Watch the bava blog trailer!
about
is an ongoing conversation about media of all kinds ...
Testimonials:
Generations from now, they won't call it the Internet anymore. They'll just say, "I logged on to the Jim Groom this morning.
-Joe McMahon
Everything Jim Groom touches is gold. He's like King Midas, but with the Internet.
-Serena Epstein
My understanding is that an essential requirement of the internet is to do whatever Jim Groom asks of you while you're online.
-James D. Calder
@jimgroom is the Billy Martin of edtech.
-Luke Waltzer
My 3yr old son is VERY intrigued by @jimgroom's avatar. "Is he a superhero?" "Well, yes, son, to many he is."
-Clint Lalonde
Jim Groom is a fiery man.
-Antonella Dalla Torre
“Reverend” Jim “The Bava” Groom, alias “Snake Pliskin” is a charlatan and a fraud, a self-confessed “used car salesman” clawing his way into the glamour of the education technology keynote circuit via the efforts of his oppressed minions at the University of Mary Washington’s DTLT and beyond. The monster behind educational time-sink ds106 and still recovering from his bid for hipster stardom with “Edupunk”, Jim spends his days using his dwindling credibility to sell cheap webhosting to gullible undergraduates and getting banned from YouTube for gross piracy.
I am Jim Groom
Find out more about me here.
Recent comments
- GNA Garcia on You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
- Alan Levine on Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- Reverend on Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- D'Arcy Norman on Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- Reverend on You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
- Alan Levine on You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
- Reverend on Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It’s Off to ILTA’s EdTech 26 We Go
- Maren Deepwell on Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It’s Off to ILTA’s EdTech 26 We Go
- Eric Likness on Building a Blog You Can Walk Into
- Reverend on Building a Blog You Can Walk Into
- Alan Levine on Building a Blog You Can Walk Into
- Reverend on Goodbye Duke
- Reverend on Deferred Maintenance: Upgrading Mastodon and PeerTube
- Alan Levine on Deferred Maintenance: Upgrading Mastodon and PeerTube
- Kevin on Goodbye Duke
-
Recent Posts
- Unscripted Futures
- Conference, Camera, ILTA!
- You’re definitely Dr Detroit …
- The Reclaim Student Showcase Returns for 2026
- Domain of One’s Own Version 2
- Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It’s Off to ILTA’s EdTech 26 We Go
- Atari 2600 Game Cartridge Display Stand
- Building a Blog You Can Walk Into
- Deferred Maintenance: Upgrading Mastodon and PeerTube
- Fulci the Psychic
browse the bavarchive
Contributors
some favorites
- Alan Levine
- Andy Rush
- Audrey Watters
- bava.social
- Bonnie Stewart
- Brian Lamb
- Bryan Alexander
- Chris Lott
- Clint LaLonde
- Cole Camplese
- Darcy Norman
- David Kernohan
- David Wiley
- Gardner Campbell
- GNA Garcia
- Grant Potter
- Jeffrey Keefer
- Jon Beasley-Murray
- Jon Udell
- Kate Bowles
- Kin Lane
- Laura Blankenship
- Leslie Madsen-Brooks
- Lisa M Lane
- Martha Burtis
- Martin Hawksey
- Martin Weller
- Mike Caulfield
- Mikhail Gershovich
- Mountebank
- Paul Bond
- Scott Leslie
- Serena Epstein
- Shannon Hauser
- Stephen Downes
- The OLDaily
- Tim Owens
- Tom Woodward
- Tony Hirst
Author Archives: Reverend
A Sterling Take
It’s always nice when someone reaches out via email who you haven’t heard from in a while. It’s even better when they leave you with a treat link that you follow for some knowledge. Bryan Alexander is classic for this, … Continue reading
Cheyenne Light Gun
A couple of days ago one of my regulars (a 12 year old golden age video game connoisseur) let me know the Cheyenne gun was not working. I had this issue before, and thought it was going to be a … Continue reading
A Very Smurfy 3D Printer
As a kid I collected smurfs. In fact, I got so into collecting smurfs that my mom bought the display case from the local stationary store one Christmas. I needed it more than the store. It started when my brother … Continue reading
Cavallo Pazzo
I remember almost two decades ago driving down College Avenue seeing a dude with long, curly blonde hair briskly walking along the sidewalk. “Hey, that’s Patrick” I told Antonella. He was taking a familiar UMW jaunt from Campbell to DuPont … Continue reading
5 Hours To Live: Security in the Age of AI and the New Arms Race
I’m trying to get as much of Cloudfest 2026 Gen Xfest 2026 out of my head and on to the blog before it all disappears. I was new to this conference and knew absolutely no one. Add to that I … Continue reading
Who Pays for AI?
I remember being at SXSW in 2009 and it seemed like all anyone could talk about was Twitter. It’s as if it hadn’t been around for a couple of years already. Tom Woodward and I were joking about it, but … Continue reading
Gen Xfest and the Better Suit Industrial Complex
I’m still within the gravitational pull of CloudFest 2026 Gen Xfest 2026, which is always a dangerous thing—but not bad for the bavablog post count! At the same time I’ve been reading Shadow Ticket by Thomas Pynchon, and somewhere between … Continue reading
The European Cloud Revolution
Part of what’s been interesting at Cloudfest 2026 Gen Xfest beyond the AI bonanza—which feels like oxygen casino’s pump into the room to keep people gambling—is the notion of Europe reclaiming its digital infrastructure from big US hyperscalers (AWS, Google, … Continue reading
Gen Xfest: the Quiet Desperation of a Soon to be Forgotten Generation
The title is probably overstating things, but I couldn’t resist. At a certain age, you start to notice that the events shaping the tech industry don’t feel new so much as rhymed. Not because tech or capitalism or anything else … Continue reading
Trans-Europe Express
Yesterday I took a train 11 hours from Trento, Italy to Rust, Germany. It should have come in closer to 9 and a half hours, but I missed my connection in both Munich and Stuttgart. Thankfully missing a connection on … Continue reading