How the Video-Game Industry Already Lost Out in the Gun-Control Debate

Firearms, not entertainment, lead to mass shootings, and yet gamers have irrevocably become implicated in the conversation over violence in America.

This week, Vice President Biden’s announced the establishment of a task force on gun violence. Invitations for input were sent to the NRA, of course, but also major gun retailers like Walmart and representatives from the video game industry. In response, Kris Graft, the editor-in-chief of video game trade publication Gamasutra, penned an editorial criticizing the games industry for allowing… read more

Educational Hucksterism

Or, MOOCs are not an Educational Technology

My colleague Mark Guzdial argues that MOOCs are a fundamental misperception of how learning works. In the post, Mark argues that MOOCs misconstrue educational practice, mistaking lectures and rote-exercises for the central activities of classes in higher education. Reading Mark’s post I found myself reflecting on a seemingly unrelated article I read yesterday, Peer-to-Peer Hucksterism: An Open Letter to Tim… read more

Meteors

An obscure title at the center of videogame copyright litigation is unearthed 30 years later.

One of the most important precedents in videogame intellectual property litigation is Atari, Inc. vs. Amusement World, Inc., a 1981 case that involved a game called Meteors by the defendant, which Atari claimed infringed on the copyright of its popular game Asteroids. Atari sought an injunction against Amusement World and its president, Stephen Holniker. You can read the entire decision… read more

The McDonald’s of Higher Ed

Nigel Thrift wrote a somewhat mind-bending article in the Chronicle of Higher Ed about the Cheesecake Factorization of higher education. You should read the whole thing, but here’s a choice excerpt: What I think we will see is this same chain model gradually taking over higher education. There will still be craft models of delivery—just as there are high-end restaurants—but… read more

A Machine That Makes Cameras: The Aesthetics of the Lytro

An image taken with a Lytro camera is not really an image, but a machine capable of producing many possible renditions.

The Lytro Light Field Camera Let's think about photography as people live it. A posed family picture might be taken once, then again, and again until the right combination of open eyes, smiles, and light and shadow produce an acceptable portrait. An action, performance, or sports shot that could speed by too fast for human judgement partakes of a surrogate: the… read more

Talk of 10 PRINT

Reviews, Links, Code, and Discussion

Some links to discussion about 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10. One of the common ways to interact with the idea seems to be writing and posting re-implementations of the program in other languages and environments. Geeta Dayal’s review of the book in Slate. Discussion on Reddit r/Programming, including a hilarious Enterprise Java version. A discussion at Stack Overflow stemming… read more

Now Available: 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10

You Can't Buy A Better Book About a One-Line BASIC Program At Twice The Price

My latest book is out! It’s called 10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10 and it’s about a one-line Commodore 64 BASIC program. I wrote it with nine other authors, but it’s not an anthology; we write in a single voice collaboratively, producing a monograph-like text. You can buy it in a beautiful hardcover edition, designed by one of the authors,… read more

Senior Associate Vice Provost of Something

On the top-heaviness of universities

An article in Business Week has been making the rounds this holiday weekend, The Troubling Dean-to-Professor Ratio. It’s about the top-heaviness of universities and the growth of senior and executive administration. The “money quote,” so to speak, is this: At universities nationwide, employment of administrators jumped 60 percent from 1993 to 2009, 10 times the growth rate for tenured faculty.… read more

10 PRINT CHR$(205.5 + RND(1)); : GOTO 10

A whole book about a single line of code. By ten authors.

This book is available in digital or physical format. Buy from Amazon This book takes a single line of code—the extremely concise BASIC program for the Commodore 64 inscribed in the title—and uses it as a lens through which to consider the phenomenon of creative computing and the way computer programs exist in culture.The authors of this collaboratively written book… read more

Simony

A game art installation at MOCA Jacksonville and on the Apple App Store

Is glory and achievement something you earn, or something you buy? Is it more right (or more righteous) to ascend to a rank or office on the merits of your actions than on the influence of your connections, or the sway of your bank account? For that matter, which offices are worth earning (or buying) in the first place? Read… read more

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