Author Archives: Timothy Burke

Dungeons and Dragons as Pedagogy and Sociology

Posted on March 7, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I may be the last person this week to blog about Gary Gygax’s death. This spares me of having to come up with a variant form of the “he failed his saving roll” jokes, at least. A lot of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Games and Gaming, Popular Culture | 5 Comments

You Gotta Love Gmail Ads Sometimes…

Posted on March 6, 2008 by Timothy Burke

Let’s just say that all the people wetting their pants about the intrusiveness of targeted ads can probably relax for another ten years or so, because the Google algorithms, amazing as they are in many ways, are in some respects … Continue reading →

Posted in Information Technology and Information Literacy | Comments Off on You Gotta Love Gmail Ads Sometimes…

“We’re Americans First”

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Timothy Burke

The first job for the next President is not Iraq and not the economy. I don’t really hear any of the candidates talking to the key priority as forthrightly as I might like, but this is very much how I … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 10 Comments

Snow White, Sacheen Littlefeather and Great Dance Numbers on the Holocaust

Posted on February 25, 2008 by Timothy Burke

Is it just me, or are the Oscars now a real bore due to the efficiency and general good taste of the whole show? I used to watch it with my wife, who really loves the Oscars, and we’d both … Continue reading →

Posted in Popular Culture | 1 Comment

Puzzler

Posted on February 23, 2008 by Timothy Burke

1. Hillary Clinton has more political experience than Barack Obama. By claiming this, I take it that she’s claiming her time as First Lady and as the wife of the governor of Arkansas as political experience, since otherwise she has … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics | 4 Comments

I Wonder…

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Timothy Burke

How long the NY Times has been sitting on this story on John McCain? I’m guessing there will be plenty of talk tomorrow about it.

Posted in Politics | 9 Comments

One-A-Day: Louis Sachar, Holes

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I know some people are skeptical about whether you can teach people to write fiction in a conventional classroom. At the very least, I think aspiring writers can benefit by reading marvelous examples of particular kinds of writing or particular … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Popular Culture, The Mixed-Up Bookshelves | 2 Comments

Uncharacteristically Brief Remarks

Posted on February 20, 2008 by Timothy Burke

I’m very pleased by the vote in favor of open-access at Harvard. Not just because of open-access, but because it shows that it’s possible for faculty to choose dramatic changes or reforms in their way of business. I don’t know … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, Books, Politics, Swarthmore | 2 Comments

QA Google Books?

Posted on February 16, 2008 by Timothy Burke

In all the debate about Google’s approach to digitization, I haven’t seen much discussion of the quality of the results, though people do talk some about interface issues (the Open Content Alliance design is a lot better for readability and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Information Technology and Information Literacy | 4 Comments

The Ecosystem of Asychronicity

Posted on February 14, 2008 by Timothy Burke

Every educated person should learn some basic skills for getting information out of online environments, but I would be the first to admit that reading asynchronous, threaded conversations for information is a much more challenging and low-value activity most of … Continue reading →

Posted in Information Technology and Information Literacy | 6 Comments