Notebook of Sand

• Recent Publications
• Recent Projects
• Conferences & Speaking
"Comparing Spatial Hypertext Collections"
  ACM Hypertext '09
"Archiving and Sharing Your Tinderbox"
  Tinderbox Weekend London '09
"The Electronic Nature of Future Literatures"
  Literary Studies Now, Apr '09
"The World University Project"
  St. John's Col. Cambridge, Feb '09
"Ethical Explanations,"
  The New Knowledge Forge, Jun '08
Lecture, Cambridge University
  Tragedy in E-Lit, Nov '07
Hypertext '07: Tragedy in E-Lit
Host for Tinderbox Cambridge '07
Keynote: Dickinson State Uni Conf
Upper Midwest NCHC'07: Speaker
eNarrative 6: Creative Nonfiction
HT'05: "Philadelphia Fullerine"
  Nelson award winning paper
NCHC '05:
 Nurturing Independent Scholarship
Riddick Practicum:
  Building Meeting Good Will
NCHC '04:
  Philadelphia Fullerine
  Lecture on American Studies
WWW@10: Nonfiction on the Web
NCHC '03: Parliamentary Procedure
ELL '03 -- Gawain Superstar
• (a)Musing (ad)Dictions:

Ideas. Tools. Art. Build --not buy. What works, what doesn't. Enjoy new media and software aesthetics at Tekka.

Theodore Gray (The Magic Black Box)

Faith, Life, Art, Academics. Sermons from my family away from home: Eden Chapel!

My other home: The Cambridge Union Society (in 2007, I designed our [Fresher's Guide])

The Economist daily news analysis

Global Higher Ed blog

• Hypertext/Writing

Writing the Living Web

Chief Scientist of Eastgate Systems, hypertext expert Mark Bernstein. (Electronic) Literature, cooking, art, etc.

Fabulous game reviews at playthisthing.

• Stats

Chapter I: Born. Lived. Died.

There is a Chapter II.

Locale: Lancaster County Pa, USA

Lineage: Guatemala

Religion: My faith is the primary focus of my life, influencing each part of me. I have been forgiven, cleansed, and empowered by Jesus Christ. Without him, I am a very thoughtful, competent idiot. With him, I am all I need to be, all I could ever hope for. I oppose institutional religious stagnation, but getting together with others is a good idea. God is real. Jesus Christ is his Son, and the Bible is true. Faith is not human effort. It's human choice. I try to be the most listening, understanding, and generous person I can.

Interests: Anything I can learn. Training and experience in new media, computer science, anglophone literature, education, parliamentary debate, democratic procedure, sculpture, and trumpet performance. Next: applied & computational linguistics, probably.

Education: Private school K-3. Home educated 4-12. Graduated Summa Cum Laude from Elizabethtown College in Jan 2006. As the 2006 Davies-Jackson Scholar, I studied English at St. John's College, Cambridge University from 2006 - 2008.

Memberships: Eden Baptist, Cambridge Union Society, ACM, AIP, GPA.

Alum of the Elizabethtown College Honors Program, sponsored by the Hershey Company.

Fiction
Tuesday, 18 Apr 2006 :-:

As you know, fiction is usually not my habit, but you may appreciate the following paragraph I wrote to illustrate the difference between reporting detail and storytelling:

** * **

A good DM fills in the details, makes the world more real. But you don't want a DM who is like those crazy minimalist adventure games:

"You are in the crystal caverns. There is a blue light in the corner. On the floor is a metal rod. There are exits to the North and East. An unlocked grate lies underneath your feet.

A small dwarf stares at you curiously."

That just won't do. Something like this would be much better:

"Is this my reward," thought Glamdring as he emerged from the tunnel, "a handful of broken glass?" The worthless crystals on the walls struck his soul with bitter shards of regret. And the grue? Glamdring's triumphant shot in the dark now rang hollow, like the final cries of his dying enemy.

"A monster? Maybe it just wanted to be left alone in this dismal cave, the only place it could call home," the elf muttered. "They said that the pure in heart could find great wealth in the underground city. Ha! If I had an ounce of wisdom, I would have walked away long ago." He looked up. A dim blue glow at the other end of the cavern almost illuminated the chamber, but instead just reflected faintly off the craggy walls.

"Curse you! And all false light in this wretched world!" Glamdring uttered in anguish.

At that, the light stirred and rose. It came closer. Its bearer held the lamp higher, and Glamdring saw the icy stare of a mountain-dwarf in the blue dimness.