Essays
Latest
Tumblr's 'big update' promotes essay writing, fewer GIFs
If we're honest, there isn't enough money in monochrome erotica and Benedict Cumberbatch GIFs to sustain a billion-dollar website. That's why Tumblr is doing its very best to become more of a publishing platform that can attract the sort of writing (and attention) you'd normally find on Wordpress and Medium. The site began this process a few weeks ago by enabling embeds of its pages anywhere else on the internet, and now it's ready to give users a much stronger set of tools.
Kindle Singles available now on Amazon
Hey, kids! Kindle Singles -- Amazon's really, really short books for people with short attentions spans -- have finally gone live. And you know what that means? You can finally get a copy of Mark Greif's Octomom and the Politics of Babies delivered to your e-reader via Amazon Whispernet for the low, low price of $2. Even if you're not keen on hearing some academic sound off on a certain Ms. Nadya Suleman (at least, that's the impression we get from the description) it looks like they have quite a selection of essays, articles, and memoirs on the Singles site. Hit the source link to check 'em out or, if you're still not convinced, peep the PR after the break.
A Slew of Essays on WoW
Now this is something that could potentially provide endless debate fodder. While stumbling around the web, I came across this page; a collection of term papers written by undergraduates at San Antonio's Trinity University for the class "Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games".The subjects addressed include "Sexism in WoW", "Real World Transactions of Digital Items from MMOGs", "The Prisoner's Dilemma and Factional Conflict in World of Warcraft", and my personal favorite, the oh-so-socially relevant "Wizards vs. Engineers: The Rumble in the Proverbial Jungle". There are several others covering a wide-range of topics; I haven't had the time to read them all yet, but since I eat this stuff up, I might not get much work done today.Of course, the real question this begs is: why couldn't assignments have been this cool when I was in school? Do you have any idea how severely the nuns would have beat me if I had asked to write my term paper on a video game?*sigh*
