tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56229192024-03-08T08:00:14.645+00:00Mildly DivertingIf and when I have a thought, and have ten minutes in the office, I might write mildly diverting thoughts here: about new media in real life, about the web, about the future. But mostly, I think, I'll just wiffle about nothing.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.comBlogger656125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-81903468528831406442013-12-15T18:23:00.001+00:002013-12-15T18:27:11.905+00:00Lost Things FoundThis was written for an advent calendar, for a <a href="http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3579/why-leslie-harpolds-sites-disappeared">dear departed friend</a>, about a slowly departing Father.
It's gone from the Internet Archive now, but I was reminded of it by today's reunited bear.<br />
<br />
I don't want to lose it again.<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
From: Kim Plowright<br />
To: Leslie Harpold<br />
05/12/2005<br />
Leslie,<br />
i finally thought of one for you. It starts sad and ends happy, just<br />
like a Jimmy Stuart film.<br />
I can do you a photo of the bear, if that will help??<br />
--<br />
One of my earliest memories is of loosing my favourite teddy bear.<br />
One winter, when I was about 3 years old I was sitting outside the
butcher's on Canterbury High Street in my pushchair. My mum was
inside.<br />
(The butcher, by the way, was in an Elizabethan half timbered
building, and still had sawdust on the floor in those days; it's a
'Thornons' chain chocolate shop these days...)<br />
As two-year-olds tend to do, I dropped Koko, a stuffed Koala bear
that my Dad bought for me when I was newborn, over the edge of my
pushchair.<br />
(My pushchair, incidentally, was black metal and a kind of deep
turquoise vinyl, and smelt of plastic. This is a pretty strong memory,
can you tell?)<br />
I cried, loudly. My mum came out to see what was wrong.<br />
Anyway - she saw that I didn't have my bear, and looked around on the
ground. No bear. anywhere. Gone. Someone had picked up a teddy bear
from next to the puschair of a screaming child, and taken it.<br />
I was inconsolable.<br />
It must have been shortly before christmas, because my Dad decided to
replace my Koala with one from Santa, as a lovely surprise. He looked
everywhere for a Koala that was <em>identical</em> to the one I'd lost. He
scoured toyshops all over Canterbury, and got more and more upset;
all of the bears had black scratchy plastic paws, which my bear
didn't. He tells me he he was nearly in tears over his failure to find
a matching bear; it was one of those 'I will be a good parent' things.<br />
Eventually, on Christmas eve, in desperation, he bought the only Koala
he could find. Its nose was brown, which was wrong; so he coloured in
the nose with permanent marker pen. Just before he went to wrap it up,
he looked at this bear's paws, and though 'I don't like them, they're
a bit sharp, not really suitable for a small child; I'll cut them
off.'<br />
As he scissored away the paws, he remembered he'd done <em>exactly the
same thing</em> with the original bear he's bought. He'd been looking for
the wrong bear.<br />
On Christmas morning, I got my Koko back, and I loved him more than
anything; I didn't notice the difference. Even now, thirty years
later, Koko sits at the end of my bed, and you can just about see the
marker pen stripes on his scuffed leather nose.<br />
And Koko reminds me what a wonderful, caring man my Father is, and
that he'd go to great, great lengths to make the world just so for me.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildlydiverting/75348484" title="Koko by Kim P, on Flickr"><img alt="Koko" height="333" src="http://farm1.staticflickr.com/9/75348484_865526f98e.jpg" width="500" /></a></blockquote>
And today's bear:
<br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en">
In case you missed it. Well done Internet! <a href="https://twitter.com/laurenannbishop">@laurenannbishop</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/Spottedontrain">@Spottedontrain</a> Kings Cross Teddy's family has been found <a href="http://t.co/iSqv7x0n2O">pic.twitter.com/iSqv7x0n2O</a><br />
— Lost Teddy Bear (@lostteddybear) <a href="https://twitter.com/lostteddybear/statuses/412285245673590784">December 15, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script>kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-67400686814710906542013-11-11T16:20:00.001+00:002013-11-11T22:19:08.745+00:00Bodies of Learning<br />
I'm going to write a thing, and it's going to be very brief. It might even involve bullet points.<br />
<br />
I'm writing it here because it feels longer than a tweet.<br />
<br />
Today I'm at an event at the British Library, about how Digital Humanities are changing scholarship, and the work done by British Library Labs.<br />
<br />
I've been thinking recently about Data - I'm doing a piece of work for <a href="http://www.wearecaper.com/">Caper</a> about the uses of open data in the cultural sector. Part of this thinking has been about the old saw of the route from Data to Information to Knowledge to Wisdom.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.infovore.org/">Tom Armitage</a> talked about this transformation really eloquently at the ODI recently, about how it inflects practice and making of things.<br />
<br />
It strikes me that at the moment we're busy on the first two stages of that route. The government and the ODI are championing open data as a way of improving transparency - forcing governmental and societal change by opening up datasets to scrutiny.<br />
<br />
The ODI are taking it further - looking at teaching and encouraging the skills of visualisation and interpretation: equipping people with the techniques to turn data in to information - usable stuff that exposes insights and opinions.<br />
<br />
Listening to people talk about the importance and difficulty of dealing with huge archives - unknowable quantities of STUFF in books and records and collections and museums and and and and has got me thinking. In particular, a chap whose work involves taking statistically relevant samples of examples from within large library collections - a way of reducing the amount of STUFF you'd need to consume to get an intellectual overview of a field.<br />
<br />
We talk about Bodies of Knowledge, Bodies of Learning. The process of working with an archive is one of becoming expert - of incorporating - of *taking in to your body* the quirks and weft and warp of the data.<br />
<br />
Scholarship is the process of keeping things in mind - of transferring digital data archives in to a kind of biological working memory, incorporated in graduate students and PDH researchers.<br />
<br />
At what point will we be comfortable to allow the machines to store this memory? In the way that books and writing profoundly changed the way the (?) Ancient Greeks thought about the process of creating stories and memory palaces, when will our tipping point come? When the cloud and linked references and annotated assumptions and inferences is *good enough* as an external store of cultural memory.<br />
<br />
Shrug.<br />
<br />
Just thinking.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-89548938419074608382010-02-12T23:26:00.002+00:002010-02-12T23:37:27.955+00:00A small inkling of a thoughtBuzz. There's a LOT of it, isn't there?<br /><br />Anyway, I had to turn it off. Too many distractions in the wrong place. I suspect I'm getting old.<br /><br />There was a huge chat in the office about it: mostly revolving around engineering culture at google, and how a monoculture can become dangerous. You'll have read the same thoughts on a hundred other blogs already, I'm sure. <br /><br />One upshot of the whole storm in a teacup is that I think I may stop automatically blurting all of my twitter updates to facebook. I've noticed my twitter frequency creeping up past one a day, and on twitter that's fine: on facebook, not so much. Besides, facebook has things like people I was at school with, and people whose children I babysat when I was 13, and their expectations are very different from mine in these spaces. So. If you want cormorant reports, you'll have to look elsewhere. I think that might be a tiny venn diagram, though.<br /><br />Anyway, the point of this wittering. Yes.<br /><br />I was just poking through google reader. I've been harmlessly sharing things there for a while - very unobtrusive, you really had to go and look for the stuff. So sorry if suddenly my random bookmarks are being thrust upon you. Didn't we learn the problem of push back with windows98? It's no better when the people doing the pushing are marginal aquaintaces, rather than corporate marketing departments, unfortunately.<br /><br />The thing I noticed, though, was this. There I was, very quickly skim-looking a 'most popular on ffffound' feed, when I noticed that a ffffound post had 23 likes within google reader.<br /><br />So, love has come strongly to Google. They're trying to out-digg digg, by making a digg that suffuses the whole web (sidewiki, reader, etc) at an object level. They can look at the ffffound pages for the activity there, and supplement that with their own love metrics, all cut with their demographic data. It's another way of understanding <span style="font-style:italic;">what's valuable</span> on the web.<br /><br />Just like links, back in google's original model.<br /><br />Which makes me wonder: is the link as a measure of value on the web now dead? <br /><br />In short, are we in danger of SEOing google to death, and is buzz their response to this?<br /><br />Shrug. Maybe.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-27727897781530203262010-02-04T21:49:00.003+00:002010-02-04T22:05:13.485+00:00I should probably apply for this, you know.I got forwarded a job advert earlier on today, that I had to read twice to understand. I thought I'd rewrite it, for fun. Really, I should just stick my CV on the end of this, and hit reply, but frankly life is to short.<br /><br />If it sounds like your cup of tea, visit <a href="http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2010/01/digipedia.aspx">http://www.jisc.ac.uk/fundingopportunities/funding_calls/2010/01/digipedia.aspx</a><br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> JISC ITT: Strategic Content Alliance: Digipedia from Prototype to Pilot Service<br />> The JISC, on behalf of the Strategic Content Alliance, invites tenders<br />> to develop the moderated web resource named 'Digipedia' from prototype<br />> to pilot service.</span><br /><br />We need someone to run our trial website properly.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;"><br />> The Strategic Content Alliance commissioned a prototype moderated wiki<br />> named 'Digipedia' in early 2009. The prototype aimed to link<br />> authoritative information resources on the management of the digital<br />> content life-cycle and produce a plain English narrative which can be<br />> text mined and provide an innovative browse mechanism to enable<br />> resource discovery for a broad audience. The primary audience for<br />> 'Digipedia' is policy makers and practitioners involved in the<br />> creation of digital content in the public and not-for-profit sectors.</span><br /><br />We set up a wiki as a test last year, but haven't shown it to anyone yet. <br /><br />We want it to be easy to read, and easy for anyone to use when they need to find out the best way of making things for people to look at on computers.<br /><br />We think our wiki will mostly be used by civil servants and people that work for charites, who need to know the best way to put stuff on the internet.<br /><br />As anyone can add to the site, we need to check it regularly to make sure no-one's been messing things up for everyone else.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> The aims of the work are to:<br />><br />> Develop 'Digipedia' from prototype to pilot service, providing the<br />> user with an easy to use, authorative, up-to-date and insightful view<br />> on the management of the digital content lifecycle.<br /><br />> Build up a sustainable community of organisations and individuals<br />> working towards developing 'good practice' in digital content<br />> provision at a policy and operational level.<br /></span><br /><br />As we didn't show anyone our small test website, we'd like you to you turn it in to a proper website for people to try out. We hope that a lot of people (and companies!) will use it, and like using it. <br /><br />The website needs to be full of really useful information, stay up to date, and not be full of mistakes. If you make sure it is, we think that people will get involved with it by sharing ideas to make their working lives easier; both when they're coming up with ideas, and making things.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> Develop an effective communications and dissemination plan in order to<br />> raise awareness, seek contributors to and use of 'Digipedia' amongst<br />> key stakeholders at a policy and practitioner level.</span><br /><br />Once you're happy that the website is working properly, we'd like you to tell people about it, so they know about it and come and use it.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> Develop a business plan for sustainability in consultation with JISC<br />> and other Strategic Content Alliance partners.</span><br /><br />We'd like you to think of ways we can make money from the website, once it's working properly, too. You'll need prove that your suggestions will work to some skeptical people, too.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> Total funding of between £75,000-£85,000 (including VAT, travel and<br />> subsistence) is available for this work.</span><br /><br />We'll pay you quite a lot of money for this, and also pay some of your tax, pay for your travel to work, and for your lunch.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> The deadline for proposals is 12 noon UK time on 5 February 2010.</span><br /><br />Please get back to us tomorrow.<br /><br /><span style="font-style:italic;">> A full version of the ITT can be found below.</span><br /><br /><br /><b>I T</b>hink <b>T</b>hat I attached a file to this email - can you find it?kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-79987909397917931092010-01-24T12:20:00.002+00:002010-01-24T13:28:54.507+00:00Negroponte SwitchOne day, I'll fess up to myself that this site is dead, and move on and stop feeling guilty for having nothing to write about. Anyway.<br /><br />I was thinking about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negroponte_switch">Negroponte switch</a> earlier - the little homily that says something like 'everything that was wired, will be wireless, and everything that was wireless, will be wired'. So phones go from tethered to mobile, etc.<br /><br />I wonder if there's a comparable rule operating around culture that says something like 'everything that was tangible will become intangible, and vice versa'.<br /><br />So music - it came on discs of stuff. Now it comes from nowhere - magically into my devices. I'm old fashioned - I still buy CDs, because I rather like browsing in record shops, and hdd crashes have taught me it's nice to have a physical backup around. My livingroom is groaning under the weight of DVDs, CDs... I keep thinking about getting rid of them, but I have an issue with the *potential of not being able to replace the experience*. It's like giving potential knowledge away.<br /><br />Films are going the same way, and much as it pains me to think it books seem to be next. (it pains me, incidentally, because I love books as objects a very great deal, and once considered a career as a bookbinder.) Cultural objects are evaporating in to the datasphere. Look, here's some <a href="http://www.caleblarsen.com/projects/a-tool-to-deceive-and-slaughter/">art about it</a>.<br /><br />Relationships, too - the management of relationships at a distance used to be about gifts, letters, little tokens. Now it's about facebook.<br /><br />The third version of this rule might be memory. Something like 'everything that was forgotten shall be remembered, and everything that was remembered shall be forgotten'.<br /><br />So- I no longer remember dates, phonenumbers, vast swathes of real data (because it's there in my databases, at the poke of a google - the internet is one huge memory prosthesis come factmachine). <br /><br />But what does get remembered now is the minutiae of people's lives, and people who would otherwise have drifted away in to the big 'I wonder what happened to..' are brought to mind every day by facebook. There is no ephemeral, any more.<br /><br />I've been having some interesting discussions with people recently about what this means for grief and bereavement: not the least because of Leslie Harpold's legacy <a href="http://workbench.cadenhead.org/news/3579/why-leslie-harpolds-sites-disappeared">slowly disappearing from the web</a>, but also because of a couple of cases of friends finding out about deaths of people mostly forgotten via facebook. I wonder what our carrying capacity is for our histories to remain present? Is it better that people do just disappear, are forgotten over time - are we giving ourselves an unnecessary burden in maintaining emotional ties?<br /><br />Is there only so much one can bear in mind?<br /><br />I'm not sure. Sometimes it feels that way to me (and I often feel as if I would like to quietly retire from facebook, that 'friends' there don't need to know that I'm having fishfingers for breakfast, etc). But I'm an inveterate forgetter of birthdays, and drifter away; I may be different. <br /><br /><br />Anyway.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-21851059644110297992009-11-09T22:10:00.003+00:002009-11-10T06:32:01.666+00:00Western Digital MyBook Studio failing to mount on OSX LeopardA very boring title, but this is miraculous.<br /><br />I have a Western Digital 1TB MyBook Studio external hard drive, with a triple interface: USB, Firewire 800 and eSATA. It's lovely - quite, roomy, and previous WD drives have been very reliable. It's under a year old.<br /><br />It has all of my last year's work archived on it. A LOT of work.<br /><br />It suddenly failed to mount on my Mac.<br /><br />The disk would spin up - I could hear it spinning the disk up (it's v. quiet, mind) - but the cylon lights on the front wouldn't light up, and it wouldn't mount to the desktop. Checking system profiler for Firewire devices only showed an Unknown Device, and a transfer speed of up to 800Mbps.<br /><br />Disk utility completely failed to see it.<br /><br />So - I'm sitting here thinking that I'd need to rip out the drive, find an enclosure, void my warranty... you name it.<br /><br />And then I found this:<br />http://www.fixya.com/support/t394049-drive_listed_as_unknown_device_mac_os<br /><br /><blockquote>Feb 14, 2008<br />- After posting my question, I got through to a Wd service manager who checked everything out with me and finally suggested I tap the drive sharply on the back since a power button would sometimes stick. I did that and the button must have released since the drive then became bootable, recognizeable and has been working since. Sorry to have been such a bother for so simple a solution; I had tried to work the button but I quess it needed a slap--maybe I do too!<br /><br />Martin</blockquote><br /><br />So - I've just unplugged my drive, given it four hard taps with my knuckles on the casing at the back - and bingo. It works again. Yay!<br /><br />So - <a href="http://www.fixya.com/support/t394049-drive_listed_as_unknown_device_mac_os">how to solve a problem with a Western Digital MyStudio 1TB hard drive failing to mount on a Mac</a>. Worked for me, deserves some google juice.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-42531192019610301622009-09-24T14:25:00.002+01:002009-09-24T14:51:42.547+01:00WikiphageThere comes a point in any project when you have the day when it all seems a bit too much, deadlines growl at you, things just... don't come together.<br /><br />The only proper response is slight hysteria, and a brief burst of creative procrastination.<br /><br />Here is today's.<br /><br /><blockquote><a href="http://twitter.com/mildlydiverting/status/4338590238 ">mildlydiverting</a> Idea - download wikipedia on to a microSD card, and EAT ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE as an art piece.</blockquote><br /><br />Of course, that goes to Facebook (sorry, I know republishing is crass, I just have different friends in different places).<br /><br />And then I did the maths.<br /><br /><blockquote><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Kim Plowright</span> Idea - download wikipedia on to a microSD card, and EAT ALL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE as an art piece.<br /><span style="font-style:italic;">3 hours ago via Twitter </span><br /><br />Jen Bolton, Alison Breadon and Lee Warren Magician like this.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;"><br />Brian Lok Olsen</span><br />can you fit wiki on just one microSD. Perhaps a layer cake with microSD's and cream<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">Kim Plowright</span><br />SO - you can get 16gb on a MicroSd.<br /><br />From Wikipedia's statistics for the English version of wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics<br /><br />Content pages 3,040,693<br />Pages (All pages in the wiki, including talk pages, redirects, etc.) 18,062,483<br /><br />So there are 21103176 pages, of which content makes up (we'll exclude pictures and multimedia for the sake of argument) apx 14.4%<br /><br />The most recent complete compressed database dump is 2.8 Terabytes - 2867 Gb, as there are 1024 G to a T. 14.4% of that is about 412GB, requiring me to eat 16 microSD Cards. I need to do some research in to the components within an SD card: do they contain circuitboards? Would they break apart during digestion? Is there a dioxin or a mercury load involved, and would 16 cards be enough to significantly damage my health? <br /><br />All of these questions remain moot.<br /><br />However, that 2.8gb dump also includes all HTML, and ALL revisions on the pages. I'm only interested in eating the current state of human knowledge: I don't need pretty formatting, or edit wars about Richard Dawkins.<br /><br />You can actually download a data dump (compressed) from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download that contains just current snapshots of page articles. This download is 5gb approximately.... <br /><br />So, we could just eat one micro SD card, with a substantial cost saving (£10.59 for 8gb rather than £34.95 for 16gb), and hopefully less long term health risks.<br /><br />Next decision: how to document this process.<br /><br /></blockquote><br /><br />Right, back to steering the oil tanker with a toothpick, and herding the Schrodinger's Cats.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-73048940641663834582009-08-01T23:31:00.001+01:002009-08-01T23:31:14.951+01:00Rhonda Forever 2003-2009<a href="http://rhondaforever.com/">Rhonda Forever 2003-2009</a><br /><br />This is the most lovely 3d drawing tool. The haptics of it are just fantstic. Makes me want to actually... DO for once.<br /><br /><embed src="http://blip.tv/play/g%2BQBgZLQTgI%2Em4v" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="480" height="390" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true"></embed>kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-86951384437991502382009-06-23T14:41:00.002+01:002009-06-23T15:04:54.779+01:00Reading Dematerials<a href="http://books.google.com/books?uid=7601181449202620646&rview=1">My Library on Google Books</a><br /><br />A few years ago I spent a good few hours scanning the barcodes of my (huge) collection of books, cds, dvds etc using a lovely little bit of software called <a href="http://www.delicious-monster.com/">Delicious Library</a>. It's smart: it uses your built in webcam as a barcode reader, and grabs cover images from Amazon. It also told me interesting things - for instance, I own six books whose second hand value is currently over £100. Alas, even under current circumstances I think I could only bear to part with one of those.<br /><br />The drawback of the software, however, is that it seems to be very much tied in to a desktop paradigm: something I've noticed is fairly common with Mac apps. The latest version has a 'publish to web' option which spits out rather over-designed HTML. It's a database: what I'd like is a way of syncing a list of identifiers with services that are already out there: <a href="http://mildlyd.listal.com/">listal</a>, <a href="http://www.librarything.com/home/mildlydiverting">LibraryThing</a> perhaps. Both of those sites got fed a long list of ISBNS, or a hacky XML file a while ago, and show a frozen snapshot of my library in time.<br /><br />I wonder if Google Books 'My Library' might be impetus to get this sorted. Syncing a list of ISBNs shouldn't be too hard, and an <a href="http://code.google.com/apis/books/">API is out there already</a>, and there are some <a href="http://booksearch.blogspot.com/2009/06/new-features-on-google-books.html">lovely tools</a> coming from the team that help dematerialise physical objects and spread them on the web.<br /><br />I'd love an application that sat on my phone, let me add books to my local library with the phonecam, synced to my desktop application then updated the various sites where I've stored information over time. As more books go online within the Google Books site, suddenly I have a way of searching across the big, physical knowledge backup system I've been carting around and building upon since I was 5. <br /><br />I don't think I could ever get to a point where I'm able to box up my books and leave them in storage: I'm too in love with them as physical objects; they're too totemic. But as physical authentication tokens for locked online data stores, they're also pretty interesting. If you could access a digital version of a text only through holding the physical object up for recognition... Hmn.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-65912025365169437592009-05-24T22:08:00.000+01:002009-05-24T22:08:06.590+01:00Untethered<a href="http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2009/04/28/geocities.php">Ugly and neglected fragments (Phil Gyford’s website)</a><br /><br />Just skim reading this post on the vernacular by Phil.<br /><br />I was thinking, on the bus, the other day, about the history of the move from telephones being that of addressing a space, to addressing a person. A land line number connects you with a house or building, in which space the person you want to address may or may not be coincident. Mobiles untethered the phonenumber from a place, and associated it with an individual. You call someone's number, someone's phone, with no overlay of serendipity beyond can they hoik it out of their handbag in time.<br /><br />I found myself wondering - will the history of the homepage be like this, too? A move from an addressable piece of web real-estate, that may contain the recent activity of an individual; towards a model where a person leaves data trails, a stream, that isn't bound to a certain digital location, or instatiation, but is remade wherever the reader happens to aggregate it. Will the layout of a homepage be superseded by a bunch of feeds - from twitter, flickr... wherever. Are we just a sum of activity rather than publishers?<br /><br />Anyway, it was a half formed thought. I suspect I may just be talking about 'everyware'.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-55631470186801717712009-04-10T00:01:00.001+01:002009-04-10T00:01:29.205+01:00Lost?<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildlydiverting/3426684432/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3372/3426684432_f0f85c2cf3_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildlydiverting/3426684432/">Lost?</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/mildlydiverting/">MildlyDiverting</a></span></div><br clear="all" />kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-36188400368357106772009-02-20T12:35:00.001+00:002009-02-20T12:35:22.476+00:00Things that are exciting<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/15909250@N00/3294221040/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3635/3294221040_40cd7b8857_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/15909250@N00/3294221040/">1314-libreta3</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/15909250@N00/">Mikeyj_cox</a></span></div>I've been working on a really quite bonkers project - <a href="http://www.routesgame.com/">Routes</a> for about 8 months now. We're slap in the middle of our live run, and the most amazing thing has just happened: one of our players has mostly figured out a code based on DNA codons within a couple of hours of the pictures going up on a 'police' website.<br /><br />It's kind of magic to watch.<br /><br />The best thing: he's <a href="http://www.palecomic.com/2009/02/routes-update.html">posted a really lovely explaination</a> of the science behind the code - and even used some of the same sites that helped us formulate the idea for the puzzle originally.<br clear="all" />kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-46396076579602346012009-01-26T20:45:00.003+00:002009-01-26T20:46:44.091+00:00One Of The Reasons I Have Been Quiet<object width="484" height="484"><param name="movie" value="http://www.routesgame.com/games/breeder/widget.swf?userId=88"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.routesgame.com/games/breeder/widget.swf?userId=88" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" width="484" height="484"></embed></object><br /><br />I have been working really quite hard.<br /><br />The little Breeder widget above is just one part of the huge bloody game I've been working on:<br /><br />http://www.routesgame.com/<br /><br />It's about genetics, and stuff. It's quite good. Try it out.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-12300426516566849512008-12-24T10:02:00.001+00:002008-12-24T10:02:10.536+00:00As serious as your life<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><object height='350' width='425'><param value='http://youtube.com/v/b5OM82LTsU0' name='movie'/><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/b5OM82LTsU0'/></object></p><p>Morris Dancing is rad and awesome and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.<br /><br />(I also rather like the fact that this places Four Tet firmly in the tradition of English Folk Whimsy, running straight up from the Victorians via The Wicker Man. It's exactly the thing in his music I like so much. Yes.)</p></div>kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-3591274163343237112008-12-04T23:13:00.001+00:002008-12-04T23:13:02.481+00:00Life Drawing<div style="float: right; margin-left: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildlydiverting/3083481144/" title="photo sharing"><img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3062/3083481144_eab2d08053_m.jpg" alt="" style="border: solid 2px #000000;" /></a><br /><span style="font-size: 0.9em; margin-top: 0px;"><a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/mildlydiverting/3083481144/">Life Drawing</a><br />Originally uploaded by <a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/mildlydiverting/">MildlyDiverting</a></span></div>I finally have something to post about.<br /><br />I went to a life class - my first for a good ten years.<br /><br />I can still draw.<br /><br />This is a very very happy thing.<br clear="all" />kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-61574071794233571002008-07-16T23:01:00.000+01:002008-07-16T23:01:51.014+01:00Interesting storm in an internet marketing teacup<a href="http://www.kungfugrippe.com/post/42288438/loopt-sms-mess">kung fu grippe - The Loopt SMS Mess</a><br /><br />I mean, it's another one of those 'web service behaves like a jerk, all of the right thinking folk on the internet get in a tizz and write blogposts ticking them off' kind of things. See also plaxo, back in the mists of time, and the more recent <a href="http://mykwillis.wordpress.com/2008/07/09/flickr-my-myxer-or-dont/">flickr/myxer</a> brouhaha. It reminded me, however, of a little fauxpas I encountered on Facebook recently.<br /><br />A friend of mine does various bits of ad-hoc PA work for individuals around the place; she's a virtual PA, and very good at what she does.<br /><br />One of her clients is obviously setting up a new small business, and is offering free events to drum up business. All good so far, and perfectly sound marketing practice.<br /><br />So, my friend let a group of us know, via facebook, that there was an opportunity to attend a free event. It wasn't my thing, so I didn't respond. Fair enough - this was contact between two friends.<br /><br />The point it became problematic for me was the third group message that came in to my email, via facebook. Now, I obviously have an opt in relationship with Facebook, so the email is to be expected. And I have a friendly relationship with the person initiating the messages on facebook, which wouldn't be conventionally governed by direct marketing guidelines.<br /><br />What happens, in short, when my friend starts using a personal distribution list, through a third-party service, to promote a commercial venture belonging to a client she is contracted to?<br /><br />There are a few problems caused by this scenario. Firstly, it places strain on my friendship with the individual; it's only a minor social faux pas, of course, we've all made them, but nonetheless there is some social harm done there. Secondly, whilst the first message has a positive effect on the brand being (sincerely, I should add) promoted, the third message does enough damage to send the brand in to a kind of negative marketing equity. There's the damage this situation does to Facebook, too; it becomes 'that place that's full of poorly targeted but well meaning marketing messages sent out by people who don't know any better'. And finally, there are potential legal implications around Facebook's Terms and Conditions, Direct Marketing rules, and data protection issues. Yes, I can opt in to recieving info and messages from my friends, but what happens when those friends become amateur direct marketers?<br /><br />Social marketing is about to enter a messy, painful adolesence.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-85436712620106514492008-06-23T16:12:00.000+01:002008-06-23T16:12:54.030+01:00Gizmodo v. the Truth<a href="http://gizmodo.com/5012347/nasa-scientists-make-magnetic-fields-visible-beautiful#viewcomments">Science: NASA Scientists Make Magnetic Fields Visible, Beautiful</a><br /><br />This is an appalling write up from Gizmodo.<br /><br />The film in question was made by an experimental art / animation duo on the ACE International Fellowship for Art and Space Science at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab in June, 2005. Not, as Gizmodo says, by NASA scientists.<br /><br />Here's the site of the animation duo, who are pretty fantastic. <a href="http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/">http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/</a>.<br /><br />The film - '<a href="http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/root/Magnetic_Movie/Magnetic.htm">Magnetic Movie</a>' - was co-commissioned by Channel 4 and the Arts Council, under the '<a href="http://www.animateprojects.org/about">Animate! Projects</a>' banner, that's consistently produced some of the most interesting animation in the UK over the last 15 years or so.<br /><br /><object width="400" height="225"> <param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /> <param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /> <param name="movie" value="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1166968&server=www.vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" /> <embed src="http://www.vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1166968&server=www.vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowscriptaccess="always" width="400" height="225"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://www.vimeo.com/1166968?pg=embed&sec=1166968">Magnetic Movie</a> from <a href="http://www.vimeo.com/semiconductor?pg=embed&sec=1166968">Semiconductor</a> on <a href="http://vimeo.com?pg=embed&sec=1166968">Vimeo</a>.<br /><br /><br />They work, from what I understand, using the open source visualisation language, <a href="http://www.processing.org/">Processing</a>, and have contributed to <a href="http://www.groupc.net/">Casey Reas</a>' book on <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.co.uk%2FProcessing-Programming-Handbook-Designers-Artists%2Fdp%2F0262182629%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1214233738%26sr%3D8-1&tag=mildlydiverti-21&linkCode=ur2&camp=1634&creative=6738">Processing</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.co.uk/e/ir?t=mildlydiverti-21&l=ur2&o=2" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. Not bad, for artists, really. It's not all paint and gitaines, these days.<br /><br />I'm most depressed by the peanut gallery in the comments who are distressed that it's 'fake'. Well, yes, but no more so than any other diagram or visualisation in any science text book, frankly. It's a way of making the invisible visible.<br /><br />See more of <a href="http://www.semiconductorfilms.com/root/soundfilms.htm">Semiconductor's excellent work on their site</a>.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-33898553473012115212008-06-22T12:13:00.002+01:002008-06-22T14:45:12.428+01:00Roots of Breakdance (Run DMC - It's Like That)<div xmlns='http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml'><p><object height='350' width='425'><param value='http://youtube.com/v/KoQb8vb4blA' name='movie'/><embed height='350' width='425' type='application/x-shockwave-flash' src='http://youtube.com/v/KoQb8vb4blA' /></embed></object></p></div><br /><br />(Edit - hmn, YouTube doesn't seem to be passing the notes around that blog post)<br /><br />I've been rooting around on YouTube looking at dances, inspired by <a href="http://www.sunnyblue.net/mm/archive/jumpen-etc">Tom's marvellous post about Belgian Jump Style</a>. If he doesn't bash a talk together about the cultural hand-me-down chains in dance culture, I may have to.<br /><br />It's something about everything old being new again, or maybe everything new being old again. It's satisfying, anyway.<br /><br />Plenty more little gems on my <a href="http://youtube.com/view_play_list?p=125B8EA201645459">YouTube playlist</a>. Sadly a lot of stuff seems to have vanished. Must remember to download and preserve!kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-49966712056663447472008-06-19T10:29:00.000+01:002008-06-19T10:29:42.443+01:00A Note About Email Validation<a href="http://www.winwithlurpak.com/register/bypost.html">Lurpak</a> are running a compo to win a breadmaker. Whoop de do. Anyway, being the person who opened the new butter at work, I thought I'd enter the code on the site for a giggle.<br /><br />Now, I like to be able to sort my email - I like to treat newsletters, lists and personal mail differently. It's a necessity when you get around a hundred emails a day. A really smart way of doing this is with labels in gmail - by using your.name+label@blah.com you can 'presort' mail in to the relevant label.<br /><br />The format of that email address is absolutely in line with the RFC standards for email - see <a href="http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3696">http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc3696</a>, for instance.<br /><br />It's surprising how very few sites accept the + sign as a valid character, however. I'd estimate 1 in 20 on a good day, with the wind behind me.<br /><br />I wouldn't mind so much, but it's useful to work out if company X has sold on your email address. If, when signing up for a service, you format your email address as your.name+servicename@blah.com. All mail sent to that address ends up in your main inbox, but premarked and filed as from sevicename Then, should spam start appearing addressed to that specific address, you can be fairly sure that servicename is the culprit.<br /><br />Anway, I wish more people were aware of this tip, and that more developers implemented validation properly. That's all.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-84982420633975692232008-06-10T10:38:00.000+01:002008-06-10T10:38:33.766+01:00Reminder - Book your tickets for Open Tech 2008 - 5th July in London.<a href="http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/">Open Tech 2008 - 5th July in London.</a><br /><br />I'm going to be talking about Rembrandt, P0rn and Robot Monkeys. I will also be shaking like a leaf with terror. Come and support me, or come and laugh at the comedy fat girl, it's all good.<br /><br />Here's the detail:<br /><br /><br /> Open Tech 2008<br /> sponsored by BT Osmosoft<br /><br /> Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY<br /> <a href="http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/">http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/</a><br /><br /> Open Tech 2008, from UKUUG and friends, is an informal<br /> one-day conference about technology, society and low-<br /> carbon living, featuring Open Source ways of working and<br /> technologies that anyone can have a go at.<br /><br /> You can pre-register your ticket now at<br /> <a href="http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration">www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration</a><br /> to allow you to jump the queue and pay your fiver on the door.<br /> The last two times we did this, we sold out in advance, so you<br /> are strongly advised to pre-register.<br /><br /> With 3 concurrent sessions, The line-up features:<br /> * Open Rights Group - 2 years, 344 days on<br /> * mySociety - WhatDoTheyKnow.com launch, and other goodies<br /> * Overthrowing Government on a Budget, Keeping Track of<br /> the CIA's Rendition Flights, Tracking Arms Dealers<br /> with Python and Bits of String<br /> * Ben Laurie and friends on network security<br /> * Danny O'Brien's Living on the Edge<br /> * AMEE, and Open Source Solar Heating<br /> * Saving money and reducing carbon through Green IT<br /> * Getting people involved with online media<br /><br /><br /> Totalling 60 talks across 3 sessions covering 9 hours, there's<br /> plenty in the programme for everyone including Rembrandt, Pr0n and<br /> Robot Monkeys, and all that's just in one session!<br /><br /> The full schedule is at<br /> <a href="http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/schedule">www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/schedule</a><br /><br /> You can pre-register your ticket now at<br /> <a href="http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration">www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/registration</a><br /> to allow you to jump the queue and pay your fiver on the door.<br /> The last two times we did this, we sold out in advance, so you<br /> are strongly advised to pre-register.<br /><br /><br /> * Further information *<br /><br /> Sign up for your tickets online, and tick the box to hear from us, or<br /> just send an email to join uf<br /> opentech-info-subscribe@lists.ukuug.org<br /><br /> (your address will only be used to contact you about OpenTech and<br /> will not be passed onto third parties).<br /><br /> - or you can email opentech@ukuug.org if you've any other questions.<br /><br /><br /> We're also looking for volunteers to help out on the day.<br /> In return for free early entry and our eternal gratitude,<br /> we're in need of a few people to show up a bit earlier<br /> and help us set the venue up. If you're interested, or<br /> have random other questions, email us on opentech@ukuug.org<br /><br /><br /> Open Tech 2008<br /><br /> Saturday July 5th - ULU, Malet Street, London, WC1E 7HY<br /> <a href="http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/">http://www.ukuug.org/events/opentech2008/</a><br /><br /> Final programme may be subject to alteration. Thanks for reading!<br /><br /> Cheers<br /> Ben, Etienne, Emily and Sam<br /> your friendly OpenTech 2008 organiserskimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-25368565528261536692008-06-06T14:03:00.000+01:002008-06-06T14:03:58.856+01:00In which Orange need to get their acceptable use policy sorted.So earlier on today I sent round a glowing email about the <a href="http://www.playballoonacy.com/">World's first internet balloon race</a>. I'm looking at widgets for my company at the moment, and I'm really interested in games that use the whole internet as a canvas. Here's (roughly) the text of the email I sent to my co-workers<br /><br /><blockquote>Subject: Possibly the best use of widgets I've seen<br /><br />It's an internet balloon race<br />http://www.playballoonacy.com/<br /><br />Things that are good:<br /><br />I found it because a site I visited had a tiny balloon bobbing in the bottom corner - the experience design is really delightful.<br /><br />The 'add the widgets to your site' is seamless, and allows you to add to a huge number of sites without leaving the main area. It looks like they've outsourced some of that to a company that specialize in distribution and measurement of widgets: http://www.gigya.com/<br /><br />The widget acts as a way for you to track your participation - so it's your interface to the game, but also displays your participation to others.<br /><br />There are two parts to the participation element - so you can race a balloon, and add it to your blog etc, but you can also sign up your site to 'host' balloons for the race. I'm imagining this involves nice flash overlays of floating balloons like the one that led me to the site<br /><br />So the widgets connect each player to their balloon, which could be anywhere across loads of signed up sites - driving traffic across partner sites. It's fun for the players, useful for the hosts, and spreads the message for orange.<br /><br />This is only the third thing I've seen (other than MOO's Treasure Hunt) that uses the 'whole web as a canvas' - the other is PMOG http://pmog.com/ , which requires the download of browser plugins.<br /><br />Also, balloons! on the internet! Brilliant!</blockquote><br /><br />Bad things - the whole of the sign up site is build in flash. Why? Why?<br /><br />And now I have another bad thing to add to my list. Here's an email from Orange:<br /><br /><blockquote>Hi Kim,<br /><br />We've taken a look at your balloon and we're sorry but we can't let it take part in the race.<br /><br />It may be because the name or message contains some naughtiness.<br /><br />To win a luxury holiday for you and your mates in Ibiza you can create another balloon at http://www.playballoonacy.com/</blockquote><br /><br />The wording on my balloon that they have rejected is this:<br /><blockquote><br />"Hello, I'm Antonin. I might be a corporate shill for a dull mobile phone behemoth, but look, I am also a balloon. A Balloon. On the Internet. That's great!"</blockquote><br /><br />This is a fairly close representation of how I feel about the site. It's advertising, and I'm not a huge fan of advertising. It's potentially a little intrusive if you suddenly find your regular spots on the internet are being 'flash mobbed' by balloons. But, the thing is, it's such a good and original idea that I actually signed up, and embedded a widget over yonder, and on my Facebook page. I add very very few applications on facebook, so this should be a major triumph for their marketing department - they've involved a hard-to-reach demographic right off.<br /><br />So.<br /><br /><br />The instructions about naming the balloon say<br /><br />'Write a nice message to get spectators to cheer you on'.<br /><br />And then underneath the text field, they say 'We'll need to check your message before we put it up on the site, so nothing rude.'<br /><br />There aren't any terms in the <a href="http://www.playballoonacy.com/tandc.html">Ts&Cs</a> that I can see which refer to what Orange may consider to be acceptable content, other than 'All Entry instructions form part of the terms and conditions' There's isn't anything to say 'Orange may reject your entry, and you won't be able to re-enter.' It's just 'we need to check it'.<br /><br />And there's no definition of rude. My message certainly isn't obscene. It's possibly a little cheeky, but really, is pointing out that the balloon is advertising for a brand that offensive? <br /><br />At the very least, they need to clarify their community/acceptable use guidelines, and include some wording along the lines of 'messages that we feel might in any way damage our brand will be rejected. And if we do reject them, there will be NO obvious way to go back and edit the offending message, so you've blown your chance to enter.'<br /><br />I think Orange may need to have a think about their approach to user involvement with their brand. If you give your brand to people in a game situation, they will play with it. They will sometimes play with it in ways that don't quite tally with your expectations. You need to allow them to do this, or you will loose the good will they build up through play.<br /><br />For reference - my previous relationship with the brand: I was with Orange for around 9 years, and gave them up last year because they had no decent roaming data plans, and I'd won an N95.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-22521899313479927992008-06-06T11:48:00.000+01:002008-06-06T11:48:44.177+01:00This is what you want, not what you'll get.<a href="http://www.theaa.com/pupil/quote.do">AA Driving School: Learn to drive - Get prices and book lessons - The AA</a><br /><br />I've just stumbled across the most comical piece of usability fail on the AA site. They have a question on their 'get a quote' page that's designed, obviously, to measure the success of their various forms of advertising. The idea is simple - joe-learner-driver comes along, selects where they heard about the AA from, and the marketing department get some useful metrics.<br /><br />Except, the marketing department has supplied a list of their internal categories of advertising, broken down to a minutely detailed level. It's the information they want out of the form, of course, but it's not a list that makes sense to have on the site.<br /><br /> It's very very long indeed, and really, how am I as a customer meant to know about whether I saw their 'Latest Mailer', or their 'October 07 Mailer' - version one, or the second version, labeled exactly the same way two pops lower down the list?<br /><br />I can't imagine that they're getting any useful information out of this form at all. I suggest their client side coders go round to their marketing team, and point and laugh.<br /><br />Here, for posterities sake, is the list. I wonder what a 'DIT advert NE' is?<br /><blockquote><br /><em>How did you hear about the AA?</em><br />NovADIad<br />BOGOF offer<br />AA Member<br />AA Staff<br />Adi News<br />Self sourced pupil<br />Internet - www.AAdrivingschool.co.uk site<br />Affinity Partner<br />Internet - www.AA-Attitude.co.uk<br />Seen car<br />Saw car in the area<br />Complaint<br />Driving Instructor Magazine<br />Driving Magazine<br />Email campaign<br />Friends and family<br />Franchise Sales<br />Internet Advert<br />IAM Magazine<br />IGI Scheme<br />Intuition<br />Leaflet<br />Papers/magazines<br />Magazine Advert<br />Direct Mail<br />Latest Mailer<br />MSA Magazine<br />Newspaper Advert<br />Student offer<br />Other<br />Poster/flyer<br />Returning Franchise<br />Recommendation<br />ADI recommendation<br />Recommended (Not IGI)<br />Roadshow<br />Roadshow lead<br />School/College Uni visit<br />Search engine<br />Voucher<br />Recruitment website<br />Internet Enquiry<br />Yellow Pages.<br />Signature Leads<br />Preregistration Outbound<br />Daily Mirror Jun 07<br />Franchise Sales Jun 06<br />Franchise Sales Jun 06<br />September 07 Mailer<br />AAdvance Leads<br />Outbound Directory<br />September 07 Mailer<br />October 07 Mailer<br />Freshers Fair<br />October 07 Mailer<br />DIT advert BEP<br />DIT advert NEP<br />DIT advert LM<br />DIT advert CEN<br />DIT advert YEP<br />DIT advert SE<br />DIT advert BT<br />DIT advert NE<br />DIT advert SE<br />DIR advert ES<br />DIT advert SWE<br />DIT advert EDP<br />DIT advert METRO<br />DIT advert POLICE<br />DIT advert EEN<br />DIT advert MET<br />LMR VOU<br />TIC 08<br /></blockquote>kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-15307274367306311752008-06-03T14:17:00.000+01:002008-06-03T14:17:46.650+01:00TLA Variants<a href="http://www.web-friend.com/help/lingo/chatslang.html">Chat Slang and Acronyms used in chat rooms, IM, and email</a><br /><br />Public Service Announcement to three of my email contacts (one of whom is my Mother):<br /><br />LOL does not stand for 'Lots of Love'. It stands for 'Laughing Out Loud'. <br /><br />It looks really strange when you sign off your emails with LOL (name). Why are you laughing? Are you not taking the email seriously? Do you find me funny, like a clown?<br /><br />Understand that you may inadvertently upset someone by using the acronym to stand for Lots of Love; they may not read it in the same way you do.<br /><br />Sidenote: I wonder if this is a common change in usage for people who are relative newcomers to the internet? eg, if you're a pre-2000 denizen, it will always be Laugh, but post 2000, Love is the more common interpretation.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-4629066782142007552008-06-01T23:29:00.002+01:002008-06-02T13:34:17.162+01:00In which a lifetime of License Fees are accounted for in 30 minutes<div id="mip-flash-player-b00bv5r5"><script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/page/script/swfobject.js"></script><br /> <script type="text/javascript"><br /> var so = new SWFObject("http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/emp/flash/iplayer-external.swf", "emp", "512", "323", "8", "#000000");<br /> so.addVariable("config", "http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/emp/xml/config.xml");<br /> so.addVariable("metafile","http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/metafiles/episode/b00bv5r5.xml"); so.addParam("allowFullScreen", "true");<br /> so.addParam("wmode", "transparent");<br /> so.useExpressInstall("http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/emp/flash/expressinstall.swf");<br /> if (so.installedVer.major == 0) { _noFlash = true; _flashError = true; }<br /> else if (so.installedVer.major < 7) { _upgradeFlash = true; _flashError = true; }else so.write("mip-flash-player-b00bv5r5");</script></div><br /> <!-- spost --><br /><br /><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bv5r5">ArtWorks Scotland - Alison Watt: A Painter's Eye</a><br /><br />I'm sold on the iPlayer, to the point of having tears in my eyes.<br /><br />Clicking around (and what a terrible interface it is for browsing) I noticed an arts programme destined for broadcast only in Scotland. Except, there it was on iPlayer, too - 30 minutes of television about my absolute favourite painter, Alison Watt.<br /><br />I saw her work for the first time when I found a catalogue to one of her early shows in a second hand book-shop. She's a figurative painter, mostly, although tending towards abstraction of a kind these days. The work I fell for was portraits of women; drawn from art history, a little Ingres, really; very still, very beautiful, chalky and calm. I still love them, and would give anything to own one, to be able to look at it every day as the light changed, to live with it as it unfolded.<br /><br />And here, here is 30 minutes of Proper Arts Television; just long, still shots of the paintings, and then the artist herself - her, there, talking - I'd never seen her before. She's so engaged with her work, she talks passionately about painting, about how it involves you, how you fall for images. The pacing reminds me of the old Modern Times documentaries; there's breathing space for the viewer to take in the pictures here.<br /><br />I'm so happy to have found this; to have been reminded why I love images, and why I love television, and why I love the internet; to be reminded of why my career has travelled the odd direction it has.<br /><br />Thank you, BBC Scotland, and thank you Alison Watt. There is so much happiness and beauty here.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5622919.post-72209650051120304242008-05-22T22:50:00.000+01:002008-05-22T22:50:04.944+01:00My Other First Conference<a href="http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2008/05/an-incomplete-l.html">russell davies: an incomplete list of interesting speakers</a><br /><br />As Russell points out, I'm not giving my Art / Robots / HCI /Porn and stuff talk at Interesting. Instead, at the moment (and it may change if I have a little panic about the subject) I am going to be delivering the following little chat:<br /><br />"This Talk May Suck: The Cultural History of the Vacuum Cleaner"<br /><br />It is more interesting than it appears.kimhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08667956356673687251noreply@blogger.com0