Object-Oriented Misunderstandings
A while back Jim Brown mentioned to me that there would be an object-oriented rhetoric panel at this year’s Rhetoric Society of America conference. Jim attended RSA but wasn’t able to make the panel; still, he’s managed to dig up the papers and he wrote up a summary over on the RSA’s Blogora. I’m not yet sure what object-oriented rhetoric… read more
Graham has a short post up mentioning Heidegger’s distaste for the crossword puzzle. Given that we have a whole chapter about crosswords and related puzzles in Newsgames, I’m particularly keen to read this if anyone digs it up. Heidegger’s reaction was actually quite common. Some may not realize that the crossword puzzle incited a moral panic when it rose to… read more
Apple and the Rhetoric of Change
Now that yet another Steve Jobs keynote is over, I find myself more interested in what Apple was saying about itself than what others are saying about its new gadgets. Despite my apparent pique pommaire, I like Apple stuff. I do my computing on a Mac and I have an iPhone and so forth. But as both a user and… read more
Branding Your Weird Academic Field
I’ve been meaning to post a link to Ethan Watrall’s April article Building an Interdisciplinary Identity in a (Mostly) Non-Interdisciplinary Academic World. It includes a number of tips for branding yourself as an academic when working outside of or in-between traditional fields. I know that many academics, particularly those straggler pinko humanists, sometimes writhe at the idea of “marketing” themselves… read more
Updates on the Development and Release of A Slow Year
One of the lovely things about making a videogame called A Slow Year is that I can take as damn well long as I please to get it done. But that doesn’t mean I don’t owe an update to those of you who have been following the game. At the IGF in March, I had the opportunity to watch a… read more
A Question About Academia.edu
I’ve been noticing a lot more activity via Academia.edu (it’s a social network for academics, for those of you fortunate enough not to be one and who might not be familiar). I wonder if folks are creating new accounts or reanimating old ones partly because of recent dissatisfaction with Facebook’s ongoing privacy woes. Though ironically, Academia.edu’s account landing page currently… read more
Indie Games and Code and Los Angeles
I have two June 1 deadlines to remind you (and myself) about: (1) The IndieCade independent game festival. You can submit online. The festival will be held October 8-10 in Culver City, CA. (2) The Critical Code Studies conference. It will be held July 23, 2010 at USC. Both are worthwhile and deserve some of your weekend attention, if you’ve… read more
For medium light, pull the shade to its middle section
Check out this funny send-up of an airline safety video: I particularly love the unreasonably extended instruction for using the window shade, but the entire thing is choice satire.
Summaries, Papers, and Blogs
An update on the aftermath of last week’s Rorty conference. First, organizer Liz Losh has posted detailed accounts of all the sessions on her blog: Part 1, archives Part 2, data Part 3, philosophy Part 4, public intellectualism Part 5, rhetoric Part 6, closing I spent part of last week and the weekend playing hashtag voyeur on a few conferences… read more
The Onion on Foursquare
Leave it to The Onion to say what we’re all thinking, or should be, about Web 2.0 “social games” like Foursquare. “Foursquare is a little bit of everythingâ??a friend-finder, a local city guide, an interactive mobile game,” said company cofounder Dennis Crowley, as if reading from the same tired script used by every one of these Web 2.0 or whatever-the-fuck-they’re-called… read more