, the Inuit goddess of the Sea, it’s approximately 1,700 km in diameter, which makes it the largest Solar System object found since Pluto was located in 1930. —Astronomers Find a Second…
On a platform before a crowd of curious onlookers, the scientists eagerly ripped open a box of CDs containing data from a newly released million-second-long exposure taken by two cameras onboard the Hubble telescope, and struggled to transfer the data to nearby computers as they answered a multitude of questions shouted out by reporters and…
Nobody won. Nobody even came close. But that didn’t stop organizers of the DARPA Grand Challenge from declaring an unusual race across the Mojave Desert a spirited success. —Marsha Walton —Robots fail to complete Grand Challenge (CNN) We’re safe, for a little while longer, from the robot rebellion that will inevitably overwhelm us. Similar:Jumpsuit for a…
A story in a campus paper has alarmed administrators of one of journalism’s highest awards, prompted a crackdown by the university and sparked a debate over journalism ethics, privacy and freedom of the student press. —Michael Weissenstein —Student Article Sparks Ethics Debate (Newsday/AP) Hmm… I think the faculty member was probably out of line. I think…
The effects of music on performance on a computer-mediated problem-solving task were examined. Participants completed the task in anonymous dyads as they were exposed to either Classical music, Punk music, or No Music. Results indicate that those in the Classical music condition performed better on the problem solving-task than those in the Punk music or…
I Want My Jerz. Tough on Dirt, Gentle on Jerz. Today’s Jerz, Since 1903. The Appliance of Jerz. When The Going Gets Tough, The Tough Get Jerz. Hope It’s Jerz, It’s Jerz, We Hope It’s Jerz… Make Fun of Jerz. —The Advertising Slogan Generator (The Surrealist) About that last one… Huh? Similar:Quidditch Comes to Seton HillwartsVisitors…
Can you identify the candybar by looking at the cross section? Make a guess and click on the cross section to find the answer. —Name that Candy Bar (Science Museum of Minnesota) I gave up chocolate for Lent, so naturally I’m tormenting myself on this site. Via Page’s Page. Similar:Delightfully geeky news story about a legal…
For decades, elementary schoolbooks have maintained that the Great Wall of China could be seen from space – but now the books are being rewritten. —China ends Great Wall space myth (BBC) Similar:Amazon’s Tactics Confirm Its Critics’ Worst SuspicionsThis week, as part of a contract dispute…BooksCNN employees resign after retracted articleCNN is pretty upfront; three journalists…BusinessMultimodal…
The first student chooses State University. Immediately, word spreads across campus, and high-fives are exchanged all around. “She’s a fine young woman,” exclaims a top university official. “And what stats! A 1520 on the SAT. A 4.0 GPA, including several advanced placement courses. She will boost the status of our chemistry department in a way…
Last year I was previewing a textbook that I was about to use in a Human Development course I was teaching. The book was the usual flamboyant montage of facts, grids, and pictures, but then I suddenly ran across a most unusual sentence. It read, ?As a folksinger once sang, how many roads must an…
You’ve probably seen, heard or even used the term “spamming” to refer to the act of sending unsolicited commercial email (UCE), or “spam” to refer to the UCE itself. Following is our position on the relationship between UCE and our trademark SPAM…. Let’s face it. Today’s teens and young adults are more computer savvy than…
In the 20th Century, making the news was almost entirely the province of journalists; the people we covered, or ?newsmakers?; and the legions of public-relations and marketing people who manipulated everyone. The economics of publishing and broadcasting created large, arrogant institutions — call it Big Media, though even small-town newspapers and broadcasters exhibit some of…
The day is saved when the Enterprise arrives, along with its commander, Adm. Janeway (Kate Mulgrew (news)), and the doctor (Robert Picardo (news)) from the “Star Trek: Voyager” TV series. —Vegas ‘Trek’ attraction could revive franchise (Hollywood Reporter) Urk! Since when did Janeway command the Enterprise? Her ship is the Voyager. The technical details of this…
What woman could resist a wedding proposal in the form of a brand-new computer? Johnson popped the question by etching the message, “Will you do me the honor?” into the side of the machine.Photo: Courtesy Michael Johnson —With This Rig, I Do Thee Wed (Wired) Found via Work in Progress, where Julie Young prays, “Let…
Miss Dyson, a student careers adviser, thought she was sending a private email to Alex Hewson, her boyfriend. By accidentally clicking on the “reply all” command, however, she distributed it to everyone on his original recipient list. The message went to 30 friends of Mr Hewson, a PR executive with the firm Carat International. Many…
The conference provided a compressed picture of some of the intellectual activity going on in video game studies today. In a short summary, it was clear that early attempts to define the discipline or ague against a sort of “academic colonization” were hopeless. The ideas flowing into the area of video game studies from all…
David Thomas sent me some pictures of me from the Princeton conference… he promises more photos (and, if he hasn’t had second thoughts), a long blog post soon. Update: David’s Princeton video game conference notes are up now. Here is the lineup for session 2. (Note the joysticks in the foreground.) Dennis Jerz / You…