Did my inaugural cook in the 14.5″ Weber Smokey Mountain my lifepartner is giving me for my birthday (she knows I don’t like surprises).
Will probably post some written notes of my smoking endeavours, at some point. In the meantime, some pictures documenting the whole thing.
Got my Nexus 7 a while ago, but I wasn’t finding a use case for it. Thanks to a friend advising me to give Swiftkey a try, I might actually make it work.
Something I might find especially useful about Swiftkey is the fact that I can mix languages, quelque-chose que je fais assez souvent sur iOS mais qui demande un changement constant de clavier. Since I like Android’s speech recognition, a combination of SwiftKey and speech might allow me to work efficiently.
Un truc que je remarque rapidement, par contre, c’est que le fait de passer d’un système à l’autre demande un certain temps de transfert de mots de passe. J’utilise des outils pour conserver des mots de passe sécuritaires, et ils existent sur plusieurs plates-formes, mais ça demande quand même un certain temps.
We’ll see how things go, after a while. I do want to like Android’s and, contrary to popular belief, I can be pretty open minded about such things. But I need appropriate contexts to try out different use cases. Otherwise, having people yell at me because I’m yet to be sold on Android hasn’t been helpful.
Ok, the test is enough for now. Having issues with the Swiftkey spacebar in landscape, but I’m sure I’ll get used to it. Let’s post this and edit later.
I remember a discussion I had as a kid, about German culture. A normal kind of conversation, in my family. As Francophones of Québécois and Swiss origins, our perspectives on Germany were quite skewed. And that’s probably why it was fun to discuss these things, casually. I was probably ten years-old so this happened almost thirty years ago.
As far as I can remember, much of our discussion had to do with stereotypes. But I remember saying something as if it were common-knowledge yet clearly wasn’t: that Germans were “known” for great movies.
At the time, I probably hadn’t seen many German movies. Even today, I can’t really say that I’ve watched a lot of German movies. At the time, I was probably reacting from having watched or even heard of a single German movie. Come to think of it, it may even have been based on an Austrian movie I had seen something about. In other words, my statement wasn’t based on a true appreciation but on a vague impression which surprised those with whom I shared it.
Since that time, I seem to have developed an appreciation for German movies. Again, not that I’ve seen so many of them. But those I’ve watched I usually enjoyed.
Several of them came back through my mind as I was playing TRAUMA. Not that the game directly referred to any of these movies. But the game’s visuals did trigger my reminiscence.
So, a very short list of some German movies I’ve enjoyed.
Yup, just five films. Of course, I could list many more French or Québécois movies I’ve liked. Thing is, I can hardly remember another German movie. In other words, it feels as though I have never watched a German movie that I didn’t enjoy. And there are some movies I haven”t seen but that I’d probably enjoy, such as Good Bye Lenin!
Not that there’s anything specific about German movies. As a kid, I probably believed in a sort of “national character” but my training in anthropology got it out of me before I watched most of these movies. But it doesn’t mean that there’s nothing common between those movies. Or that I’m not constructing my own “reading” of German movies on these few examples.
For one thing, it’s quite likely that German movies which are released outside of Germany have some specific features. Chances are, there are plenty of movies in Germany which never get released outside and these may differ quite a lot from what I recognize a German movie to be. After all, I’m not including in my short list the variety of movies in which Germans were involved through coproduction. And all of these movies are about some place in Germany, the same way stereotypical Irish songs (those created in North America) have to do with places in Ireland.
So I end up with a skewed, fragmentary, and artificial view of German movies from just a few examples. What’s funny about it is that, based on my experience with TRAUMA (as well as with a few German TV shows), my bias continues to affect my perception of other German productions.
Had I not been trained in anthropology, I might not perceive the severe limits of my views on German culture. In fact, because German Romanticism has been so important in the history of my discipline, my limited experience of filmic Germany clashes with different encounters with the complexities behind German identity and cultural awareness.
Maybe it just means that I should go spend a little while in Germany. I hear they have good beer. 😉
As an art piece, one can evaluate TRAUMA as a relatively effective proof-of-concept based on an interesting concept. It does bring about a sense of alienation as would a classroom exercise in computational arts. Yet it remains attached to a notion of art as a directed endeavour. TRAUMA leaves little room for interpretation and nuance. Unlike an art movie but like an art project, it forces some meanings on what could be a broader experience. Without being unilinear or monovocal, its structure makes it difficult to truly wander around, as would a “tourist” in the Myst worlds.
As a game, TRAUMA’s limitations are even more problematic. While the short duration of the game has been described as a problem, it may make sense in context. TRAUMA could be the game equivalent of a short story. But the limited interaction one has with TRAUMA’s four “levels” closes down the game into too straightforward a series of actions. Sure, most point-and-click adventure games have similar issues. The set of things which can be done in any scene is necessarily limited, and players frequently feel trapped in mindless sequences. But, for several reasons, TRAUMA restricts actions even more than the usual point-and-click adventure game, resulting in an almost-frustrating experience. While it may be that these limitations have a rationale in the artistic side of the piece (as it deepens the feeling of powerlessness), it makes the game experience less playful than it could be. The sense of discovery created by the usual adventure game is replaced by something close to hand-holding.
TRAUMA’s redeeming features have to do with the “craft” side of things. As a type of collage/montage/assemblage, it displays some skill. The music is appropriate and well-integrated. The voice-acting may be off-putting to some but it works in the narrative logic of the piece. Several scenes are reminiscent of well-appreciated German movies. Overall, it’s likely that Krystian Majewski will be involved in interesting projects in the future, either by collaborating with diverse artists, by training artists to do fascinating work, or even by serving as inspiration for groundbreaking art.
(Rating: 3.5/5)
Présentation pour le panel « Innovation ouverte et living labs, la divergence cohésive par les réseaux sociaux ?» organisé par Patrick Dubé dans le cadre de la dixième conférence internationale webcom Montréal.
[iframe frameborder=’0′ style=’width:460px;height:375px;’ src=’http://public.iwork.com/embed/?d=Espace_social_et_innovation_ouverte.key&a=p1081389799&h=768&w=1024&sw=458′]
[I’m typically not very good at going back to drafts and I don’t have much time to write this. But I can RERO this. It’s an iterative process in any case….]
Been thinking about different things which all relate to the same theme: changing course, seizing opportunities, shifting focus, adapting to new situations, starting over, getting a clean slate… Moving on.
One reason is that I recently decided to end my ethnography podcast. Not that major a decision and rather easy to make. Basically, I had stopped doing it but I had yet to officially end it. I had to make it clear, in my mind, that it’s not part of the things I’m doing, these days. Not that it was a big thing in my life but I had set reminders every month that I had to record a podcast episode. It worked for ten episode (in ten months) but, once I had missed one episode, the reminder was nagging me more than anything else.
In this sense, “moving on” is realistic/pragmatic. Found something similar in Getting Things Done, by David Allen.
It’s also similar to something Larry Lessig called “email bankruptcy,” as a step toward enhanced productivity.
In fact, even financial bankruptcy can relate to this, in some contexts. In Canada, at least, bankruptcy is most adequately described as a solution to a problem, not the problem itself. I’ve known some people who were able to completely rebuild their finances after declaring bankruptcy, sometimes even getting a better credit rating than someone who hadn’t gone bankrupt. I know how strongly some people may react to this concept of bankruptcy (based on principle, resentment, fears, hopes…). It’s an extreme example of what I mean by “moving on.” It goes well with the notion, quite common in North American cultural contexts, that you always deserve a second chance (but that you should do things yourself).
Of course, similar things happen with divorces which, similarly, can often be considered as solutions to a problem rather than the problem itself. No matter how difficult or how bad divorce might be, it’s a way to start over. In some sense, it’s less extreme an example as the bankruptcy one. But it may still generate negative vibes or stir negative emotions.
Because what I’m thinking about has more to do with “turning over a new leaf.” And taking the “leap of faith” which will make you go where you feel more comfortable. I’m especially thinking about all sorts of cases of people who decided to make radical changes in their professional or personal lives, often leaving a lot behind. Whether they were forced to implement such changes or decided to jump because they simply wanted to, all of the cases I remember have had positive outcomes.
It reminds me of a good friend of mine with whom I went through music school, in college. When he finished college, he decided to follow the music path and registered for the conservatory. But, pretty quickly, he realized that it wasn’t for him. Even though he had been intensely “in music” for several years, with days of entering the conservatory, he saw that music wasn’t to remain the central focus of his career. Through a conversation with a high school friend (who later became his wife and the mother of his children), he found out that it wasn’t too late for him to register for university courses. He had been thinking about phys. ed., and thought it might be a nice opportunity to try that path. He’s been a phys. ed. teacher for a number of years. We had lunch together last year and he seems very happy with his career choice. He also sounds like a very dedicated and effective phys. ed. teacher.
In my last podcast episode, I mentioned a few things about my views of this “change of course.” Including what has become something of an expression, for me: “Done with fish.” Comes from the movie Adaptation. The quote is found here (preceded by a bit of profanity). Basically, John Laroche, who was passionately dedicated to fish, decided to completely avoid anything having to do with fish. I can relate to this at some rather deep level.
I’m also thinking about the negative consequences of “sticking with” something which isn’t working, shifting too late or too quickly, implementing changes in inappropriate ways. Plenty of examples there. Most of the ones which come to my mind have to do with business settings. One which would require quite a bit of “explaining” is my perception of Google’s strategy with Wave. Put briefly (with the hope of revisiting this issue), I think Google made bad decisions with Wave, including killing it both too late and too early (no, I don’t see this as a contradiction; but I don’t have time to explain it). They also, I feel, botched a few transitions, in this. And, more importantly, I’d say that they failed to adapt the product to what was needed.
And the trigger for several of my reflections on this “moving on” idea have to do with this kind of adaptation (fun that the movie of that name should be involved, eh?). Twitter could be an inspiration, in this case. Not only did they, like Flickr, start through a switch away from another project, but Twitter was able to transform users’ habits into the basis for some key features. Hashtags and “@replies” are well-known examples. But you could even say that most of the things they’ve been announcing have been related to the way people use their tools.
So, in a way, it’s about the balance between vision and responsiveness. Vision is often discussed and it sounds to some people as a key thing in any “task-based group (from a team to a corporation). But the way a team can switch from one project to the next based on feedback (from users or other stakeholders) seems underrated. Although, there is some talk about the “startup mentality” in many contexts, including Google and Apple. Words which fit this semantic field include: “agile,” “flexible,” “pivot,” “lean,” and “nimble” (the latter word seemed to increase in currency after being used by Barack Obama in a speech).
Anyhoo… Gotta go.
But, just before I go: I am moving on with some things (including my podfade but also a shift away from homebrewing). But the key things in my life are very stable, especially my sentimental life.
Wannabe Guru: “There’s no such thing as free content.”
Literature Major: “Content’s a tale / Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, / Signifying nothing.”
Arts Major: “Content Is in the Eye of the Beholder.”
Entertainer: “There’s no content / like show content / like no content I know.”
Journalist: “Content is my job and I deserve to be paid for what I make, the exact same way that a baker is paid for selling bread. What other people called ‘content’ isn’t really content since it hasn’t been vetted by professionals like my editor. So my role is to create content so that my editor can distribute it through exclusive channels. Other people’s content becomes my content when I secure the rights to it through the use of a clearance service. Comments by people I interview only become content after they sign a release. Everything else is noise.”
Economist: “There are four ways to get paid for content: a) subscription; b) advertising; c) private or public sponsorship; d) sale on media. Since advertising and sponsorship are two aspects of the same model and since consumers epend money on either subscription or media sales, there are two basic models.”
Functionalist (Sociology): “Content serves different goals, both manifest and latent.”
Conflict-Theorist (Sociology): “Providing free content is a way for the ruling class to make the audience into a commodity.”
Interactionist (Sociology): “Content provides meaning to social selves.”
Moralist: “Content Yourself.”
Buddhist: “Content breeds contentment.”
Christian: “Content begat content.”
Geek: “Content Wants to be Free.”
Judge: “Our mission is to balance the rights of content creators with those of content consumers.”
Cop: “There are three forms of content: content that is appropriate for everyone, content which is only appropriate to certain people, and content which isn’t appropriate for anyone.”
Teenage Boy: “Where can I find naked pictures of that cute girl in my class?”
Teenage Girl: “How can I get in touch with that dreamy guy in that video?”
Organic Startup Ideas
http://www.paulgraham.com/organic.htmlOne thing I like about this text is its tone. There’s an honesty, an ingenuity that I find rare in this type of writing.
was the first type
The iPhone is the phone Steve Jobs wants.
to predict what other people will want.
seem like startup ideas at first
something of value to a lot of people
other people dismiss as a toy
something that users like but that we could envision forum trolls
dismissing as a toy, it makes us especially likely to invest.
valuable types of fixable brokenness first
starting a startup to become one of its users, however unnatural it
seems.
you can charge for
I recently posted a rambling version of instructions about how to install BuddyPress 1.1.3 on FatCow:
Installing BuddyPress on a Webhost « Disparate.
BuddyPress 1.2 was just released, with some neat new features including the ability to run on a standard (non-WPµ) version of WordPress and a new way to handle templates. They now have three-step instructions on how to install BuddyPress. Here’s my somewhat more verbose take (but still reasonably straightforward and concise). A few things are FatCow-specific but everything should be easy to adapt for any decent webhost. (In fact, it’d likely be easier elsewhere.)
You now have a full BuddyPress installation. “Social Networking in a Box”
You can do a number of things, now. Including visiting your BuddyPress installation by clicking on the “Visit Site” link at the top of the page.
But there are several options in BuddyPress which should probably be set if you want to do anything with the site. For instance, you can setup forums through the bbPress installation which is included in BuddyPress. So, if you’re still in the WordPress dashboard, you can do the following:
This way, any time you create a new group, you’ll be able to add a forum to it. To do so:
You now have a fully functioning group, with discussion forum.
There’s a lot of things you can now do, including all sorts of neat plugins, change the theme, etc. But this installation is fully functional and fun. So I’d encourage you to play with it, especially if you already have a group of users. The way BuddyPress is set up, you can do all sorts of things on the site itself. So you can click “Visit Site” and start creating profiles, groups, etc.
One thing with the BuddyPress Default Theme, though, is that it doesn’t make it obvious how you can come back to the Dashboard. You can do so by going to “<full domain>/<name>/wp-admin/” (adding “/wp-admin/” to your BuddyPress address). Another way, which is less obvious, but also works is to go to a blog comment (there’s one added by defaul) and click on “Edit.”
Critical thinking has been on my mind, recently. For one thing, I oriented an “intro. to sociology” course I teach toward critical skills and methods. To me, it’s a very important part of university education, going much beyond media literacy.And media literacy is something about which I care a great deal. Seems to me that several journalists have been giving up on trying to help the general population increase and enhance their own media literacy skills. It’s almost as if they were claiming they’re the only ones who can reach a significant level of media literacy. Of course, many of them seem unable to have a critical approach to their own work. I’m with Bourdieu on this one. And I make my problem with journalism known.As a simple example, I couldn’t help but notice a number of problems with this CBC coverage of a new citizenship guidebook. My approach to this coverage is partly visible in short discussions I’ve had on Aardvark about bylines.A bit over a week ago, I heard about something interesting related to “making technology work,” on WTP (a technology podcast for PRI/BBC/Discovery The World, a bit like Search Engine from bigger media outlets). It was a special forum discussion related to issues broader than simply finding the right tool for the right task. In fact, it sounded like it could become a broad discussion of issues and challenges going way beyond the troubleshooting/problem-solving approach favoured by some technology enthusiasts. Given my ethnographic background, my interest in geek culture, and my passion for social media, I thought I’d give it a try.The first thing I noticed was a link to a critique of the OLPC project. I’ve personally been quite critical of that project, writing several blogposts about it. So I had to take a look.And although I find the critical stance of this piece relatively useful (there was way too much groupthink with the original coverage of the OLPC), I couldn’t help but use my critical sense as I was reading this piece.Which motivated me to do some Diigo annotations on it. For some reason, there are things that I wanted to highlight which aren’t working and I think I may have lost some annotations in the process. But the following is the result of a relatively simple reading of this piece. True to the draft aesthetics, I made no attempt to be thorough, clean, precise, or clear.http://www.miller-mccune.com/business_economics/computer-error-1390.print
http://www.miller-mccune.com/business_economics/computer-error-1390.print
It could sound relatively harmless an appellation. But the context and the piece’s tone make it sound like a rather deep insult.
Negroponte’s personality is part of the subtext of any OLPC-related piece. It’d be interesting to analyse him in view of the “mercurial CEO” type which fascinates a number of people.
To go even further, there’s a broad critique of the OLPC approach, left unaddressed in this piece, about the emphasis on individual ownership of tools. In the US, it’s usually not ok for neighbours to ask about using others’ lawnmowers and ladders. It’s unsurprising that pushing individual ownership would seem logical to those who design projects from the US.
In such cases, responsiveness is often key. Though Negroponte has been an effective marketer of his pet project, the fact that he explicitly refuses to respond to criticisms and critiques makes for an even more constrained offense/defense game.
For a very simple example: how about homeschooling?