Man sues IBM over firing, says he’s an Internet addict. He is claiming protection under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Robot Bird Watchers? Having a hobby is easier than ever!
What? You mean the people in YouTube videos might be acting, or playing characters? Or advancing a personal agenda? No. No!
That was all a little depressing. End on a high note!
Letters from camp. I loved summer camp. Apparently, not everyone does.
Netvibes: a custom made web 2.0 home page solution. I didn’t even know how badly I needed this until I found it, but there is something so beatifully simple about a modular based customizable personal portal site that just mashes up the best of Web 98 and Web 2.0. Simple, elegant, and best of all, it comes in English and French. And apparently, soon to be available in Esperanto! A few basic themes, the ability to back up your feeds via an OPML file…. it is always nice to come across a web product that solves a problem for you.
I feel so …. organized. And there are so many modules to download.
In today’s Chronicle, two astonishing facts:
1. Wikepedia costs 5 million a year to run
2. They only have enough cash on hand for the next 3 months.
Social Study Games: resource on the social aspects of gaming.
Social Fiction: I can’t even boil this down to one sentence. Check it out, and see why.
How To Become a Hacker: an oldie but a goodie.
I can’t get this to embed properly, but if you haven’t seen this yet, I highly recommend it: The Machine Is Us/ing Us. Via Lawrence Lessig. Made by.
That is me, these days, and having fun. Sorry for the dearth of posts here, lately. I have tonnes of stuff I want to post here on my backup brain (sorry, delicious account, I know you thought that you were my backup brain), but no time.
On the plus side, how cool is it to blog professionally? Many incarnations of new media entrepeneur ago I had some portal-type content management gigs, but really, it is amazing to have a job right now that couldn’t not have existed 10 years ago.
Nothing makes a Friday fun like a random call inviting me to come speak about digital culture at a meeting this Spring. And it sure beats the stress of submitting a conference proposal :)
In the Chronicle this week was a brief article that referenced the CNet article about Universities setting up virtual campuses in Second Life. Couched in the notion that this might be a welcome relief to the lack of classroom space on many campuses was the always present fear of change, naturally, but an interesting note in the article (to me) is the collarboration between Emily Carr, BCIT, Simon Fraser and UBC, which have jointly created the Great Northern Way campus, to create, “…a collaborative initiative in education, research and technology transfer with a focus on the convergence of science and technology with art, culture and design.”
Now that is some interdisciplinarianism right there! It is funny to me the resistance that often occurs upon mention of a virtual classroom in Second Life - a defensiveness, of sorts, about how there is only one way to impart knowledge, and it cannot be improved upon, in any situation, or any circumstance, at any time whatsover, and trying to do so will only lessen the lesson.
I am not a Second Lifer (I have an account, but have only logged in to participate in specific events), but the more I read these articles, the more tempted I am, if only because building objects looks like so much fun. See also, Second Life’s Sketchy Census.
25 Reasons to Publish, by James Axtell.
The Paradox of the Active User: Great read over at 37signals - how do people use technology, versus how they think they will use technology.
Being Digital: A look at Nicholas Negroponte’s 1995 book, Being Digital.
Typeface matters: And Comic Sans is not getting your point across. The Effect of typeface on the perception of email.