Monthly Archives

August 2011

My thoughts exactly

Cars by
  • Comments Off on My thoughts exactly

“Cars are the biggest – and most abundant – set of sculptures that we have in contact every day in our lives.  Although they’re reproduced by machines and they’re computer milled stamps that make them, actually every one of them was originally carved by hand by men and women using techniques not a whole lot different than Michaelangelo.” – Chris Bangle, former Design Director of BMW

And that is precisely why I am so hooked on cars, neurotic about my cars and hopelessly devoted to the cult of cars. (Caught this in Objectified, a documentary on industrial design that is speaking directly to my soul.)

Childhood addiction

Technology by
  • Comments Off on Childhood addiction

A conversation with Lauren today reminded me how hooked on Tetris I was as a younger version of myself.  Not just the NES version (those damned penguins near the end) but also this really beautiful Apple IIGS iteration that I played non-stop.

Beautiful Data

General Entertainment, Work by
  • Comments Off on Beautiful Data

11_0.jpg

“[…] data visualization brings a sense of wonder and humanity back to statistical analysis.

Maximum PC has a fun feature on the presentation of data in unexpected – and often arrestingly beautiful – ways.  Above, you see the representation of “Familiar Feelings” by Moloko as a fiery twist of information about the song’s construction as compiled by Matthias Dittrich.  The appeal is immediately apparent, especially to anyone who has lost five minutes by staring into the iTunes Visualizer while a favorite track plays.  While the article is nothing too profound, the gallery is a nice dose of pretty for a Wednesday.

Wired93: 8

Technology by
  • Comments Off on Wired93: 8

On tonight’s episode, pages 90 – 95:

  • an article – astutely – likening the cyberpunk movement to that of beatniks years early based on the number of true adherents (around 100) and the rapid mainstreaming of their signature looks, if not attitudes
  • from the same article: the prediction that the counterculture movement coming from cyberpunk would adopt “tekkie” as a moniker
  • Bruce Sterling’s testimony to the House of Representatives – in the voice of a Net operator from 2015 – as they voted on some “Information Superhighway” legislation
  • predictions for 2015 weren’t entirely off the mark
  • suggested websites from the first Net Surf column:
    • OTIS net-gallery with over 35 Megabytes of images
    • Cruise 2.0 internet tutorial, requiring 1.5 MB of disk space, 2 MB of RAM and Window 3.1 in enhanced mode
    • Nettrek, a real-time “videogame of the future” – which is probably accurate, considering it sounds like a low tech World of Warcraft
  • sidebar ad for StarNine, a company that could connect your Mac network to “15 million email users worldwide”

World Wide Narratives

General Entertainment, Work by
  • Comments Off on World Wide Narratives

6083252771_469ce72e56_b.jpg

Sometimes you happen upon a project that has the potential to impact far more people than those enrolled in a particular class.  With Harrisburg’s World Wide Narratives – and the connected Mobile Media Pilot – I think I’ve found just that.

Friday afternoon and early evening, I found myself in one of the most diverse classroom settings I’ve ever been in, both as a professional and as a student.  Individuals from differing genders, races, religions, nationalities, sexual orientations, socio-economic backgrounds, ages and more came together as one team in the Olmsted Building for the purpose of documenting the stories of others different from themselves for these categorical reasons – and the same as them in one key respect:  that they are human beings with important experiences to share with the community.

Shivaani Selvaraj, Jo Tyler and Martha Strickland offered a vibrant presentation on the project goals, the critical incidence story listening techniques to be employed and the research campus climate opportunities inherent in World Wide Narratives’ success.  They also invited me along to give an overview of how the iPod touch could be best deployed as a story gathering tool and to give technical advice and guidance to participants.

To say I was honored would be an understatement.

The Excitement Builds

General Entertainment, Work by
  • Comments Off on The Excitement Builds

Media Commons has set to work planning out the next installment of Tailgate – and we hope to document the process this year to keep future attendees, presenters and other participants updated.  Each member of our team will be reporting on a different area, with mine being web materials.  Without further ado:

I’ve just updated the Twitter widget and added one for Facebook as well.  You can find these both in the sidebar.  This comes on the heels of last month’s general clean up and reorganization of Tailgate 2010 materials to make way for new content.  Next up:  adding information about the pre-conference workshop (subject to be determined) and names of presenters and panelists as we book them.  
Some other blogs from the team to visit before their posts start appearing on the Tailgate site include:  
And, of course, my own – Reflectant.

The saga continues

Technology, Unexplained by
  • Comments Off on The saga continues

The mixing of my email (emailnick) with those of other Nicks expands to the UK where a second email.nick has been losing messages to my inbox courtesy of Google.

See missive to Nick Burgess and his sister after receiving a scanned copy of his birth certificate:

Hello.

I’m not sure how to say this, but I think Google is somehow mixing our mail.  You see, I’m emailnick@gmail.com  and I’ve been receiving emails for email.nick@gmail.com  – mostly from Jessops.com  following an order confirmation from there sometime last year.  It’s not the first time this has happened to me, either:

http://www.nicholasjsmerker.info/2010/03/06/my-australian-email-mystery/
http://www.nicholasjsmerker.info/2010/04/01/australian-mum-writes-again/
http://www.nicholasjsmerker.info/2010/10/14/word-from-australia/

I haven’t got a clue as to what it is that Google might be getting wrong to confuse our email (and I hope it’s not a two way street – my apologies if you are getting my messages, too).  Just thought you might want to be aware.

Best,

Nick

I almost immediately got a reply – as tends to happen when one sends a birth certificate and it ends up in the wrong hands by accident:

Thank you for your honesty I will let my brother know

Sent using BlackBerry® from Orange

I couldn’t make this up if I tried.  Now, how exactly does one get in touch with Google about their email?  I’d really prefer that my inbox not be eating the mail of every other Nick in the world.

Wired93: lucky seven

Internet, Music, Print, Technology, Television by
  • Comments Off on Wired93: lucky seven

I’m writing this from the living room in Maryland, where the power is resoundingly out this afternoon.  One conclusion that can be drawn from this incident is that, unlike 1993, there is very little reason to have a computer without internet connectivity in 2011.  I can’t even remember the last time I wrote while offline – how will I link?!

Pages 84 – 89 (review pages):

  • WatchIT!TV, a full-size, 16-bit PC expansion card that allowed for analog television tuning – and the author’s awesome VCR recording pass-through
  • “Information plugs us into the world of computerized productivity, but the open space of books balances our computer logic with the graces of intuition.” – The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality
  • Wired began using Music Access to provide samples of reviewed albums by 900 number at a cost of 95¢/min
  • Ambulance: An Electronic Novel, which came packaged on 2 high-density floppies and required 2 MB of RAM
  • touch tone dialer (?)
  • page 89’s ad for OMD’s new album – and that is all that needs to be said

MC 101 Wrap Up: Mont Alto

General Entertainment, Work by
  • Comments Off on MC 101 Wrap Up: Mont Alto

mc101wrapup.jpg

I’ve just pulled back in to State College after my final MC 101 for the Summer at Mont Alto.  Today’s session was an afternoon presentation and took place during the regularly scheduled Faculty/Staff Development Day.  As such, I was also on campus for a variety of faculty consultation sessions and the Chancellor’s address at the welcome back luncheon.  Having had a chance to hear what was new and exciting at Mont Alto this Fall, I went into MC 101 aware of the topics that would be of interest for the Fall semester.

Faculty were very interested in the Mobile Media Pilot and Dan Mroz, outgoing IT Director, asked if I could put on an impromptu iOS editing demo at the end of my session.  Luckily, a document camera was available in the podium I was presenting from and the demonstration went off without a hitch.  I expect to hear from several individuals with proposals for Spring semester pilot projects (with any luck).

As this session was part of an existing itinerary, I will not be able to do formal assessment but have asked Dan to follow up with attendees on my behalf and have provided links to resources I think faculty/staff may want to research further.