In another move to distance themselves from their college-oriented roots, Facebook has removed their “courses” feature that allowed students to indicate what courses they’re taking and the profiles of their classmates. On the Facebook Developers blog, they announced:
Facebook will be phasing out its Courses feature in early August, and we wanted to make sure [...]
From I Can Has Cheezburger, hat tip to Trevor Owens. For readers who are confused, you may want to read up on image macros and a brief history of how they’ve evolved.
I’ve recently become aware of Old West muds and moos that predate the historical roleplaying I’ve observed in Second Life by five years. Moos and muds are text-based virtual worlds that became popular in the early 90’s; Second Life is sometimes referred to as a “graphical mud.” So far I’m aware of two different [...]
Limerick in the NY Times
At Cliopatria, Ralph Luker shared a terrific review by Patricia Limerick of Jean Pfaelzer’s book that appeared in Sunday’s NY Times. Patricia’s work has been critical in establishing the New Western History scholarship that my criticisms of history in the Oregon Trail computer game are based upon.
Anonymous Blogging
For those [...]
Unrealistic uses of Second Life:
The University of New Orleans plans to continue instruction in Second Life in the event of another Katrina-like disaster. I’m highly skeptical that this would work on such a large scale; I’ve never thought that Second Life or virtual worlds are the solution to learning, but they offer new methods of [...]
The Oregon Trail computer game’s gender bias is narratively implicit, but visually explicit. Users control a character that is never textually referred to as a specific gender, however its visual representation is indisputably that of a male figure. In the game, the wagon leader makes the decisions along the journey and is presented as male, [...]
The New York Times website is featuring an “interactive graphic” - visualizing the wealthiest Americans in history when wealth is measured as a percentage of the economy. Not only are these men ordered by wealth, but their lifespan is visualized vertically. The resulting graphic is both easy to use and understand.
I’m reminded of [...]
Using the new Facebook platform, several libraries have established a presence by creating applications. These applications are added by users and allow information to be displayed within Facebook’s website — even a user’s profile. Michigan, UIUC, and Ryerson U have all led the pack with the earliest of these academic applications.
While these [...]
Japanese firm NTT has unveiled a system that makes three-dimensional images solid enough to grasp. The system combines a 3D display with a “haptic glove,†with no special glasses required. They’ve suggested two interesting uses for the device:
business people could shake hands from across the globe
allow museum visitors to feel precious exhibits that [...]
I'm a digital humanist and graduate of American Studies, currently working as a web developer and Omeka community liaison for the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University. Finding America is my professional blog, and an amalgamation of the many hats I wear ranging from theorist to practitioner. I explore the confluence of American Culture and information technology in the archives, the classroom, and our digital lives.