Social Media Round Up
Now that the craziness of the start of the semester has begun to slow down, I thought I'd do a quick hit on a variety of social media topics that…
Software Controls Users
I'm often surprised that some of the most valuable lessons I learned back in the late 1980's have not become standard practice in software development. Back then, I worked for…
The Olympics, Technology and “Reality”
The 2012 Summer Olympics are nearly over. I haven't watched them much, mostly because I can't stand the way they are covered by NBC and its affiliates, especially in prime…
Health Care, RFIDs and Politics
Quite a lot of people hate "Obamacare" which is otherwise known as the Patient Protection Affordable Care Act. And there are indeed things to hate about the law. For example,…
Email: Buried Alive
I became the chair of my department a little over a year ago and within a few months, I found myself completely overwhelmed by email. Emails started to get buried…
Magical Thinking
You probably haven't noticed that I've been away for awhile. But I have. In fact, this is my first post of 2012. I have no excuse other than to say…
The Problem with Educational Technology
I don't think anyone would accuse me of being a Luddite. I began to learn to program in the late 1970's when I was in high school, majored in computer…
Software Development and the User
I've been thinking about software usability a lot lately, mostly because I encounter so much software that isn't particularly usable. There are two pieces of software that I use a…
Play, Standardized Testing and Wall Street
A student from my Creating Games class came to my office today to talk about the keynote speech from a conference he had recently attended. The speaker was lamenting the…
Qwikster Part II
Although it is not a personal email written by founder and President of Netflix Reed Hastings, I was happy to receive the following email this morning. Perhaps "the Netflix team"…
Games and Lessons for Life
I am a sucker for stories about the relationship between games and life. When I was a graduate student, a story in the Tallahassee Democrat about the life of Warrick…
Northern Pass–Weeding Through the Hype
There is a huge controversy raging in NH this year involving the Northern Pass Project. According to the project's web site, the Northern Pass is "a transmission project designed to deliver…
Popular Culture and TIA
I just finished watching the five episodes of the BBC miniseries The Last Enemy. Ann had recommended it because it is about computers and privacy and also because Benedict Cumberbatch (of recent…
More About Net Neutrality
This entry was inspired by Meg, who asked some great questions after I posted my last entry. In that entry, I explained what the net neutrality debate is about and why…
Net Neutrality and Why You Should Care
The debate about net neutrality has been around for a while. I taught my students about it back when I was still in the Computer Science Department, during the Bush…
Zero Views
Recently, my favorite NPR show, On the Media, had a story about an interesting blog called Zero Views. The blog celebrates "the best of the bottom of the barrel" by posting…
Google and Privacy
A story about Google and privacy on NPR last week caught my attention because it seemed so strange. And now that I know what the real story is, it still seems really…
Original Research–Good or Bad?
I recently rewatched Julia, the 1977 film starring Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave. It is based on a chapter in Lillian Hellman's memoir, Pentimento: A Book of Portraits. That chapter tells…
News Media Not Doing Its Job
As I drove to the airport in late September, I listened, as usual, to New Hampshire Public Radio in my car. Election season is upon us so much of the coverage that…
New Definition of “Friend”
One of the ways that I first knew that Facebook was having a major impact on our society was that I heard my friends in the real world, many of whom…
