iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The Cassette Case games came in a smaller, clear case with an included J-card and stickers. AFAIK, you weren't intended to re-use these for Famicom game storage. Also, the games inside each were different. Hope that helps!

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The Cassette Famous Scene games specifically advertised reusing the included cassette case to store Famicom games (you can see this illustrated on the back of the blister pack), and you're correct that they included stickers as well.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

This is correct. Bandai released two cassette-based series. Both are incredibly rare, but I've found that the Cassette Case Games are the rarer of the two. I only found one lot for sale on Yahoo! Auctions in six years of searching, and I had to pay a lot to get it.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I'm not resentful or regretful. There are so many parts of my job that I love. Students continue to surprise and delight me every year. But I wish academics were more honest about the myriad aims and purposes at work on campuses, many of which, as Ian points at, are at odds with one another.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Ultimately, I've chosen to lean more toward teaching, but that's had a professional cost. I've sacrificed some measure of prestige and publishing productivity by pouring inordinate energy into the classroom. It's rewarding, but very little of that labor is public-facing.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

With the ever-increasing workloads and ever-diminishing resources surrounding academics, it seems you must make a conscious decision to be a good researcher or be a good teacher. I've tried hard to maintain quality in both, but it's exhausting and frequently demoralizing.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

What I've found (echoed by one of Ian's responses in the comments) is that many faculty try to avoid teaching. Many *actively dislike* it. And why shouldn't they? Beyond the vague, flawed metrics of evaluations, there's little incentive to be good or improve, nor were they ever trained for the job.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Ask any scholar who the most prominent names in their field are; they can rattle of dozens of names, both historical and contemporary. Now ask who the most prominent *teachers* are in their field. The list is far shorter, if they can name anyone at all.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

As Ian points out, universities love to trumpet teaching, but do little to fund, support, or *incentivize* that work (I am, btw, paid less than my 'research' peers). Likewise, there is little recognition of teaching in the larger academic profession.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

But on campus I found an unspoken hierarchy of teaching vs. research professors, where the former were seen closer in kind to lecturers, contingent laborers who were handed the unglamorous grunt work of teaching students, while more serious academics did Real Research.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

The job (and title) ultimately worked for me, because I already loved teaching. And I loved it so much that I was really interested in understanding and improving my craft. Most profs teach the way they were taught, based on vibes and inherited 'wisdom,' whether good or bad.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

...a teaching professor held much cultural currency, nor would it translate to other jobs in other states where that title didn't exist. He was ultimately correct, but I'd been on the job market 3+ years and really needed the work. I was close to giving up and finding another job.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

However, like 99.9% (mild exaggeration) of US doctoral students, I was never trained to teach. I was trained to do research, because that is the path to prestige and funding in academics. My diss advisor, David Golumbia (RIP), warned me against taking the job b/c he didn't think...

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

At root, the bargain was: teach more (5 classes per year instead of 3) in exchange for doing less 'research,' which in my department/division, means seeking grants, heading up a large graduate student research lab, and publishing papers.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

For background, I had never heard the title 'teaching professor'—at the time, known as a Lecturer with Security of Employment—until I was recruited for the job. It was explained as a workaround for someone like myself, trained in the arts + humanities, to exist in a 'lab'-focused engineering dept.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

Ian's analysis about a longstanding internal tension in American universities, increasingly laid bare in the past years due to external pressures, is astute, and rings particularly true with my own experience as a 'teaching professor' in the UC system over the past 10 years.

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vibe-free lifestyle and smiling apple purveyor @ellaguro.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

there are things that annoy me that a lot of people will do when producing their music now that is like "what you're supposed to do" in the same way slamming 80's percussion and blaring synth horns was "what you're supposed to do" in the late 80's. most things end up being specific to an era

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Ian Thomas @wildwinter.bsky.social · 06/07/2026

I've made a new dialogue system. It's open source, has a friendly editor, and runs on Unreal, Unity, Javascript, and Godot. You can find it at patterkit.dev And I've written too much text about it over here: medium.com/@wildwinter/...

patterkit.dev

PatterKit - Write it, play it, test it, ship it.

An open toolkit for dialogue and branching narrative in games. Your writers author in a calm, code-free editor; you drop one small file into Unity, Unreal, Godot, or the web and play it.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Best wishes, Nick! Hope you end up somewhere that values you and your work.

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Ben Williamson @benpatrickwill.bsky.social · 26/06/2026

Research measuring the effects of AI in education has a major quality control problem that should disqualify most of it from being considered in policy discussions or applied in teaching practice. Quick new post from me codeactsineducation.wordpress.com/2026/06/26/t...

codeactsineducation.wordpress.com

The problem with evidence production on AI in education

Photo by Camille Villanueva on Unsplash The research field of artificial intelligence in education (AIED) has a long history of investigating the effects of AI on learning and other educational out…

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vibe-free lifestyle and smiling apple purveyor @ellaguro.bsky.social · 26/04/2026

Neverland Ranch and Epstein Island were functionally the exact same thing

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The Cutting Room Floor @tcrf.net · 09/04/2026

Hey folks! We have an anonymous release today of a very early Punch-Out prototype! There's a lot to see in it (but not hear); check out the @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social video here! www.youtube.com/watch?v=3T5A...

youtube.com

This Punch-Out!! Prototype is Unlike Anything We've Seen Before

YouTube video by The Video Game History Foundation

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 08/02/2026

check out this procession of unfuckable dweebs

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

Look, I have no special affinity to Star Trek, but this visual pun seemed too good to pass up for a game programming topic slide.

A Keynote slide that reads 'Data management' with an illustration of the Star Trek character Data.

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Jordan Magnuson @jordanmagnuson.bsky.social · 13/01/2026

I'm excited to share that Game Poems Issue 1 is now live at www.gamepoems.com/issue01 A new online literary magazine dedicated to exploring the artistic and poetic potential of short-form videogames by publishing new games directly in a playable format. Thanks for playing and sharing!

gamepoems.com

Game Poems #1

An online literary magazine publishing short-form videogames directly in a playable format. Issue #1 features interactive works by international artists and game designers.

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DOKI DOKI CRT PIXEL @crtpixel.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

PAC-MANIA NAMCO 1988 ARCADE

Pac-Man running from the horde of ghosts

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ourlostarcade.bsky.social @ourlostarcade.bsky.social · 14/11/2025

Spotlight Golf contained very state-of-the-art technology for its time, which enabled it to create a unique gameplay experience. According to the Australasian Golf Museum, this tech qualifies it as the "first computer game" and maybe the first electronic computer. Let's investigate this.

Two people watch a person playing Spotlight Golf.

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Ryan Estrada @ryanestrada.com · 06/09/2025

Just a reminder to check for your name in this list of books that OpenAI trained from. If your name is there, they probably owe you several thousand dollars. OpenAI cried that if everyone eligible author files, the company will go bankrupt, so I'm alerting every author I have ever spoken to.

theatlantic.com

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

You all can stop searching, because I found the worst academic book cover of all time.

The book cover for Paul Virilio's Lost Dimension (1991). The graphic design is a nightmare: fish are swimming around a red torii in inky blackness. The title and author text have a fold effect and gradients that look like shit.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 28/08/2025

Quite possibly one of the best/unfortunate typos from an academic text I've ever run across. (From MacKenzie's Human-Computer Interaction 2E textbook.)

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Anna Kornbluh @annakornbluh.bsky.social · 15/08/2025

teachers! excited to share a new website at this late date of Aug 15 to try to help us collectively prepare for back to school in the interpretative humanities classroom assaulted by the AI grift, so we don't have to go it alone. take a look, share, + most importantly: CONTRIBUTE against-a-i.com

against-a-i.com

AGAINST AI

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Video Game History Foundation @gamehistoryorg.bsky.social · 06/08/2025

We've acquired the historic game magazine Computer Entertainer. As in, we got the rights. We own the magazine. And we're putting it into the Creative Commons for anyone to use for free. Learn more: gamehistory.org/computerente...

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News Eye @newseye.bsky.social · 04/08/2025

This is amongst the most impactful two minutes of broadcasting I’ve ever seen. By Emma Murphy, International Editor, ITV News. #Gaza

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 18/07/2025

what strikes me about ai music is how it reproduces a particular style of mainstream engineering/production. not surprising since i’m sure most folks don’t recognize that part of the artistic equation, but i’m still frustrated that music is decomposed into genre/lyric/instrumentation only

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ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories @romchip.bsky.social · 03/07/2025

🎮📜 It’s that time of year game history friends! 📜🎮 The July 2025 issue of ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories is HERE! 🕹️📖 www.romchip.org 🌟 get cozy, get reading 📚✨ SUBSCRIBE: eepurl.com/crCul1 DONATE: bit.ly/3ve1oqZ 🧵 below!

romchip.org

ROMchip

ROMchip: A Journal of Game Histories is a platform designed for the advancement of critical historical studies of games.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 04/06/2025

Look at this beautiful screenshot

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 27/04/2025

I'm hoping to have Cherry Cough Syrup finished by summer. All mainline levels are in place. Brand new UI. Lots of quality of life improvements. Now all the hard work of wrapping up loose ends.

A picture of the first screen of the Cherry Cough Syrup level 'Membrane.'

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 25/04/2025

This would be both a great look and a great sound design approach to a motorcycle racing/traversal game.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 24/04/2025

eerie how close our lists are, though blue jay way is my #1 and i really like the anthology version of tomorrow never knows

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

Neither am I—only our books are.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I'll also add, somewhat immodestly, that I'm on some next-level bullshit with my class slides.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

I'm using this design to illustrate how Bogost structures the book, i.e., bookending individual examples of game criticism with an opening and closing argument about what game criticism is (and could be). Ten years on, it's also a nice snapshot of what games were in conversation at the time.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

A big part of this class is teaching students how to read and analyze difficult texts, whether they be academic papers or magazine images or YouTube videos. But I'm also trying to *demonstrate* the production of arguments using those same media, especially the medium of graphic design via slides.

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 14/04/2025

At some point, I'll share more about my new class, Games as Technical Culture (now on my second iteration), but for now I'm excited to finally have a class that incorporates @ibogost.bsky.social 's How to Talk About Video Games as a means to talk about culturally-informed game criticism.

A title slide reading 'How Do We Talk About Video Games?' incorporating an image of the game Florence.

A slide that provides a subway map-style layout of the chapters in Ian Bogost's How To Talk About Videogames.

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Dominic Tarason @dominictarason.com · 27/02/2025

It's CHARITY MEGABUNDLE TIME! And there's some absolute gems in this one, including Tunic which is just an all-timer and everyone should have it in their library. So let's do a little thread showcasing some of the games, and also the tools you might find handy to navigate this & other Itch bundles.

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Dr Holly Nielsen @hollynielsen.bsky.social · 22/02/2025

It’s the @romchip.bsky.social fundraiser stream today!! 12 hours of game goodness streamed by various cool people to raise money to keep ROMchip going and open to everyone. Watch and donate! twitch.tv/romchipjournal

twitch.tv

ROMchipJournal - Twitch

Tinahacks Runs Super Mario World All Castles! | ROMchip Journal Fundraiser 2025 | !donate !schedule !raffle

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 21/02/2025

Evocative posing, detailed line work, great colors. Really nice work!

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Exceptionally thoughtful writing about exceptionally interesting games. 👇

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Nathan Altice @altice.bsky.social · 10/02/2025

Kendrick’s boldest move might’ve been bringing back ragged boot cut jeans with the early 00s wash.

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