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Nick

Cables and wires

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For Hoover, since we just spent a good chunk of a car ride talking about our opinions on WikiLeaks – one of few political topics we seem to mostly agree upon:

Sites like WikiLeaks work because sources, more often than not pricked by conscience, come forward with information in the public interest. […] It helps guarantee the information won’t be hidden by editors and publishers who are afraid of lawsuits or the government.

Why WikiLeaks is Good for America – Wired

Update: What the crap, England?

That’s Transmedia, Too

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Following the 2010 Media Commons Tailgate (well, really leading up to it as well), we were all in the mental space of Transmedia.  Particularly, I was trying to take a step back to think of ways that projects could transcend one form of media and incorporate others.  I ran through plenty of ideas, some of which were unassuming like the good old paper turned into a video project or video project supported by a PowerPoint presentation, etc.  Then I put the topic on autopilot and went forward with other lines of research – and answering our hotline phone during the end of semester crunch.

Until I found these on io9:

083010_postertext_4.jpg

Combining the actual text of classic novels with iconic imagery into a fully readable – and absolutely beautiful – poster.  Could you imagine asking students to do something similar with one of those staid essays?  Maybe not for a high level research paper, but could really bring some joy into the realm of English 15, no?

Just too late

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Kate just found for me this amazing Tumblr, Everything Punk, Goth and New Wave – a collection of real photos from the heyday of the subculture(s).

Sometimes I think I was born just a little too late.  While my 1984 start in the world put me in the thick of new wave and goth culture, I was a little too onesie-clad to partake in the more interesting fashion choices.  And it may be a little cliché to look like a panel from the Sandman, I’d still thrill at participating in this aesthetic while it was new.

As Kate astutely points out though, “I’d miss the internet.”  So maybe the 80s were best left to my early years?

Rome in a Day

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The Romans may not have done it, but researchers and a home PC (with four monstrous graphics cards, that is) have built a 3D model of some of the empire’s most famous landmarks in just a day.  How?  By pulling from all Flickr photos tagged as ‘rome’ and then assembling them using and image analysis program.  The results are stunning given the speed and unproven nature of the technology involved.  It certainly makes Flickr a more valuable resource – and destroys any remaining thoughts of the need for building in Second Life, at least for me.  What other complex modeling could be sidestepped with these photographic reconstructions?

(BBC)

What I wouldn’t have given for these

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If I were able to give technology like this to my six year old self, my parents hours would have been fully of projected sky cities for my hovering sedans and sports cars to visit and exotic forest planets for my adventurers and scientists to explore.  We’d also have had cameras everywhere, but them’s the breaks, I’m afraid.

I can imagine a school outfitted with this technology that could project different functions onto a student’s accoutrements depending on what room or building was being used.  Would certainly be a worthwhile experiment of kinesthetic learning…

(Engadget)

I Think I Might Go…

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DML Conference 2011: Designing Learning Futures (Katie Salen, Conference Chair) from DML Research Hub on Vimeo.

As a parting gift, Aaron Smith emailed the MC team with information about the Digital Media and Learning 2011 conference entitled “Designing Learning Futures” being held in California this March.  This is a video interview with the conference chair, Katie Salen, who teaches at Parsons the New School for Design (Runway, ahoy).  The conference looked interesting before learning more about Professor Salen but now that I’ve read her bio and seen this video (as well as others on Vimeo) I’m really intrigued and – approval permitting – think this might be the conference for me.  What do you think?  Wanna come, too?

Tale of the First Computer

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Jane Smiley (who came to campus at my last employer during a student recruitment weekend) has just profiled the actual inventor of the first computer, one that formed the basis for ENIAC, the more commonly recognized machine.  In this month’s issue of Wired, you can check out the entirety of her investigation – or read it online right now.  A little geeky detective work is always highly entertaining…especially when it’s being done by someone who is not really known for being into technology!