Blogs

notes about studying methods:

http://e-courses.cqu.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=...

SQRRR METHOD OF READING

There is a method of reading that all of our students will benefit from; it is called the SQ3R. Let me describe how to use the SQRRR method (Believe me it is wonderfully efficient).

I have an external 120Gb firewire hard drive which has travelled with me from Sydney to UK to Auckland. It's worked really well. Well, until last week when it fell over and now makes horrible clunking noises when it's spinning up. Unfortunately this drive holds my ipod music files - copies of my cds and records that I couldn't bring with me from home. Luckily I'd done a full transfer to my ipod a couple of weeks ago, so the music is intact, but I can't export it back onto a hard drive (planning on buying another 2.5" drive instead of the firewire drive). I just found an article on endgaget about transferring files from your ipod back to hard drive using ephPOD. cool :) now I just have to buy the new drive and try it out.

week 2 photoshop files for mmst11001 uni subject

different 3d balls, saved at different qualities
(unfortunately I cropped the drop shadow)

I should have spent more time on getting the image to look more 3d, but I wanted to try out the different formats vs filesizes and quality so I spent more time on this aspect.

reading notes from Balsem's chapter on Semiotics

page 7-9
(pdf page 3-4)
[quote]
... signs are socially active forces, and so is interpretation. Therefore, the study of signs and the semiotic perspective on social communication is a relevant activity. But it can only be so if the factors so far encountered are taken into account. Signs are not things, but the result of acts carried out by individuals belonging to social groups. They do not emerge in isolation, but in relation to other signs, previously produced. They are based on grounds and result in effects that deserve to be studied as part of a larger endeavour whose goals stretch beyond purely academic understanding.

I received and email from the guys at www.radioheritage.net who are setting up a non-profit project involved in 'Sharing the stories of Pacific Radio'. The site has a wealth of information, but they are looking for assistance in putting audio on their site, so people can listen to some of the radio programs. Unfortunately I don't have a great deal of spare time to assist them in depth, but I can provide some advice if that's of use so I replied as such. Perhaps this will be useful to others as well. We were always getting asked for advice on how to do internet radio (it's rather easy once you do it - people think it's harder than it actually is!), and these days with podcasting being so popular and becoming more prominent, anyone can create, broadcast and distribute their own radio programs, whether they be music related, talk show/story format or a combination. anyway, here's a few ideas, I'll try to post more as I get a chance. perhaps some tutorials or help notes on how to setup these things. posting video shows/videoblogs is what I've been trying out lately too, though most of my videos are still offline as I practice editing and capturing the story element.

semester 3 uni timetable

day
week 1
week 2
week 3
week 4
week 5
week 6
vacation
week 7
week 8
week 9
week 10
week 11
week 12
review
exams

date
14-Nov
21-Nov
28-Nov
5-Dec
12-Dec
19-Dec
26-Dec
2-Jan
9-Jan
16-Jan
23-Jan
30-Jan
6-Feb
13-Feb
27-Feb

course 1

notes from the Media Education and the Marketplace video lectures

I woke up at about 4:30 this morning then couldn't sleep properly, thinking about this week's nightmare at work, but must have finally drifted back to sleep as I woke again at 11:09 and then drifted off for another sleep.

Today I read "Grassroots - a field guide for feminist activism" by Jennifer Baumgardner & Amy Richards. It's a DIY feminist activism book that gives examples of how everyday women can perform activist activities without having to be too radical. Examples are from high school, university students, women at work and in their local communities. Baumgardner and Richards speak about and provide contact details for many organisations performing and supporting feminist activism projects. I've included some links in the feminism and activism links on this site if you are interested in finding out more, otherwise track down the book from your local bookstore..

The authors, who also co-wrote "Manifesta", define activism (page xix, Prologue) as:

I've just finished reading "Where you're at - notes from the frontline of a hip hop planet" by Patrick Neate. I thought it was a great book - sometimes he went off on a few tangents, but they provided interesting background information on the context of the hip hop communities in the different cities covered in the book. I'm now re-reading/skimming through it to post up some notes on sections I found most thought provoking. Much of the underlying thread of the book is about the cultural misappropriation of hip hop.

from Part One: New York
page 30

I've started reading the Interactive Convergence : Critical Issues in Multimedia e-book and so far it's providing some more useful names of other books/reports to chase up. The first chapter is about the different new media university courses in the UK. pasting snippets here as I come across things to follow up or ideas to think about.

Chapter 1
Locating Interactive Media Production

(page 2)
[quote]
A few media/cultural studies writers began to look at the social
and cultural impact of new media, Sherry Turkle (1985) Second Self:
Computers and the Human Spirit; Carolyn Marvin (1988) When Old
Technologies were new; Philip Hayward (1990) Culture, Technology and
Creativity in the Late Twentieth Century; Jay Bolter, (1991) Writing
Space: The Computer, Hypertext, and the History of Writing; Philip
Hayward and Tana Wollen, eds. (1993) Future Visions: New technologies
of the Screen and Roger Silverstone (1994) Consuming Technologies:
Media and Information in Domestic Spaces
[/quote]

This paragraph has an interesting point.. there's not many books or published educational materials for teaching 'new media' - I suppose the plethora of academic papers are not used for this purpose??

(page 9-10)
[quote]
8. Maintaining curriculum integrity - quality teaching resources
There are other difficulties facing interactive media course designers
within any academic context. There is an impoverished supply of good
academic sources and few records of the historical development of design
for CD-ROM or the web. Compared with the sources we can draw on for
the teaching of video and film production for example, good books in the
field of interactive-media production are rare. A simple request to fellow
course leaders of interactive media in 7 different institutions for their
favourite production books, revealed that we are resourceful when it
comes to choosing teaching materials but also that most of our books were
over 4 years old and some were very old indeed. This is their list:

It's great to see so many online libraries and different organisations such as archive.org and google running digitization projects. I've spent so much money over the years on technical books and general reading books, which, the tech books in particular, are out of date quickly that I've often felt I have wasted some of my money on them. Since starting the new job (well over a year ago now, so not so new), and having to travel more, I've been using some of the online libraries - partcularly Questia, Safari (tech books) online and archive.org. The blogosphere and online libraries reminds me of the Neal Stephenson book "Snow Crash" - the citizen journalist, uploading of information & media for future references, online libraries. The future is happening!

I'm currently reading a couple of books - an online copy of Dan Gillmor's "We the Media" and a paperback by Patrick Neate called Where you're at - Notes from the frontline of a Hip Hop Planet. Gillmor reminded me of the google print project which was what started this post. I still enjoy reading paper copies of books - there's nothing like reading in bed on a rainy day, or a weekend, but I like the idea of online versions also. One of the main reason's for this, is that I can search for books I have bought and read them even whilst I'm away and not have to pay excess baggage to carry all the books with me. Before I head back to the UK, I'll drop off the books in Sydney and note down their names so I can either borrow them from local libraries or read online versions. Local libraries! I've had a resurgance in using these also! When I was in primary school I remember we were always in the library looking for books for class assignments. Once I started making money I began to buy the books instead of using the library. I've come full circle again, as I'm enjoying heading to the Auckland City Library. They have a great collection of arts and culture books. I have a friend who used to take his recording equipment (laptop/MD) into the library and dub some audio from the archived films and tapes for samples to use in his music. Perhaps I should check out the media collection at the Auckland library - I'm sure they'd have some great Maori language and local speeches which would be interesting to hear. Maybe even footage of the Rainbow Warrior.. Any way, time to go read some more ... :)

I went to 2005 electrofringe a few weeks ago in Newcastle, Australia. I haven't finished going over my notes or posting some of the links to the artist's projects, but one of the workshops I went to was on Quartz Composer hosted by dpwolf. The software runs on a MAC, which unfortunately I don't have. :( perhaps if we get a project bonus this year I might be able to save up for one so I can try the software (and also max / msp }. anyway, I also came across the name dpwolf on the videoblogging mail list and low and behold it's the same person. he seems to do some work with Adrian Miles, who does some great projects with video and interactive quicktime and media in general. small world. I'd love to do the course Adrian teaches but can't afford to give up work to do it fulltime. due to excessive work commitments, I had to drop the Internet Communication course I was doing at CQU. now that I've finally upgraded my (this) site and moving most of my projects online (so as not to be so dependant on my laptop in case of travelling without it), I'd like to experiment more with blogging, videoblogging, podcasting and digital art and music projects (in addition to listing other people's projects on the site), hence, why the blog posts here have now become more personal. I've been reading about and been across these media for a while but haven't had much time to play myself, so that's the goal for the next year (& hopefully continuing onwards).