Category — General

Toys of the 80s. Toys of the 80s
They don't make them like they used to. [MetaFilter]
hmmm, they did have some great toys back then

Computer games degree 'not Mickey Mouse'. A course sponsored by PlayStation games console maker Sony is worthwhile, an academic claims. [BBC News | Technology | UK Edition]

a degree in computer games actually couldn't be 'mickey mouse' really, there is just so much to a game beyond anything people think is simple. to really get it going degreewise, you need to be very creative and interested in the topic and have the ability to get students to imagine something that is very hard to imagine, differences.

Swarm Journalism Unmasks Another Fake. Reason: The Mystery of Mary Rosh: How a new form of journalism investigated a gun research riddle. Stories that might… [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]

this is a great phenomenon, i wish someone would do it for the bushies

LOTR: PHD ALLEGORY?. A friend from my grad school days sent me this link: An Allegory of the PhD?. The story starts with Frodo: a young hobbit, quite… [OUTSIDE THE BELTWAY]

yep, I like this, it's funny and somewhat true for so many involved

“Higher Ed in a Down Economy”. “Frank” at Frank Admisssions is linking to an NPR series entitled “The Ivory Tower in the Real World,” which carries the suggestive subtitle “Higher Ed. in a Down Economy.” Today's installment (which presumably will soon be available as an audiofile):… [Invisible Adjunct]

tenure is supposed to be protection, true, but as i look around this nation it seems to mean little to nothing, if you can end a persons tenure for economic reasons, then you can end any it for any reason, because all reasons are economic reasons from one often used perspective.

Tim Bray: The Death of Scholarship?. Quote: “I'm not against Web search; I use Google several times per day myself. But I think somebody really needs to get out there and exercise some leadership and dress up the world's scholarly information sources, including by the way most of our intellectual history, so that ordinary people will use them. Among other things, they might make a lot of money in the process.”

Comment: The numbers he quotes sound very accurate to me.  The solution will be hard and it won't be until it's as easy to search these databases as it is to search Google that students will come back.  Most library and journal catalogs have no focus on usability and seem too interested in revealing how many metadata fields they have, instead of making it easy to find what you need. [Serious Instructional Technology]

I think this is a very good point, I know that many times I hear someone saying something that has been oft-repeated through history, but upon questioning they don't really have a feel for that particular ideas intellectual background. Likewise, the usefulness of having a well grounded opinion seems missing in our culture, and certainly in a generation of leaders, managers, etc.

Bloki is “a Web site on which you can create Web pages, right in your browser, with no additional software required. Think of it as a word processor for the Web.” [Scripting News] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

this looks like an interesting bit of software….

The Orphans of Invention: Something more than jobs were lost in the Internet bust. It has to do with people and history, with what might be called industrial memory. By Ellen Ullman. [New York Times: Opinion] [A blog doesn't need a clever name]

we also lost, significantly, alot of intellectual property that went into someones dust bin….

The Oracle of Starbucks. The Oracle of Starbucks. (via chemaccino) [MetaFilter]

just try to put in any reasonable drink like a red eye or black coffee, or cappuccino, or espresso and see what you get….

Good 'ol Dr. Who. Have you seen the episode of “Dr. Who” written by the late Douglas Adams, that was done completely in Flash animation? [MetaFilter]

i like the good doctor, but not all doctors are equal….