[via: http://nofilmschool.com/2012/02/advice-creating-transmedia-documentary/ via Thomas Steele-Maley]

[Made with Klynt: http://www.klynt.net/ ]

[Related Bear 71: http://bear71.nfb.ca ]

"Edit Rich Narratives
*Mixed Media Editing: Texts, images, audios, videos and hyperlinks
*Multiple Interactive Layers: Manage unlimited story nodes
*Visual Storyboard: Edit your storyboard like a mind map

Connect Your Story To The Web
*Mash-up Ready: Mix YouTube videos and FlickR images
*Facebook & Twitter Friendly: Share your favorite sequences on social networks
*Custom Maps: Geolocalize your content

Publish Anywhere
*Quick Publishing: Automatically export your final edit
*Embedable Anywhere: Show your program on any webpage
*Tablet and Mobile Device Compatible: iOS player available this Spring"

[See this project example "Journey to the End of Coal": http://www.honkytonk.fr/index.php/webdoc/ ]
[Related: http://nofilmschool.com/2012/02/advice-creating-transmedia-documentary/ ]
[See also Bear 71: http://bear71.nfb.ca ]

"So what is it that sites like Findings and Readmill do? I would say that they enable asynchronous interactive digital commentary. That's a mouthful; it's a lot easier to say that they "make reading social." But easier in this case is definitely not better. All these digital possibilities are turning the old and familiar experience of reading on its head, and the language we have to describe the changes hasn't even begun to catch up. It needs to start."

"The study of synesthesia has helped shift the way scientists think about the brain. In the past, they have focused on matching different areas with specific functions; now, the entire organ is viewed as a tapestry of interwoven connections.

"The whole system is a giant network," Eagleman says. "It's no longer sufficient to think about single areas in isolation."

Like synesthesia, many neurological disorders — such as schizophrenia, autism,Alzheimer's disease, depression and epilepsy — have been linked to abnormal communication between brain regions. The hope is that as neuroscientists learn about how the connections in the synesthetic brain differ from those in normal brains, they will also gain insight into how these differences develop — and how they sometimes manifest as harmful disorders."

"Audio extra: Test yourself, can you taste the sounds?

Oxford University psychologist Charles Spence studies human senses and how they interact. In recent studies, he had people smell wines and sample chocolate, and then match the different aromas and flavors to different musical sounds.

He found that people tend to associate sweet tastes with high-pitched notes and the sounds of a piano. People match bitter flavors with low notes and brass instruments.

Spence wondered if he could put this finding to use. Could he use music to influence what people smell or taste?"

[From 3. Joi Ito]

"The Japanese government once asked me to be on a committee about taxes and information technology. The first thing I said was, 'Let's figure out a way to use resources more efficiently to lower taxes.' And they said, 'No, no, no--this committee is about using computers to collect more tax.' So I asked, 'How do we reduce costs?' And they said, 'Oh, there's no committee for that.' [Laughs] That's the problem with large organizations. They create roles and constraints, and sometimes people forget why they're there."

"The cause of synesthesia is still subject to research, but it’s generally believed to be the result of a genetic mutation on the X chromosome, explaining its dominance in woman and high heritability. Some researchers think its heritability could suggest an evolutionary benefit. Sickle cell anemia, for example, can be deadly, but also provides malaria immunity. Does synesthesia provide a similar benefit?

It might if you’re a mathmetician or an artist. One of the peculiarities of some forms of synesthesia is that equations are visualised in 3D space, which might help someone like physicist Richard Feynmann, another famous synesthete, with his work. David Hockney, also a synesthete, once told Robert Burton that when he was designing a piece of art intended to accompany a production of a Maurice Ravel piece, he listened to the relevant section of the score and “the tree painted itself.” It’s also been suggested that savants like Daniel Tammett get their incredible skills from…"

"This is a seminar about making. It’s run out of the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, Spring, 2012. We will focus on creating products, services & experiences, broadly defined, for the Harvard Library community. With generous funding provided by Prof. Robert Darnton and the Harvard Library Lab, projects will be deployed in «Test Kitchens» — partner libraries, such as the Loeb and Widener Libraries, that allocate portions of their public space to these experiments."

"Harvard Library has established the Harvard Library Lab in order to create better services for students and faculty and to join with others in fashioning the information society of the future.

By offering infrastructure and financial support for new enterprises, the Lab offers opportunities for individuals to innovate, cooperate across projects, and make original contributions to the way libraries work.

The Lab leverages the entrepreneurial aspirations of people throughout the library system and beyond and promotes projects in all areas of library activity. Proposals from faculty and students anywhere in the university are welcome and the Lab encourages collaboration with MIT."

"What is the Harvard Library Innovation Laboratory?
We are a small group within the Harvard University Library system that implements in software ideas about how libraries can be ever more valuable.

What do you do?
We hack libraries...in the good sense of discovering and delivering more capability and value.

Can you be a little more specific?
We work in three broad areas:
1. We think in public.
2. We build software that demonstrates how libraries can bring yet more value to scholars and researchers.
3. We amplify our effect by eagerly partnering with other groups with similar passions."

"Bibliotheca II, alias “son of Bibliotheca” (last semester’s seminar/studio jointly run by Jeffrey Schnapp & John Palfrey), has now been launched with the help of Ann Whiteside (chief librarian at the Loeb Design Library), Jeff Goldenson (Law Library Innovation Lab), and Ben Brady (GSD). Otherwise known as The Library Test Kitchen or the “library rapid prototyping lab,” it’s being generously funded by the Harvard Library Lab. Questions of every kind are on the table regarding the future of libraries from signage to furniture, policies to experiences. The point is to build stuff: to translate “ah-ha” insights into actual devices, to fabricate the next new online/offline appliance (or at least a plausible iteration of such an appliance). Once these exist, we plan to deploy & test them in partner libraries, such as the Loeb Design, Widener & Fine Arts Libraries, that allocate portions of their public space to experimentation. We’ll be posting our progress to www.librarytestkitchen.org ."

"“Wellman is finding that Twitter isn’t flat,” Vidantam says—as if Tom Friedman’s chimerical “flatness” (the analytic value of which has proven to be nil) is the only possible quality of transformative political agency.

In last year’s revolutions, it wasn’t flatness that gave social media its power. It was its hyperlocality, its novel blending of intimate communities and witness at a distance.

Other work in which Wellman is involved argues for the richness of real-world community life that gets instantiated in Twitter. In a paper called “Imagining Twitter as an Imagined Community,” Wellman & his coauthors find that Twitter networks are “the basis for a real community, even though Twitter was not designed to support the development of online communities. There they conclude that “studying Twitter is useful for understanding how people use new communication technologies to form new social connections and maintain existing ones.”

Here’s the thing: Twitter is part of the “real world.”"

"But Foreclosed seethes with disdain for the suburbs, and the lack of an empathetic understanding of how the suburbs function and are changing, ultimately makes the exhibit look less visionary than ignorant…

These radical visions that are so insensitive to the suburbs remind me of the Modernist public housing projects that were once foisted on inner cities. Created by well-intentioned but essentially ignorant architects and planners, those buildings made sense in theory but not in practice. They didn’t respond to the rhythms and needs of the people who would be housed there, because the architects didn’t really respect or understand the lives of poor people. MoMA should have found some architects who could love and live in the suburbs, showing us the way to make the most of suburban housing instead of wishing it didn’t exist."

"One of the most annoying stances of the Sensible Centrist Very Serious People crowd is that even though they are dominant force in Washington, despite not having any real constituency, they imagine themselves to be an extremely brave oppressed minority speaking truths that nobody else dares. Except for every damn day on every page of every one of our national newspapers."

"The power to understand and predict the quantities of the world should not be restricted to those with a freakish knack for manipulating abstract symbols.

When most people speak of Math, what they have in mind is more its mechanism than its essence. This "Math" consists of assigning meaning to a set of symbols, blindly shuffling around these symbols according to arcane rules, and then interpreting a meaning from the shuffled result. The process is not unlike casting lots."

This mechanism of math evolved for a reason: it was the most efficient means of modeling quantitative systems given the constraints of pencil and paper. Unfortunately, most people are not comfortable with bundling up meaning into abstract symbols and making them dance. Thus, the power of math beyond arithmetic is generally reserved for a clergy of scientists and engineers (many of whom struggle with symbolic abstractions more than they'll actually admit).

We are no longer constrained by pencil and paper…"

Notes here by @tealtan:

"unusual contexts in writing / reading text

“In a hyperliterate society, the vast majority of reading is not consciously recognized as reading.”

“What readers expect is more important than what readers want.”

Bill Buxton: “every tool is the best at something and the worst at something else”

skills, path-dependency, learning effects

“…we actually like constraints once we're in them.”"

"Can I Stream is a simple search engine to find what Movies and TV shows are available for legal streaming on the web. Instead of slogging through several sites trying to find the movie you want to watch online, you can search Can I Stream and find out immediately.

To search for a Movie or TV Show, just click the dotted line above and enter your search. Expert users can skip right to the results straight from the URL by typing in their title split by dashes - for example, http://canistre.am/back-to-the-future.

Can I Stream is a side project from Chris Dary, a developer at Arc90."

[Jonathan Harris tells three stories about his fourth grade teacher, Baz

1. What make a great teacher?
2. How to engage your audience
3. On death]

"Algebra, as designed by McGraw-Hill for iBooks 2, is lighter by pounds. It's indexed for search. It's quick. You can highlight the text and insert notes. It removes one layer of abstraction between students and tools that already existed. Rather than accessing quizzes, tutorials, and enrichment videos by loading a CD-ROM into a computer or entering a password into a website, they're a tap away.

That's where the differences end. Students still interact with mathematics as they always have…

What I'm saying, basically, is that I'd have to modify, adapt, and extend the McGraw-Hill iBook in all the same ways that I modified, adapted, and extended the McGraw-Hill print textbook. We'd pull out the iBook just as infrequently as its printed sibling."

"Norman Brosterman discusses the history of kindergarten and its influence on such modernist giants as Frank Lloyd Wright, Wassily Kandinsky, Piet Mondrian, Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus school.
In his book Inventing Kindergarten, Brosterman argues that within this lost world of women and children we can locate the seedbed of modern art. With its emphasis on abstract decomposition and building up from elemental forms, the original kindergarten system of the mid-nineteenth century created an education and design revolution that profoundly affected the course of modern art and architecture, as well as physics, music, psychology and the modern mind itself."

"Print textbooks are powerless to facilitate that moment right there. Teachers can't facilitate it, not at anywhere near the speed and ease I'm suggesting. iBooks Author can't facilitate it either, but if it could — if it had some kind of "Q&A;" widget that lived alongside its other widgets and basically copied all the options from Google Forms — I'd find the platform difficult to resist.

But iBooks Author doesn't exist for the pleasure of math education publishers or even education publishers. "This is about Apple versus Amazon for who will sell digital literature in the future," says Audrey Watters. "This isn't really about textbooks."

iBooks Author serves publishers, period. It'll help you publish your Firefly fan fiction, your autobiography, or your Nana's recipe collection. It's extremely useful, broadly speaking, which inevitably means that, narrowly speaking to math education publishers, it's much less useful."

"…beautiful thing about writing is it has no real respect for credentialism. You can get various degrees in writing. (…my initial plan was to get MFA.) But a degree can't make you a writer in the way that JD can make you a lawyer.

Great writing comes from all classes people…all kinds of experience. Edith Wharton was raised rich. EL Doctorow was not. 

When I visit schools around country I consistently repeat this—not because I think school is worthless, but b/c, very often, there are kids in audience who are lost, just as I once was. I don't come there to contravene their education…to tell them to drop out. On the contrary, I try to reinforce the ethic of hard work. But they need to know that a grade in a class, is not who they are—and I would say that whether the grade is an A or F. I failed English in HS…then failed British Literature in college. For whatever reason, it simply wasn't my time. But had I taken those grades as an eternal mark, I doubt I would be talking to you now."

"I certainly still lie awake some nights worrying that I am in denial, that Simon has some gross deficiency not yet identified, and I am did him great a disservice. I worry constantly that I should limit his reading and solitary time and push him into sports and classes and social activities. But just when I am about to write that check for ice hockey classes I touch base with my instinctive sense of my son, this imaginative, overly verbose happy creature, and decide not to risk ironing out his uniqueness.  Until we can figure out more creative ways to educate and encourage introspective boys who are neither high achievers nor troublemakers—boys “in the middle,” like Simon–I will keep holding my ground, my breath and my tongue, and shoo away the well-intentioned label makers who cross our path."

"We grew up with the Internet and on the Internet. This is what makes us different; this is what makes the crucial, although surprising from your point of view, difference: we do not ‘surf’ and the internet to us is not a ‘place’ or ‘virtual space’. The Internet to us is not something external to reality but a part of it: an invisible yet constantly present layer intertwined with the physical environment. We do not use the Internet, we live on the Internet and along it. If we were to tell our bildnungsroman to you, the analog, we could say there was a natural Internet aspect to every single experience that has shaped us. We made friends and enemies online, we prepared cribs for tests online, we planned parties and studying sessions online, we fell in love and broke up online. The Web to us is not a technology which we had to learn and which we managed to get a grip of. The Web is a process, happening continuously and continuously transforming before our eyes; with us and through us…"

[Update: Response by Alan Jacobs: http://ayjay.tumblr.com/post/18029873515/participating-in-cultural-life-is-not-something ]

[Update 2: Lengthy response, take-down: http://www.lileks.com/bleats/archive/12/0212/022212.html ]

[Chaser: http://metalab.harvard.edu/2012/02/twitter-nprs-morning-edition-and-dreams-of-flatland/ ]

"Adams, Plaid and Persen combined the poem with electronic music and the ambisonic field recordings to produce a piece titled Nord Rute -- the first in a four-part collection of performances about indiginous peoples titled The Compass Series, which merge poetry from Valkaeapää, music from Plaid and ambient audio from Adams. Nord Rute is a narrative account of the Sami people's annual migration.

The resulting performance is described as a "three dimensional psycho-acoustic experience" and an "ambisonic narrative evocation". During a performance the floor is covered with reindeer pelts and surrounded by speakers that create a plane of sound within which blindfolded audience members can immerse themselves in the atmosphere of the journey across the frozen wastes. To enhance the experience, there'll be absolutely no heating -- blankets will be provided and schnapps will be served instead."

"Original and world-changing design was long considered the product of solitary geniuses, masters and heroes, but recent research has argued that cultural innovation is often the result of everyday actions by ordinary people. This course critically and creatively examines the dynamic and collaborative networks that characterise professional and amateur design today, and prepares students to face the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead."

[Course aims, course content, course assignments (4 of them) follow, all worth reading]

To get started, students are required to complete the following task (adapted from The Exercise Book) for the first tutorial:

1) Go for a walk with a notebook and pay close attention to what’s going on around you.

2) Compose one written page with three sections. Start the first section with “I see…”, the second section with “I remember…” and the third section with “I imagine…”."

"Love Berlin. Human scale of Boston, sophistication of Brooklyn. And way cheaper, even in 2012. Wish I could share it w/ @bjford, @infrathin."

"Absolutely. It’s been so shocking to see the demonization of public servants. It’s really part of this 40-year attack on the public. And I think the fact that we’re seeing right now that teachers, public janitors, school workers, bus drivers, cops, firefighters are the new welfare queens in our public life.

I mean, really they are. I mean, if you think about the stereotype that’s being trafficked right now. They’re talking about these lazy, you know, bloated pensions that are just, you know, cheating the system. I mean, that’s the welfare queens of the 1980s. And what has been– what’s the same between the welfare queen and this image of the postal worker who doesn’t really deserve the benefits they’re getting? These old shop worn stereotypes of race and gender."

“I just got my Weegee + Barthes + Chris Alexander + IF + symbolic logic + narratology fancies tickled at once.” —Max Fenton at 2/19/12 7:39 PM

(Source: http://twitter.com/maxfenton/status/171393503849488384)

"In New York, the affluent typically send their children to private schools. But not the foreign-born affluent. In a divergence, a large majority of wealthy foreign-born New Yorkers are sending their children to public schools, according to an analysis of census data.

There are roughly 15,500 households in the city with school-age children where the total income is at least $150,000 and both parents were born abroad. Of those, about 10,500, or 68 percent, use only the public schools, the data show.

That is nearly double the rate of American-born parents in the city in the same income bracket."

"That’s where Argentina seems to have failed. The collective memory of the oligarchy did not adapt to include immigrants. And those immigrants held tight to memories they could not pass on. Their children were caught in an identity crisis that is still visible today. Official attempts to revise history & demonization of anyone who disagrees with their cause are two recent examples of that conflict. Such unhealthy policies continue to prevent the formation of any type of collective bond."

"For every Steve Jobs, there are a thousand leaders who learned to hire smart people and let them build great things in a nurturing environment of empowerment and it was AWESOME. That doesn’t mean lowering your standards. It doesn’t mean letting people do bad work. It means hiring smart people who get things done—and then getting the hell out of the way."

"Novelist and philosopher Umberto Eco once said that the list is the origin of culture. But his fascination with lists and organization grew out of his longtime love affair with semiotics, the study of signs and symbols as an anthropological sensemaking mechanism for the world. In bridging semiotics with literature, Eco proposed a dichotomy of “open texts,” which allow multiple interpretations, and “closed texts,” defined by a single possible interpretation. Since semiotics is so closely related to language, one of its central inquiries deals with language acquisition — when, why, and how children begin to associate objects with the words that designate those objects. Most children’s picture books, with their simple messages and unequivocal moral lessons, fall within the category of “closed texts.”

In 1966, Eco published The Bomb and the General — a children’s book that, unlike the “open texts” of his adult novels with their infinite interpretations, followed the “closed text” format…

"Reconciling oneself to the fact that projects "take the time they take" can be a necessary step in finishing projects at all. My mind is not simply prone to distraction, it is prone to rebellion. The wrong kind of pressure makes it resist its own commands, sends it spinning out of its own control. Bearing down, reining in, whipping harder doesn't get "me" back on track so much as set me against myself in a showdown I always lose winning. Better to just glide on the thermal of whim until the destination once again comes into sight and a smooth approach becomes finally possible.

Not to say that one can drift one's way to success. Aims must be fixed and kept in mind, even if one knows it's worse than useless to charge right at them. One must develop a sense of one's attention as one develops a sense of a powerful but skittish horse, calmly riding wide of known dangers…

We need to reconcile ourselves to our own temperaments, stop trying to fight or drug ourselves into submission…"

"For decades, Japan simply imported the wares of foreign cultures, but recession has led to invention. The country has begun creating the finest American denim, French cuisine and Italian espresso in the world. Now is the time to visit."

"During the robust economy of the '80s, Japan's exports ruled, and the country would import the best that money could buy from the rest of the globe, including Italian chefs and French sommeliers. Which made Japan an haute bourgeoisie heaven where luxury manufacturers from the West expected skyrocketing sales forever.

But now 20-plus years of recession have killed that dream. Louis Vuitton sales are plummeting, and magnums of Dom Pérignon are no longer being uncorked at a furious pace. That doesn't mean the Japanese have turned away from the world. They've just started approaching it on their own terms, venturing abroad and returning home with increasingly more international tastes and much higher standards…"

"One August morning in 2010 I woke up before dawn to go bushwhacking near the Belarussian border. My guide…was waiting outside to take me into one of the last patches of primeval wilderness in Europe, Białowieża Forest."

"The forest is sensitive to small changes in microclimate & soil chemistry. They determine which species of tree will grow best, & the trees in turn affect everyting else. Some of them engage in ruthless chemical warfare, dropping leaves or seeds that poison the soil for their rivals, or attracting animals to trample the competition. Others suction up water at a prodigious rate to dry out their neighbors. The forest is one giant monument to plant’s inhumanity to plant."

"Apart from a blade of bisongrass, each bottle of this vodka also includes an implicit raised middle finger to the Latin alphabet, in the form of the magnificent Polish word źdźbło (blade of grass). That last vowel represents the rest of the word laughing at you after you have tried to pronounce it."

"Thus far this sign has been my most productive inspiration. It seems to have a speculative, fantastic layer and a cautionary one.

The speculative layer is about objects with intention and behaviour. This restaurant is trying to stay close to you, it caused some un-named inconvenience in the past. Its owners (trainers? suppliers? workers? subjects?) are sorry about that. Sentient restaurants! Good.

The cautionary layer is about the weirdness that comes from software that tries to solve problems. In this instance what happens when spellcheck meets people who don't speak English as their first language? You get something that seems right but isn't, you get SUBTLE FAIL, which is more intriguing and dangerous than EPIC FAIL

SUBTLE FAIL is going to be interesting in a world of 3D printing and the internet of things."

"My son checks online about a college out east he’s curious about. He picks up a few facts and data. And suddenly he’s panicking about his class schedule. We see natural disasters occur – many times live on our televisions or computers – and we become overcome with a desire to help. Again, some of these things are extraordinarily good. But they illustrate the demands placed on our shoulders by having easy access to information.

Technology makes it nearly impossible for many kids to get a break. When I was a 16-year-old who had a bad day, I’d go home, put some headphones on and listen to my favorite album until my dad called me down for dinner. Today, that same 16-year-old might toss on headphones and listen to music on their iPhone. But they also are checking Facebook and texting at the same time. They still are getting sucked into the drama of their life and their friends."

"Unconference formats are great and powerful, but they require a thorough knowledge of the audience and speakers alike and very experienced moderators. I would suggest a simplification of the process for future endeavours.

Reduce the amount of tracks and talks to a minimum. one track, five to six talks per day, one hour each. As history keeps reminding us, less is more. Better off with six bad-ass, in-depth and engaging talks during a single track than four tracks and a myriad of cliched talks that barely scratch the surface of the topic."

[Seems to me that this misses the point of the unconference. There shouldn't be any talks at an unconference, just conversation (possibly activities/tinkering too). See the comment from Martin Eriksson. Also, unconferences are usually (but not exclusively) focused on the local.]

"In recent years, and personal art projects and regions worldwide has led to an international exhibition was held in various parts of Japan, while there are regional ties and art.

Move arts Japan is, connect the (AIR) Artist-in-Residence program throughout Japan, as well as information for artists, curators as the target, researchers, art coordinator, also an art fan, a journey in the wake of Art AIR is a portal site of Japan's first provides a wide range can be carried out until the reservation."

"a blog post by Tag Savage [http://sexpigeon.org/post/16729718345/path-puts-a-silly-amount-of-trust-in-its-avatars ] about Path’s user interface choices in their app. Central tennent: if a place is too pristine and planned, it can’t be colonized. Tag’s words:

"Path is pretty in the same designy way as our modern museums. […] These museums are very exciting when they open. You show up and marvel along with all of the other fans of architecture. Maybe you return for one of those nights where they stay open late and there is a band and drinking. “A great space,” you think. […] The art doesn’t get talked about so much at these museums."

Path is a monument to Path. It is no place to scribble in. I wish it longevity so that it might find shabbiness.

A tricky balance, to be sure, but one that must be navigated if a product is dependant on user’s content. Part of the product must be left undone to provide the opening for the user to contribute."

"A master is often considered a specialist, not a generalist — but I disagree. They are defined by a specific perspective, which they have hone through weaving together many threads of experience and craft.

The richer their experiences, the richer their perspective.

"Japanese chefs are now cooking almost every cuisine imaginable, combining fidelity to the original with locally sourced products that complement or replace imports. When they prepare foreign foods, they’re no longer asking themselves how they can make a dish more Japanese—or even more Italian, French or American. Instead they’ve moved on to a more profound and difficult challenge: how to make the whole dining experience better."

(via this WSJ story on Japanese cuisine)

To know what’s better is to choose where you stand."

"These vesels, masks and sculptures utilize an old crafting technique in which rope or cord is coiled and stitched to forms bowls and baskets. The technique is itself based on the ancient method of making ceramic coiled pots as well as coiled basketry. The method explores ways of transforming a linear material into three-dimensional objects, an interest I have also studied in other materials such as yarn or plastic tubing. I also see the process as a form of analog 3D printing/prototyping performed by a sewing machine and with much less precision. In this way the "3D file" is in my head as I begin each piece and its formation happens by making certain adjustments to the work w"hile sewing. The process has its own limitations, largely determined by the sewing machine, and each piece takes on deformations and glitches that give it unique personality.
The studies use the raw 100% cotton braided cord, often called sash cord, and colored sewing thread…"

"So rather than focusing on emulating particular techniques and methods, we should be doing everything we can to embrace, inspire, and use our own empathy in order to better understand and relate to our students. It is only from this space that we can effectively generate and use the appropriate techniques and methods for any particular task. In this way, there is no “recipe,” “secret sauce,” or “silver bullet” for teaching effectively that can be used by anybody, anytime, anywhere. Instead, I’m proposing a “generative” method, one in which we “generate” the appropriate method that takes into consideration the broadest range of factors that we can manage to accommodate."

"A world is more than a space, more than a place; it is something to inhabit & be inhabited by. What you infuse a space w/ to make it habitable, to make it memorable (since memory is profoundly spatial), gives the place its character, its soul…

Zelda would be better if it had no story…no plot to structure the adventure…first Zs barely had any plot…were better for it. With plot, sequence matters too much…early Zs had situations, worlds & scenarios that framed action, gaps to be filled in by player, sequences to be broken. Optimal paths & shortcuts weren’t a given; they had to be earned. Items were the most prominent plot devices, & even they were not unduly strict about order. You could be slow & steady or blast straight through with a little know-how…basic rules of the gameworld were what bound you, not some artificial necessity imposed for the sake of plot."

…a world is not for you. A world needs a substance, independence, sense that it doesn’t just disappear when you turn around."

"Eventually you could have local campuses becoming places where MITx students seek tutoring, network, & socialize—reclaiming some of the college experience they’d otherwise have lost.

Phil thought this sounded like college as a giant coffee shop. I agree. Every education would be ad hoc. It would be student-directed toward the job market she’s aiming for.

This trend toward…coffeeshopification…is changing more than just colleges:

Book Stores Will Shrink to Coffee Shops…

The Coffee Shop Will Displace Most Retail Shops…

Offices Become Coffee Shops…Again…

What Doesn’t Become a Coffee Shop?…

…houses of worship…

What will remain other than coffee shops? Upscale retail will remain…[for] experience…Restaurants remain. Grocery stores remain.

Brick and mortar retail stores will be converted to public spaces. Multi-use space will be in increasing demand as connectivity tools allow easy coordination of impromptu events…"

"Right after I dropped out of high school I worked at a video store where we got free rentals. Truffaut's were my first ones...

and like any self-respecting "artsy" high school drop out I immediately became obsessed with Antoine Doinel."

[That second half is from here: http://twitter.com/ThisMoiThisMoi/status/166561097753694208 ]

"This repulsion toward vulnerability is really a resentment at being put in charge of a person who doesn’t know how to play the game of affecting invincibility. The main purpose of this game is pretending death will never come; the smaller goal is to pretend that we are all perfectly self-sufficient. This is why so many people were outraged at Lana del Rey’s “Saturday Night Live” performance: She stopped playing the game and forced us to bear witness to her crippling fear. This is also why people abuse the elderly and disabled and animals — their vulnerability is too obvious and provokes hostile resentment."

"It’s important to mess with the spiritual structure of the world — the architecture of ideas, institutions, identities and even the structure of filmmaking. Only by doing this can the ludicrous nature of the game be revealed. Maybe one day we will overcome our repulsion toward weakness and admit our fragility on a daily basis…"

"Given the culture and psychology of self-sacrifice in progressive organizations, it's no wonder that turnover is so high, that so many talented younger organizers don't stay, and that those who do get burned out. They get burned out because they adapt to the perceived expectation that they give up their lives, their families, and their health for the chance to do mission-driven work. It's also no wonder that so many of them have such unhealthy lifestyles and that their gatherings are so often lubricated by alcohol.

Finally, there is an unspoken and destructive prohibition against talking seriously about the problem of burnout. To those caught in its terrible web, it would be like questioning the weather, or asking themselves why they need a paycheck, or why they should wear clothes to work. When burnout becomes embedded in a culture and reflected in a lifestyle fueled by the psychic predispositions of those living it, an honest discussion of its causes & effects becomes impossible."

"Paula asked us a simple question, “your name is Windows. Why are you a flag?”

…But if you look back to the origins of the logo you see that it really was meant to be a window. "Windows" really is a beautiful metaphor for computing and with the new logo we wanted to celebrate the idea of a window, in perspective. Microsoft and Windows are all about putting technology in people's hands to empower them to find their own perspectives. And that is what the new logo was meant to be. We did less of a re-design and more to return it to its original meaning and bringing Windows back to its roots – reimagining the Windows logo as just that – a window."

"The digital settles in as background. We remember less and query more. Our identity play would be considered schizophrenic in the last century. We have more friends than ever before yet know new frontiers of isolation. The quantification of our experience haunts us in the form of a persistent history. And we are distracted more than we ever knew possible. These circumstances are paradoxically a description of the near future and a diagnosis of the current state of affairs. The truly timeless is redefined – it has transcended that which is classic; it has become that which is never finished."

"TED is not simply “engaging” & “entertaining” but a specific type of entertainment that is increasingly out of touch & exclusionary.

…appears that whole TED brand induces laughter from many of those skeptical of corporate speak & techno-jargon. At first, I thought I was laughing alone; however, it turns out that lots of other people are equally unimpressed by the current state of TED…I’m not the only one who does not take TED very seriously or worse, views the whole project as suspect…

Perhaps the biggest complaint I heard was that TED smells of corporatism…

So many of the TED talks take on the form of those famous patent medicine tonic cure-all pitches of previous centuries, as though they must convince you not through the content of what’s being said but through the hyper-engaging style of the delivery…

As Mike Bulajewski pointed out in a Tweet, “TED’s ‘revolutionary ideas’ mask capitalism as usual, giving it a narrative of progress and change.”"

"Naval Captain Porter and Col. Mykleby of the Marines, military strategists working at the highest level of government, present highlights from their paper, “A National Strategic Narrative.” Their ideas—less military force, more social capital and more sustainable practices in energy and agriculture—have caused a recent stir in policy communities."

[See also: http://poptech.org/popcasts/a_grand_strategy_for_the_nation ]

Nothing new here, but the timing (that it pops up in my Pinboard network) is interesting:

"Weary of the world; feeling or indicating feelings of weariness, boredom, or cynicism as a result of long experience of life."

"Biological determinism is one of psychology’s ugliest evasions, removing the poetic human from any issue."

"As we as a society become desperate financially, and more regulated and conformist, our ideals of competence become more misleading and cruel, making people feel like losers. There might be more to our distractions than we realized we knew. We might need to be irresponsible. But to follow a distraction requires independence and disobedience; there will be anxiety in not completing something, in looking away, or in not looking where others prefer you to. This may be why most art is either collaborative — the cinema, pop, theater, opera — or is made by individual artists supporting one another in various forms of loose arrangement, where people might find the solidarity and backing they need."

"Learning and the Web. Two powerful forces of change converge in a public square. Their dimensions are unpredictable, and many of the outcomes of their convergence will be unintended, but this experiment is not entirely uncontrolled. This group of scholars, hackers, and activists has calculated the likely conditions, wired in all the right connections. When lightning strikes, they’ll be ready.

You are reading the ebook version of Learning, Freedom and the Web by Anya Kamenetz, published by the Mozilla Foundation. This ebook was designed and built by faculty and students at Emily Carr University's Social + Interactive Media Centre, with the assistance of Steam Clock Software."

"In some creation myths, life arises out of the earth; in others, life falls out of the sky. The creation myth of the digital universe entails both metaphors. The hardware came out of the mud of World War II, and the code fell out of abstract mathematical concepts. Computation needs both physical stuff and a logical soul to bring it to life…"

"…When I first visited Google…I thought, my God, this is not Turing’s mansion—this is Turing’s cathedral. Cathedrals were built over hundreds of years by thousands of nameless people, each one carving a little corner somewhere or adding one little stone. That’s how I feel about the whole computational universe. Everybody is putting these small stones in place, incrementally creating this cathedral that no one could even imagine doing on their own."

"Undoubtedly libraries are a good thing. The access and training that we provide for technology isn't offered by any other public service (largely because public services are rapidly becoming a dirty word in this gilded age of decadence and austerity), and without our services it wouldn't be the end of the world, but it would be a significant dimming.

If you can take yourself out of your first world techie social media smart-shoes for a second then imagine this… [lengthy case study]

So that little melodrama right there is every minute of every day at the public library…The digital divide isn't just access, but also ability, and quality of information, , and the common dignity of having equity of participation in our increasingly digital culture."

"When you think about it, relying on the likes of Google, YouTube, Facebook et al stand up for the niche and the curious is pretty naive. Where their interests coincide they will side with the mainstream, and those interests will coincide more and more. We can’t rely on large Internet companies to look after this stuff – Yahoo’s half-arsed custody of Flickr should have taught us that. If we’re going to have an infrastructure that enables the spirit of the cyberflaneur to thrive we’re going to have to build and maintain it ourselves, above and beyond the financial blinkers of the mainstream.

One of the most surprising things about the Internet is how people think there’s a single monolithic culture. There used to be, back when access was difficult and determined by circumstance. But it’s not like that now. The Internet is for everything and everyone, which means it’s like everything else, prone to mediocrity and abuses of power…"

"718 Cyclery is founded on the principle that we are practitioners of 100+ year old technology, not the guardians of it. Nothing that we do isn't so proprietary or secret that a visitor cant peek over our shoulder or ask a question. Our shop is a place where arrogance and attitude have no place. Approaching us with a question shouldn't be as if approaching an altar occupied by the high and mighty. We work with metal and rubber, and will gladly explain our process to you. We are most proud of our integrity and reputation"

"playmakers, a 35 minute documentary, is the culmination of a six month project following the progress of Hide&Seek; game designers Alex Fleetwood and Holly Gramazio through the development of a new game. The documentary was filmed over the first 6 months of 2009 and premiered at the Sheffield Documentary festival. Playmakers will be available to download and view on the 5th of May 2010.

Over the last 50 years play has become an increasingly private activity. Now it is bursting back onto our streets. playmakers explores the emerging area of pervasive games it examines the implications of reclaiming play into the public domain and shows the possibilities offered by new technologies.

Playmakers investigates four main themes:

Part 1: Play…

Part 2: Public space…

Part 3: Technology…

Part 4: Theatre/art…"

[See also: http://playmakers.org.uk/ ]

"Chronocentrism or Chronocentricity (from the Greek chrono- meaning "time") has been defined as "the egotism that one's own generation is poised on the very cusp of history.""

"Development economics expert Ha-Joon Chang dispels the myths and prejudices that have come to dominate our understanding of how the world works in a lecture at the RSA."

"As I walked through the markets of Hong Kong, staring at jade jewellery & Angry Birds paraphonalia, it occured to me that I could order everything on eBay or Amazon. The foreign land’s treasures have been globalised to a point of total consumer disinterest. The only thing that was left to consume was food & architecture…

Could it be that When you are drowning in a digital culture that says that social is everything then you might forget what makes you special? When Amazon and every ad banner online knows what you like, what happens if you forget what you like. Anti-consumption…

When you can be anywhere, you have to celebrate where you are right then and there. That’s luxury.

True affirmation of identity and uniqueness has become tricky when you are constantly forced into relationships with “friends”, Groupon deals and “other people also bought this” prompts. Perhaps travel and food, as sensorial experiences that one cannot share, will become even more prized than they are now."

"This rarely seen image of the city of San Fransisco lying in ruins after the devastating earthquake of 1906 was captured by an ingenious photographer using a camera attached kites. 

The panoramic shot, which is of outstanding quality considering the basic equipment available, shows the full scale of the disaster which claimed the lives of over 3,000, injured 225,000 and caused $400,000,000 worth of property damage.

Commercial photographer George Lawrence, who used home-made large format cameras, was well known at the time for his wide angle photographs of banqueting groups, national political conventions, and state legislature sessions."

"2. Yes, you should not worry too much about the consequences and you should definitely quit your job that you hate and it'll probably all work out great. Job quitters are the happiest people around…

The soulless careerists, though: they get where they are because social training doesn't allow us to stop them. They depend upon our unwillingness to say "bad things" about people. But if you don't, who will?

It is incumbent upon you to put a fucking boot in the face of the soulless careerist.

When people ask you about them, tell the truth. Practice saying "They're useless and horrible." Practice saying "They're soulless careerists who don't care about anything or believe in anything and they're just using us all to get ahead at any cost." Practice telling the truth. They can't stand the exposure in the light of day. They can't keep stepping on people if their previous steppings-on are known. You'll all be happier in the long run."

"COMMANDMENTS

1. Work on one thing at a time until finished.
2. Start no more new books, add no more new material to "Black Spring."
3. Don't be nervous. Work calmly, joyously, recklessly on whatever is in hand.
4. Work according to Program and not according to mood. Stop at the appointed time!
5. When you can't create you can work.
6. Cement a little every day, rather than add new fertilizers.
7. Keep human! See people, go places, drink if you feel like it.
8. Don't be a draught-horse! Work with pleasure only.
9. Discard the Program when you feel like it—but go back to it next day. Concentrate. Narrow down. Exclude.
10. Forget the books you want to write. Think only of the book you are writing.
11. Write first and always. Painting, music, friends, cinema, all these come afterwards."

[via @robinsloan: "1, 3, 7, 9, & 10 on Henry Miller's list here are so simple & powerful, & not just for writers:" http://twitter.com/robinsloan/status/168794527241482240 ]

"The point here is this: Were it not for those “disordered” genes, you wouldn’t have extremely creative, successful people.  Being in the absolute middle of every trait spectrum, not too extreme in any one direction, makes you balanced, but rather boring.  The tails of the spectrum, or the fringe, is where all the exciting stuff happens.  Some of the exciting stuff goes uncontrolled and ends up being a psychological disorder, but some of those people with the traits that define Bipolar Disorder, Schizophrenia, ADHD, and other psychological conditions, have the fortunate gift of high cognitive control paired with those traits, and end up being the creative geniuses that we admire, aspire to be like, and desperately need in this world.

…If we were to be able to identify the genes for Schizophrenia, or for Bipolar Disorder, or for ADHD… would we want to eliminate them? If we were making a “designer baby”, would you choose those genes to be added into your child’s genome?

I say yes."

"The subjects of Mandy Barker's photographs look like creatures from another world, but they're actually quite mundane: discarded fishing nets, plastic bottles, and toothpaste tubes. They're what sits beneath the surface of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Barker photographed the "soup," the plastic debris suspended in water from the Garbage Patch, to create strange alien scenes. But even though the objects in these photos aren't alive, they're still dangerous, killing ocean life wherever the patch travels."

"A new study by Columbia Engineering School will help urban planners, policy makers, and engineers understand the local dynamics of building energy use in New York City—where over two-thirds of the energy consumption is from buildings—and help jumpstart the exchange of ideas.
 
“The lack of information about building energy use is staggering,” said the study’s lead author Bianca Howard, a Ph.D. student in mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering. “We want to start the conversation for the average New Yorker about energy efficiency and conservation by placing their energy consumption in the context of other New Yorkers. Just knowing about your own consumption can change your entire perspective.”"

"LABORATORY — ART SPACE FOR NOW is a gallery located in the creative heart of Helsinki. Run and curated with love by Finnish photo agency Viewmasters, Laboratory offers exhibitions, experiences and events during the world design capital year. Nothing permanent — Just like the moments of sheer brilliance good photography captures."

"The brainchild of artists Kyle Hollingsworth and Renee Ridgeley, Hand on 3rd is a workshop and creative space where people could come together and create. The shop offers hands-on training for crafts and arts of all sorts -- from sewing to mosaics -- and a place for like-minded aspiring craftspeople can meet and hash out new projects."

[Video also here: https://vimeo.com/17460475 ]

"The fine people who bring you Southern California Public Radio took to the streets of Los Angeles for Bike to Work Month. On the way, we recorded every parked car, pothole and pristine view.

Bike or drive? You've got options.

Video: Grant Slater

Music: gomeztheband.com - "Options""

"LA is loud. Cars roar, helicopters buzz, waves crash and (occasionally) subways rumble. Instead of muffling the noise out, Alex Braidwood decided to tune in.

Video by Mae Ryan
Music: Revolving Record Loop by Matthew Aguilez"

"Synaesthesia a phenomonon involving the blending of the senses. This short follows a character throughout his life and his experiences of being a synaesthete.

Created as a final year project at Massey University 2011"

"Baldessari says though he felt isolated living and making art in National City, it was liberating.

"Because no one was looking my shoulder," he said. "I never would have done those text things anywhere else. Who cares but me? I can do anything I want!"

Baldessari says it took him a long time to call himself an artist. Once he thought of it as an occupation, like a plumber or a carpenter, it was easier to accept. What’s even harder for him to accept is how famous he’s become.

"I still read about myself and say, who is this person?" he said. "You can take the boy out of National City, but you can’t take National City out of the boy.""

"Because Tijoux grew up in French culture, it took time and effort before she could speak Spanish comfortably. She says she still has plenty to learn about the Latin side of her identity — which is why she probably won't make an album in French anytime soon.

"All the countries in South America — I was just in Peru, Columbia and Brazil — every time it's like, 'Wow, I have to travel more, I've got to mix more with Latin American music, I've got to know more of where we come from!'" she says. "And I've got to be honest: I love to rap in a language where I can go to Mexico and they understand me, [or] I can go to Panama. I love when people can understand what I'm talking about.""

"Adam Greenfield of Urbanscale, LLC discusses the many technologies used to collect and convey information around public spaces, and the ethical issues underlying them, as well as a proposal for how technologies could be better harnessed for the public good. Jeffrey Schnapp of the Metalab moderates.

The Hyperpublic symposium brings together computer scientists, ethnographers, architects, historians, artists and legal scholars to discuss how design influences privacy and public space, how it shapes and is shaped by human behavior and experience, and how it can cultivate norms such as tolerance and diversity."