FlingTheCow.com: A catapult… a target… a cow. Don’t just sit there… fling the cow! Similar:Toasty Warm Bed (designed by drunk AI neural net)AestheticsMy English major skills crushed the girl in Bananagrams.Wildcard? You mean quitter tile! GamesThey Should Have Used Another TypefaceHave you ever noticed that the letters “…AestheticsYounger Americans and Public LibrariesMillennials are quite similar…
“Dr. Seuss makes Horton the sort of agent… who dominates stories from Beowulf to Braveheart, powerful, generous, and resourceful; and he makes Horton’s goals unmistakable, admirable, and urgent: the struggle not to be cast out of his community, the survival of a whole people.” Brian Boyd —The Origin of Stories: Horton Hears a Who (Philosophy…
“I had seen a 9-year-old boy blowing away guards with a shotgun in a preview version of State of Emergency, an ultraviolent Rockstar game that encourages players to smash shop windows and assassinate executives in an urban street riot. ‘That’s not cool,’ he said flatly. ‘We’re not about cute games for kids.’” Logan Hill —Why…
“Um … there’re these psychologists, right? And they’ve, uh, come up with, like, the idea that ‘um’ and ‘uh’ are really words, which speakers, um … use to highlight their conversational problems. Ok?” John Whitfield —‘Er’ Cautions Listeners to Stay on Side (Nature) Similar:Writing Effective Dialogue (Punctuation and Actions in Creative Writing)“Punctuating dialogue properly is…
The complex sociology of a college dorm: “‘We play video games at least half the day,’ says freshman Tyler Manker. He’s exaggerating. A little. He estimates that he spends five hours a day playing video or computer games, two hours watching TV or videos, and an hour on the Internet. Oh, yeah—he also spends three…
“I strongly believe that Toast is the very thread which holds together the uneasy seams of modern society. Therefore, it seems only appropriate that I pay some sort of homage to this humble Slice of Heaven.” —Dr. Toast’s Amazing World of Toast See also: weather-forecasting toaster; toaster art; “Flying Toasters” (a short story); “When Flying…
“What is in common between faith and programming?… both are about truth.” Hierodeacon Makary —Orthodox Faith and Computer Programming (Pravda) A thought-provoking little article, but even more surprising is its source. Yes, that’s Pravda, the official publication of the Communist Party in Russia. Similar:No space for over-30s as relaunched MySpace erases its pastKeep a local…
Welcome to www.villainsupply.com, your best online source for everything EVIL. If you are a supervillain, mad scientist, warlord, dictator, or despot, then this is the place for you. Similar:Robots Are Coming for Our PoemsThe robots are quickly and surely coming…AestheticsIn September, 2001 I was blogging about… With a grant from UWEC, I was able t…Aestheticsxkcd:…
“Shakespeare was a hugely popular commercial writer who asked big questions about the world he lived in. The world has changed but the questions remain the same, and they still need asking.” —Guns and Roses (Guardian) Similar:Dozens of Colleges’ Upward Bound Applications Are Denied for Failing to Dot Every II’m not saying that the Upward…
“Open the pod bay doors, please,” astronaut Dave implores Hal 9000. We command, the machines execute. If they fail, they do so politely: “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.” W. Wayt Gibbs —Whatever You Say (Scientific American) Yeah, after they have killed our astronaut partner, but that’s not the point the author’s…
Playwright Arthur Miller, on anabolic steroids: “Let’s imagine you’re a young playwright, trying to stay clean… But over at the Virginia you know there’s a writer shot up with more Lasix than a Kentucky thoroughbred and he’s going to take your ticket-buyers, your house, your money, your troubled and needy movie-starlet wife.” —Surrey with the…
“A gap between how web designers and ordinary surfers think is causing frustration on the net.” —Web Design “Causes Confusion” (BBC) Nothing really new here, but it’s good to see the mainstream press covering usability issues. Similar:Playing video games linked to breast-feeding, not crimeGreat piece from Ben Kuchera at Ars Tech…AmusingSpit & Polish ''Pac Gentleman"Spit…
“A Writer’s Perspective on an Emerging Medium” —What’s Happening on the Web? Similar:Video-Game Violence Is Now a Partisan IssueScholar and essayist Ian Bogost traces t…CultureExplore Geotagged Wikipedia Pages as a Text Adventure GameFor humans who like browsing through Wik…AmusingCrying Myself to Sleep on the Biggest Cruise Ship EverI’ve felt a bit like this guy the…
“Someone made a mistake and forgot to get you a glittery Token Autistic Author with three Ph.D.s and a Nobel prize. Instead they accidentally got you one out of the trash heap you put us in after you are done putting up with us in school.” —The Conference Presentation I Won’t Make (But Want To)…
“A threatening letter from her lawyer and an opportunity to retake an exam hours before graduation helped a West Valley high school student get her diploma last month.” —Student Gets Diploma After Threatening Lawsuit (Arizona Republic) “I weep for the future,” writes Matt, a former student of mine. Similar:College student makes masks for the deaf…
“The principal of Franklin Elementary School in Santa Monica . . . banned the children’s game of tag–for reasons that included issues of self-esteem–from the playground late last month.” —At This School, “It” Is a Touchy Subject (LA Times) Similar:Empathy in a Downtown Sub ShopSitting in a downtown sub shop. A half d…CultureMemo to faculty:…
(University of Illinois press release) “When dads or other father figures get personally involved, kids do better in school. The finding, says a University of Illinois researcher, suggests that schools should encourage male interaction, especially with at-risk kids.” — Personally Involved Father Figures Enhance Kids’ Learning in School Similar:Important University of Virginia Messages Regarding Sexual…
“The study of English is whatever people within the community of inquiry known as ‘the English department’ happen to count as the study of English. There is no objective referent, such as “the nature of literary language,” to use as an arbiter among approaches. The foundation has not shifted–it has vanished.” Louis Menand —Unidisciplined (Wilson…
“The National Science Foundation’s annual symposium concluded Monday, with the 1,500 scientists in attendance reaching the consensus that science is hard.” —National Science Foundation: Science Hard (The Onion) Similar:Trump, finally, takes the coronavirus emergency seriously CNN’s Stephen Collinson praises the pr…Current_EventsWhy Study Humanities? What I Tell Engineering FreshmenScience writer Jon Horgan writes: We li…AcademiaErmahgerddon: The…
“These critics and, unfortunately, most video game players have a basic misunderstanding about the nature of games. They believe that the purpose of a game is to imitate something in life. They think the more realism the game has, the closer it will come to imitating life, and the better the game will be. They…