Author Archives: Garrison

Obama Administration Asks Ballmer About Gaming the Budget

By Garrison | Published: April 15, 2010
Via Kotaku (via USATo­day), word that Ersk­ine Bowles has con­tacted Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer to chat about a game built around bal­anc­ing the U.S. bud­get. It’s an inter­est­ing idea that’s actu­ally been done (and done well) already. In 2008, Mar­ket­Place, from Amer­i­can Pub­lic Media, launched Bud­get Hero: Bud­get Hero tries to bring a level of clar­ity [...]
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For Your Consideration

By Garrison | Published: April 9, 2010
For your con­sid­er­a­tion, I com­mend to you — with­out com­ment– the fol­low­ing arti­cle, from the closely-followed Opin­ions page of the Wichita Eagle. “Are Video Games Caus­ing Achieve­ment Gap?” by John Richard Schrock, “trainer of biol­ogy teachers.” Advanced read­ers will want to be sure and iden­tify by name each log­i­cal fal­lacy that appears in the op-ed.
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New Course: CCTP628 Arcade Theory

By Garrison | Published: April 6, 2010
I have started to build an infor­ma­tion web­site to accom­pany the new course I’ll teach this fall at George­town, CCTP628: Arcade The­ory. As of now, only the course descrip­tion is avail­able, but I will add more in the com­ing weeks. Visit arcadetheory.org
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Boing Boing: Games To Get

By Garrison | Published: February 17, 2010
I’ve just dis­cov­ered Boing Boing’s ongo­ing “Games to Get” series, a great col­lec­tion of (mostly) indie stu­dio games for var­i­ous plat­forms. Many of my lat­est obses­sions are there: Plants vs. Zom­bies, Chime, Clash of Heroes, Drop 7. Def­i­nitely worth reviewing.
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CFP: Digital Game Play as Sociotechnical Practice | HASTAC

By Garrison | Published: February 13, 2010
HASTAC (The Human­i­ties, Arts, Sci­ence, and Tech­nol­ogy Advanced Col­lab­o­ra­tory) is def­i­nitely worth get­ting to know: I’ve been to two of their con­fer­ences, and they are ter­rific. Today, their blog calls atten­tion to a new Call For Papers (Trento, Italy, Sept 2010) that is inter­est­ing chiefly for its desire to blend game stud­ies with STS: CFP: Dig­i­tal [...]
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The Course of Empire

By Garrison | Published: February 1, 2010
Update (7 Feb): For a sketch of the Hait­ian infor­ma­tion infra­struc­ture, check out Michael Deibert’s post from Slate, Hait­ian Radio Returns to the Air. Orig­i­nal Post I won­der how oth­ers feel about this newly-listed MIT Media Lab course (spring 2010). On the one hand, there’s a lot here to be admired: The course is clearly the [...]
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Jürgen Habermas (JHabermas) on Twitter

By Garrison | Published: January 26, 2010
Update: Accord­ing to @JohnathanStray, the Haber­mas account was a ruse. I’ll bet Rhein­gold is rolling his eyes. So, this is fun. Jür­gen Haber­mas (JHaber­mas) on Twit­ter.
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Kirschenbaum’s Simulations Course at UMD

By Garrison | Published: January 25, 2010
Matthew Kirschen­baum, over at UMD, is an Asso­ciate Pro­fes­sor of Eng­lish and the Asso­ciate Direc­tor of MITH, the Mary­land Insti­tute for Tech­nol­ogy in the Human­i­ties. His blog is chock full of inter­est­ing stuff, and his tweets are prolific. A year ago, he pub­lished a good lit­tle arti­cle in the Chron­i­cle on why human­i­ties stu­dents must [...]
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