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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.
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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
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Contributors
some favorites
- Alan Levine
- Andy Rush
- Audrey Watters
- bava.social
- Bonnie Stewart
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- Bryan Alexander
- Chris Lott
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- Darcy Norman
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- David Wiley
- Gardner Campbell
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- Grant Potter
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Author Archives: Reverend
How Did that Tetris Tournament Go?
I have been knee-deep in projects and work and the blog has been suffering a bit as a result, which is never good. I have a significant backup of posts building and there’s just about enough to break the dam, … Continue reading
Weapons Reloaded
The Family Pictures Podcast can’t stop, won’t stop. At this point we’re well over 50 episodes, and lord knows the bava has some blogging to do to catch-up. After our unique awards ceremony, MBS and I decided to re-do one … Continue reading
What Getting a Minidisc Player Working in 2026 Says About Disposable Infrastructure
NB: At some point I started using ChatGPT to help me navigate the technical issues around getting metadata for a ripped CD on Windows 98, so the entire chat might be a useful archive of that. (assuming open.ai is still … Continue reading
RetroTink-ering
Taylor and I have recommitted to the retro-gaming/retro-computing streams in 2026 because they’re just so much fun, and this one did not disappoint. We do recognize out of the gate this stream has nothing to do with hosting and it’s … Continue reading
Tetris Diorama
Sometimes a plan just comes together, but I would be remiss if I didn’t acknowledge it’s all about Riky Saracco keeping on top of my lazy ass. The Halloween bava.studio event was a blast and Riky did most of the … Continue reading
And I’m All Out of Bubble Gum
This is a quick note about the diorama after the next one. I will be working furiously over the next week or two to get a Tetris diorama up for an event honoring Italy’s own Nintendo Tetris World Champion. I’ll … Continue reading
On Writing with Laura Hilliger
Last week I did my first “On Writing” chat of 2026 with gym teacher/blogger Laura Hilliger. Laura and I have been circling each other on the web for a long while, and her fun Reclaim Open submission “My Website is … Continue reading
2025 Family Pictures Podcasts Awards
About a month ago now Michael Branson Smith (MBS) and I did a special episode of the Family Pictures Podcast in order to look back on all the films we had discussed up and until that point (there were 48). … Continue reading
Invasion of the AI Oblivion
I was playing with ChatGPT to explore a couple of versions of an essay I wrote back in 1999 during grad school. I was pretty impressed with both the feedback as well as a re-write ChatGPT did. After the machine … Continue reading
Pac-Mania
I think Pac-Mania was one of the earliest manias I gave myself over to. The others that may have been as all-consuming in scale for a younger bava would’ve been some collecting Smurfs and all-things Star Wars. Also, a bit … Continue reading