blog entry

Finding my old bookmark files has made me nostalgic for the early computing days when everything was new and exciting and full of possibilities. One of my favourite magazines back in the early 90s was Mondo 2000. It was hard to get - only a few places in Brisbane stocked it, actually only two that I recall and even then it was occasional. By the time I got round to subscribing to the magazine it had finished being published and I lost my subscription renewal to the cause so to speak. At the time, it was cutting edge and the full gloss images and interviews with leading thinkers made it a great read. R.U. Sirius who was the editor of the mag has a podcast these days and can be found around mondoglobo.net. Here's a collection of links to mondo 2000 stuff:

mondo articles from the well (link updated : original link broken 25/09/2008 : http://www.well.com:70/1/Publications/MONDO )

A vlog entry about Global Dimming.

This media file's URL: Link

BBC Global Dimming transcript - page archived 18/04/2010

A vlog entry from my trip to Bangalore...

I've been spending the Christmas break learning more about interactive quicktime, max/msp and isadora for creating music and video and publishing them on the net. Below is the first piece I've created. I went a bit overboard on the effects in Isadora but it's an original piece and I learnt from it so I'm happy with it overall from a learning experience point of view.

How I created it:
- first I took videos with my dvd camera
- then I used DVDx to convert the .vob files to mpeg2 files which quicktime could open. when I installed winamp a couple of weeks ago, I noticed it can display video now also, though strangely, sometimes the winamp videos were upside down whilst they played correctly orientated in quicktime. (perhaps I used strange setting whilst encoding?)
- then I imported the video into isadora, and patched up a storm whilst trying out some of the effects
- I can only save 5sec clips from isadora as I'm using the trial version whilst I work out if I'll use it regularly in future. I'm hoping to learn how to do similar tasks in jitter (max component) as I'll have more control of what I'm doing, even though it's very quick and easy to get things done in isadora without having to know the code. still yet to decide on this.
- once I had the processed video clips, I opened them in quicktime again and joined them together - hence the rough edits
- then I made a couple of text tracks in quicktime and added these in. I tried out the eZediaQTI app whilst learning about the text tracks but decided on doing them manually in quicktime and editing the controls with notepad.
- next, I opened the gps data music patch I made in max/msp and ran it with the soundwalk recordings I made the other week whilst at Mission Beach in Auckland. unfortunately, the mic was picking up a lot of noise from the wind blowing past the mic pickup so there's a lot of distortion. I filtered some of this out in audacity and flattened the audio into one track.
- then I added the audio track to the video with text quicktime movie
- then uploaded the finished piece to archive.org using ourmedia and viewed source on the movie's ourmedia page & copied the quicktime player code here

well, I'm sure there's a quicker way of doing it! which requires less processing and time, but this was an exercise in creating an original piece from start to finish. as you can tell, I'm not a designer or very good programmer either, but I'm happy to finish number one. here's hoping the subsequent efforts will improve and be done more efficiently. I could have used the original unprocessed videos but they seemed a little plain. need to find the right balance I guess..

here's a screen shot of the isadora patch:

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 wanted to gather together URLs for purchase etc. of my work available
online. This is probably incomplete, but for those who are interested,
it
is probably useful. Note that Printed Matter carries a number of things.
I definitely recommend the books - VEL, The Wayward, Sophia, .echo.
There
are days I wish I was a store. Those are the days I could still wish.

old brainstorm notes - 15/02/2003 - exported file attached

website collaborations

content sharing - articles/news/events/media etc

examples in industry : aap newswire

most media businesses eg tv/radio/press use the content from newswire services such as AAP, Reuters, PR-newswire

these can include different types of media- vision, audio, scripts

media businesses also use their own local, interstate and networked reporters and staff to report on topics according to their preferences and focus

media businesses are mostly networked these days - eg the commercial television/radio stations have one in every state which allows them to act as separate entities to some extent but also use and provide content to/from their fellow networked stations

there are cost benefits to this as well as sharing of resources

if you use the example of the recent content sharing agreement of paytv whereby foxtel is buying all the content (eg US movie studio content known for it's outrageous pricecs amongst others) for it's competitors optus and austar, there are benefits on both sides - more buying power due to greater audience numbers for foxtel so they can negotiate a better price, and less expense for optus and austar because they don't need to negotiate themselves and compete against their local competitors and they get the choice of more & better content choices for their customers

some different methods of sending content to other sites - depending on the source and destination site

automated via RSS/XML feeds

email

sites could download it/copy paste from a source site

database dumps

single point of data entry, even on different sites

one or more sites could setup the data entry point for content eg event listings

promoters could either send their data here or enter it themselves, then it is sent to the other sites in the collective

there could be check boxes for the promoter to choose where they want it sent and text boxes for them to suggest other places

one site could handle event listings, another interviews for distribution- these don't necessarily have to be on the one site, but could be if people are happy with it

advertising sharing

there would be more buying power for the person/s who were buying advertising due to greater audience reach

they would be able to setup deals for cross platform media, eg maillists,magazines, websites, radio, netradio etc

there would have to be some guidelines in place - perhaps following the tv/radio advertising rules (eg u can't show competitors ads back to back on tv/radio - eg ford ad then toyota ad)

each site would specify it's audience size and demographics (without giving away all their secrets of course!)

each site would still be able to arrange their own local/direct advertising if they wish but if they were part of the advertising sharing option they would have to use some from it as well

paid advertising : there would be a number of corporates/related businesses approached - this is the tricky part of course, who to choose? people don't want to be accused of 'selling out' and some people have problems with certain corporates.

most sites tend to be using party promoters banner ads - this is cool, but I think often the parties, especially the smaller ones can't afford advertising

I think if say it started with (choosing a low number here for example) 8 sites in the collective, 24 advertisers came on board - everyone would have to use at least 2-3 of them.

there may be some caveats from the advertisers, but when setting up the deals, it would be better to say there is a pool of sites wanting to show your ads

there should be different categories of ads : paid general, sponsorship, community announcements, local/direct ads up to the discretion of the individual site

promo/publicity sharing

each collaborative site specifies the requirements of it's banner ads or other type of advertising which is freely available for the other sites to access

banner swapping between the sites or link swapping-whatever the individual site's policy is

the sites may choose to only swap with some of the sites in the collaboration, ie you probably wouldn't swap with your competitors unless you were happy doing that

sites involved

a wide range of sites would be approached, some examples include:

arts

music

music community- strong message board focus

magazines

music label

mailing list services

both specialty sites and general interest sites

national and locally focussed sites

visual art sites

general notes

when mentioning sites in the sections here I'm referring to different members of the collective whether they be websites, magazines, street press, zines, radio programs, maillists etc

these ideas are designed to share resources and information and give some of the smaller sites the opportunity to concentrate on the part they do best.

individual sites could use this sharing system in a small or large way - totally up to them, some may choose to have some shared content, others might want content and ads/promos etc

distribution

there are also possibilities for distribution for artists wanting to be featured on a site, new music releases announcements, reviews etc etc

this could tie in with music distributors and people signing up to p&d deals - these are not much use without a bit of publicity to let people know about it, so this could provide a source of revenue for the collective as well - ie people pay a fee to publicise or be featured on the sites without having to approach them all seperately

administration & skills & revenue

a new system could be put in place, with members of the collective administering it, or members of the collective could allocate an area of their existing system to use for the collective

there are already many talented people working on their own sites with excellent and transferable skills - everyone is basically working towards the same goal of spreading the word of what they are passionate about.

some people have sites which create revenue, although I think this would be rare and if they do make money it's probably only enough to cover costs

some people are just doing it for a hobby/gain more skills and others are wanting to prepare their future by setting up something which may be able to support them in the future

the costs would be shared between the collective just as the benefits would be

there are a wide range of skills available to the collective if people were to join up - writers, editors, system admin, web designers, coders, publicists, music artists, advertising sales/buyers, music label people, graphic designers, video editors, visual artists, party promotersas well as general people who are happy to support their friends, biography writers

revenue streams exist in a few places, such as the advertising deals, publicity services, helping people make press kits, artwork etc

even if the revenue streams are not high, they could outweigh some of the expenses (even if only in time) which are involved in the running of a site which could allow individual sites more time to spend on their own fun or revenue making methods (eg, sometimes people have these great ideas but spend most of the time administering a site or replying to emails that they never get to try find banner ad prospects or advertise anywhere else)

of course, not all sites want to make money, but I imagine most would like to at least cover their costs, and perhaps pay contributors or spend any money on further developing their site so one day it might become a more self-sustaining site. and even if people do make some money on their sites, I think there would be only a few if any who were making industry standard wages - most would be working other jobs to pay the bills and doing their sites in any spare time they have. these are the types of sites which could benefit from a sharing system/collective