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:Congo nun overcomes blackouts with homemade hydroelectric plantSister Alphonsine Ciza spends most of he…Current_EventsUsing a Typewriter Simulator to Teach Media HistoryWorking on the syllabus…
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…
I intentionally tried not to post about this (I guess I am meta-posting now) for a simple reason: this is not the way that a scholar discussion should take place…. This is not how this game is played. If anybody has to respond about what has been said at a conference, that should be made…
Blips, bloops and beeps emit from the room that houses the exhibit, where a dozen video-arcade games from the late 1970s and ’80s are lovingly arranged in chronological order, each lit with a single spotlight. Three free tokens, good for one game play each, are included with museum admission. Additional tokens may be purchased for…
those in the humanities tended to distrust the technology, and those in the sciences often considered humanities-applications to be wasteful of a precious resource. Specific kinds of projects, however, were more readily assisted by 1960s technology, even if character-sets were inadequate because computer-printers had either an all-uppercase or upper-and-lowercase character-set that was designed to represent…
The Critical Study of Computer Games: A Brief IntroductionJerz’s Literacy Weblog) Part of: Princeton Video Game Conference reflections. While I mostly wrote those conference reflections for the benefit of game theorists who weren’t able to attend the conference, if you’re new to the subject, you might appreciate a general introduction. Over the past few years,…
Tell your kids, there are more and more ways to make a career out of video games! They could become game designers; they could also play games all the time (or observe other people doing so) for academic research. — Anne Collier —Web News Brief 7 (Net Family News) Tell your kids — maybe it’s not…
Culture CacheJerz’s Literacy Weblog) Part of: Princeton Video Game Conference reflections. “Culture” was in the title of the conference, but it was only obliquely discussed, as in Peter Bell’s “Hidden play,” an analysis of handheld gaming culture (as compared to cultural responses to the Sony Walkman); and Greg Lastowka’s “Virtual crimes,” which ponders the legal…
Is There a Ludologist in the House?Jerz’s Literacy Weblog) Part of: Princeton Video Game Conference reflections. The absence of European videogame theorists turned the Princeton Video Game Criticism Conference, at first simply by default, into a polite but noticeable anti-ludologist festival. I don’t want to give the impression that we were overrun by knee-jerk narratologists,…
FilmCroft: I’m Ready for My Close-upJerz’s Literacy Weblog) Part of: Princeton Video Game Conference reflections. Jordan Hall’s presentation was the only one that relied heavily on cinema theory, though she showed an admirable awareness of the problems such an approach causes. To take just one example, she suggests that the default method of playing the…
Form, Culture, and Video Game CriticismJerz’s Literacy Weblog) I see that Nick Montfort has already posted a quick overview at GrandTextAuto, so I won’t try to cover everything and every talk equally — instead, I’ll focus on those talks about which I have the most to say (however naive some of my reaction may be).…
Princeton Videogame Conference: PrologueJerz’s Literacy Weblog) Presenters have started to gather for Princeton’s videogame conference. About eight of us met for some socialization last night. On the way home, I misread my map, managed to get myself taken to the wrong Red Roof Inn. This is all rather ironic, since part of my talk covers…