In August 1999, I was blogging about Conservation efforts at Poohsticks Bridge A Penmanship camp in Philadelphia Recovering the only known copy of a lost work by the Greek mathematician Archimedes (erased by a 10th-century monk who scraped off the writing to reuse the parchment) Fourth-graders using e-books at Resurrection Catholic School in Dayton, Ohio…
I noticed an uptick in traffic to an older page, “Technical Writing: What Is It?” So I touched it up and created a new graphic. Similar:Space Shuttle Challenger (Destroyed 28 Years Ago Today)I was in my final semester of high schoo…EducationOpen Access Journals in the Field of EducationUpdate, June 2015: New URL for the Direc…AcademiaA…
I’m 50. I’m in my office casually sharpening my CGI skills, and I get a huge rush when tweets mention a Usenet thread I joined in 2001 & a video game I played in 1992, and I can see the glittering green matrix code explaining it all. Similar:Freedom of the press is not just important…
I’m following a lot of tutorials, and continue to make progress in Unity3D. My character’s feet now react better with the environment. Here she is standing casually with each foot at different levels. With the right code attached to each foot, she will adjust her stance automatically, according to the height and angle of whatever…
Before CGI, filming a science-fiction story typically involved constructing a physical model of a spaceship or planetscape. In order to trick the eye in to thinking you were looking at something huge, model-makers added tiny random bits of detail, often re-purposing off-the-shelf commercial model kits or using any kind of junk they could get their…
Similar:How Humans Respond to RobotsThe play that coined the word “robot,” K…AestheticsIn October, 2000, I was blogging about bobbed hair, Woolf, a CFP for interactive fiction s…In October 2000, I was blogging about …CultureThe Problem with Quotes on the InternetAmusingFree Game Friday: Text-Based Games 2012 Interactive Fiction contest we’ll…AmusingUntil next term, I have zero…
I’ve been using the beta for months, but the Blender 2.8 release has finally dropped. Blender is a super-powerful, completely free 3D design tool. I’ve been playing with it for years, and this summer I ramped up my skills considerably. Here’s an animation of “MoonBot,” a character from the steampunk bedtimes stories I used to…
I try to watch this every July to commemorate the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. Based on a true story, The Dish focuses on the staff of the Australian radio antenna charged with relaying the TV signals from the Apollo 11 moonwalk. The story was exaggerated here and there for dramatic effect, but does…
Similar:Mechanical #greebles (more #Blender3D practice)https://youtu.be/NzUp-9e_olQAestheticsMeet the 12-year-old boy who makes games instead of going to schoolTurning on the anti-clickbait filter: Ho…CultureJuror's CreedWhile researching my obligations for #ju…CultureAlice in Quantumland: A Charming Illustrated Allegory of Quantum Mechanics by a CERN Physi…Alice in Quantumland: An Allegory of Qua…AestheticsMy simulation project does not require me to master medieval…
50 years ago today, three humans were on their way to the moon for the first time. Todd Douglas Miller’s documentary “Apollo 11” uses lots of found footage (including longer cuts of iconic sequences I know well, and plenty I’ve never seen before) arranged on split-screen multi-angle shots, woven together with low-key graphics and the…
Viral app FaceApp has been giving people the power to change their facial expressions, looks, and now age for several years. But at the same time, people have been giving FaceApp the power to use their pictures — and names — for any purpose it wishes, for as long as it desires. To make FaceApp…
It’s a logical fallacy to suggest that where two sides disagree, the truth must lie in the center. It doesn’t matter how many people believe in Bigfoot or essential oils or the city of Boston — popular opinion won’t make something factually true. (Though of course, well-meaning people can disagree over values, such as whether…
Workspace for an in-progress Unity3D tutorial. Installing the Unity Hub. (Unity.com documentation) Tutorial Assets <- Download, unzip Place in [YourUnityProject]/Assets Video Tutorials: Unity3D Game Spaces for Beginners (#CWCON 2019 #e11) Similar:The first ever photograph of light as both a particle and waveThere’s so much I don’t know! When teac…EducationYour Letters Helped Challenger Shuttle Engineer…
The girl and I were thrilled to catch Quantum Theatre’s outdoor production of King Lear. The smell of a storm in the air, gusting wind, piped-in industrial sounds (metallic groans and rumbles) and the knowledge that the only reason we were able to get tickets was this was a special add-on performance to make up…
Daughter: (is sad her “first day in the theatre” post got fewer likes than her “felt cute” post) Me: (makes this meme) Similar:One Child, One Laptop … And Mixed Results In PeruBecause you couldn’t go online, everythi…CybercultureCollege Professors Hate Sharing These Mind-Blowing Study Tips (#3 Made Me Cry) Read the syllabus. Read the syllabu…AcademiaSome fairy tales…
It does take longer to evaluate student multimedia projects. I can understand the motive behind letting students do a shorter video or a longer audio project, but I’d rather let the students choose to go for depth or technical expertise, rather than automatically treating 10-15 minutes of video as if it’s the same as 45…
The girl amusing herself on our 70m commute to rehearsal, as we listen to the LibriVox “Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.” Similar:Again with the @shu.pippinPersonalMe: Carolyn, are you ok? Carolyn:Just reminding myself that I am a gift.AmusingCreating textures for background buildings in a medieval theater simulation project. I can…Creating textures for background buildin…AestheticsThe Crucible, Geyer PAC…
This fall, I’ve been asked to teach a Shakespeare class online. Here’s what Kevin Gannon wrote in The Chronicle of Higher Education about moving an established course to cyberspace. As I looked at the class — an upper-level U.S. history seminar — and began to think about how I would teach it online, my heart…
A fascinating study of the thinginess of a video game. Put in your quarter, hit the one-player button and grab the joystick. All you have to do is move Pac-Man through a series of tight cornered mazes, trying to eat all the dots and fruit on screen while also trying to out-maneuver a group of ghosts…
Are you still relying on Facebook to filter your news for you? Zuckerberg will probably apologize — yet again — and then keep on Zucking. The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook are negotiating over a multi-billion dollar fine that would settle the agency’s investigation into the social media giant’s privacy practices, according to two people familiar…