Group items tagged

Grant given to Oxford and Vatican libraries to start digitizing ancient texts including: scan of original Gutenberg bible, ancient Hebrew texts, and Greek philosophy texts.

another plug for e-texts

While I'm not a fan of reading online/on a computer screen-yet-I am interested in this transition from paper to digital texts (textbooks). There seems to be several advantages, such as constantly updating and affordable ($49 for a science textbook?!).

Publication of Simon Morris's retyping of Kerouac's On The Road. I find this interesting because I wonder how Goldsmith's discussion of Morris's retyping of the text onto the blog might change now that the text is found within yet another context (the published, printed book). I'm considering buying a copy. . .

This is the entry point for the work of Loss Pequeno Glazier, what the text notes as a unique online work in which text is generated every ten seconds. I really needed some kind of visualization of this since description just doesn't quite get me there. Click begin to try it out

This is an online summary of Roland Barthes's "From Work to Text", which you can skim as you read Hayles's article.

Considering how often we look at TED talks, I thought it might be worth including this fake TED talk used as a clip for the new Ridley Scott movie, Prometheus. I know this probably looks a little like getting off track, but I thought it was interesting that the author claims that humans have become gods through their acts of technological creation (in his case, "cyberkinetic individuals). Science fiction often does a great job extrapolating certain ideas or issues, and I think in some ways we can find links to the issue and use of Wikipedia in which we can freely take place in the act of creation or manipulation of a text and even the meaning behind the entries we change. Obviously this is not necessarily created in our own image the way a cyborg would be, but it is still using McLuhan's idea of the extension of man into the cyber world. The question we're left with here though, is whether or not we deserve the moniker of "creator" if we create anonymously.

Paul Conneally describes the future of humanitarianism in a hyper-connected world. The idea of re-typing and transforming texts to tweets to websites and digital maps in disaster situations etc. seems like an act of uncreative writing--something that is, in a way, re-presenting information while at the same time creating a profound new piece of writing.

This is the hypertextual poem by Stephanie Strickland called "The Ballad of Sand and Harry Soot," to which Hayles refers in her article "Electronic Literature: What Is It?" Hayles's idea that we must recognize "the specificity of new media without abandoning the rich resources of traditional modes of understanding language, signification, and embodied interactions with texts" is absolutely at work in this poem.

Highly influential article about the essentially plagiaristic nature of all culture production, an article that itself is composed entirely of "borrowed texts." An excellent short and direct argument for uncreative writing.

I was taught web design based on a set of pretty intense basic rules (like use the color blue as I mentioned last class), but here is an awesome site that not only tells you the rules, but how and why to break them. The text and tables concepts especially apply here.

Along with Zork, here are a few other interactive fiction games. I played Lost Pig for a while.

Mozilla is jumping into the ring with a mobile OS platform. Still in development, but this is the main page for info about the new platform

What strikes me as especially interesting about this book review is that it emphasizes and leads with the buzz surrounding its predominantly digital publication instead of the controversy about the popularity of hardcore erotic literature for women.

CSS Regions will give us new options for text flow on a page.

I thought this was an interesting article after looking at the corpus last week that used books online. There is great discussion of how computers and machines will enable us to look at literary texts in entirely new ways.

This interface allows users to explore place in ancient literature. Under "Reading View," you can click on a place name within the text and see it on the map, along with the number of times that particular place is referenced in the work.

... and some more themes. Places you could pay to get the theme, but also you could look at it for ideas and the design it yourself.

... and my text became a hyperlink.

I don't have much experience with video games (I still rock out with Sonic on my Sega Genesis), but this could be a gateway game for me. I love the concept of adapting and crossing lines of genres and mediums, but it's interesting to note some of the dramatic differences and losses that must take place in translation. In this example there are some real game changers (I'm not sorry for the pun) involving plot and narrative. It's as if Dante has suddenly been inspired by Mario and must save the princess from the castle. I wonder what the equivalent of Yoshi would look like in the 7th ring of Hell...