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Meta
Author Archives: Timothy Burke
Dude, Where’s My Shredder?
Why you should be careful handling confidential files. I’m especially interested in reading the comments on the files made by professors evaluating the applications. Maybe this will help get across the point that arbitrary, clearly “political” filters for hiring aren’t … Continue reading
Memoirs of Play: Any Ideas?
I’m putting the finishing touches on my syllabus for next semester’s History of Play and Leisure, just trying to find one or two more perfect or unusual readings to round out a few of the weeks. (And then I need … Continue reading
Posted in Games and Gaming
25 Comments
In Which I Pick Some Nits
If there’s two things I’ve come to dislike equally, it’s bad fantasies with dragon characters (cough Eragon) and bad speculative fiction that recreates Horatio Hornblower or other Napoleonic-era stories (cough David Weber). So I really thought there was no way … Continue reading
Posted in Africa, Popular Culture
13 Comments
There Will Still Be Pizza
Over at the Comics Curmudgeon, they like to hate the comic strip Funky Winkerbean. I share their sentiments, mostly, and for the same reason, namely that the creator seems so unrelievedly grim in his sensibility since he initially aged the … Continue reading
Posted in Popular Culture
1 Comment
Beyond Hackery
With some trepidation, I venture a few thoughts on the controversy over residence-hall programs at the University of Delaware. Trepidation because the kind of position I take on these issues is increasingly wearisome to hold given the polarization in online … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
18 Comments
“A Blog Post”
Margaret Soltan has a nice post on the overuse of quotation marks, including a pointer to a website dedicated to stomping out this phenomenon. I wouldn’t want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, though. When I think about … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Miscellany
6 Comments
On the Road
I’ll be in Washington DC tomorrow for a talk to alumni on virtual worlds. See you there, Swatties.
Posted in Games and Gaming, Swarthmore
6 Comments
OCLC/RLG Programs Meeting Talk
I kept meaning to put this essay up over the summer, but I, uh, got distracted. Did I say that I wasn’t kidding about the title of this blog? Anyway, this is a talk I gave at the the Research … Continue reading
The Benefits of Resentment and Cynicism
I really like this quote from Break Through at Kevin Drum’s site. So yet another book that I’d better read. Here’s the quote that Drum pulls out of Chapter 7 of the book: From Break Through, courtesy of Kevin Drum: … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Politics
10 Comments
Domo Arigato Professor Roboto
Oh god, not “politics in the classroom” again. All I can tell you for sure after reading Paul Sracic’s essay is that the way he comes at this perennial issue is by advising professors to be boring, grey robots in … Continue reading
Posted in Academia
4 Comments