Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Putting down a sound track
My podcasting world suddenly got a whole lot brighter: sound effects!! I've simply got to find a way of working the "head stuck to platter phaser noise" into the closing sequence of my next audio creation!!
Monday, February 20, 2006
Lessig and writing in a remix culture
Here's another mp3 file:
Lessig, L. (2005). Creative Commons. Keynote address to the ITU ‘Creative Dialogues’ Conference, Oslo, Norway. 21 October.
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Playing with audio files
Shunfa Li, one of our resident IT gurus here at MSU, kindly spent this morning working with me on uploading some mp3 files to MSU's streaming server, as part of Colin's and my first step along the path to (probably sporadic) podcasting!
Here are direct links to to the first of the mp3 files we've uploaded so far (your media player should open automatically once you click on the link below):
Lankshear, C. and Knobel, M. (2005). “Freedom and Learning in the Network Society." Plenary address to the 12th International Learning Conference. 14 July, Granada, Spain. 40 minutes.
On account of a nervous trigger finger we missed the opening couple of sentences. The following can stand in for these:
"This paper is based on the belief that we are at an historical juncture -- an early point in the development of network societies that are increasingly interlinked on a global scale -- where it is timely to reflect upon learning in relation to freedom as an educational ideal. 'Freedom' provides a particularly useful standpoint from which to address a range of important issues associated with contemporary trends in technology, economics, politics, institutional life and everyday sociocultural practice that impinge on learning in ways that shape what we become (or don’t become) in the name of 'educated persons'. Within the 'digisphere' freedom has emerged as a key mobilizing focus for movements contesting intellectual property rights (e.g., the Free Software movement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation), and has already demonstrated its efficacy (e.g., the May 2005 'broadcast flag' decision in the US Appeals Court)"
The audio quality isn't that crash hot--we're still experimenting with using our iPods as recording devices--but if you use headphones you should at least get the gist of what we're going on about.
Meanwhile, I have another file to link to, but I just want to clear permission to use it first, so stay tuned! Shunfa also taught me all about RSS (Real Simple Syndication) and podcasting proper, so stay tuned for more on that, too!
Monday, February 13, 2006
Good Company
It's cheery the way that time after time and decade after decade the Pentagon/White House/CIA big plans bring us ordinary citizens -- wherever we live and whoever we be-- into pleasant company. So, today, this courtesy of Yahoo.
I guess the 00's equivalent to Reagan's Contra 'freedom fighters'. Well, at least, strong family resemblances.
The same old game with the usual suspects. and, perhaps, some intimations of an earlier 'adventure'?
Tuesday, February 07, 2006
New book out on video gaming
We've just heard from Andrew Burn that he has a new book out on video gaming, co-written with Diane Carr, David Buckingham and Gareth Schott called, Computer Games: Text, Narrative and Play (Polity, 2006). I need to get my hands on a copy, but the official word from Polity's website is:
Computer games are one of the most exciting and rapidly evolving media of our time. Revenues from console and computer games have now overtaken those from Hollywood movies; and online gaming is one of the fastest-growing areas of the internet. Games are no longer just kids’ stuff: the majority of players are now adults, and the market is constantly broadening. The visual style of games has become increasingly sophisticated, and the complexities of game-play are ever more challenging. Meanwhile, the iconography and generic forms of games are increasingly influencing a whole range of other media, from films and television to books and toys.
This book provides a systematic, comprehensive introduction to the analysis of computer and video games. It introduces key concepts and approaches drawn from literary, film and media theory, as well as from computer games studies, in an accessible and concrete manner; and it tests their use and relevance by applying them to a small but representative selection of role-playing and action-adventure games. It combines methods of textual analysis and audience research, showing how the combination of such methods can give a more complete picture of these playable texts and the fan cultures they generate. Clearly written and engaging, it will be a key text for students in the field and for all those with an interest in taking games seriously.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
This year's Bloggies
I'm slow off the mark in posting the news that the 2006 Bloggies short list has been announced (the short list isn't posted at present on the bloggies site, but Asymptomatic has a nicely reviewed partial listing of contenders here). Blame my tardiness on the short list--I've been thoroughly enjoying exploring new-to-me blogs like:
- the amazing, amazing Postsecret
- the wonderfully wunderkammer-like We Make Money Not Art
- the delicious -- and informative -- Noodlepie
- the gripping and poignant, Baghdad Burning
- the just plain fantastic Popgadget
- the very groovy Indie Interviews
- the accessibly hip Said the Gramaphone
among others....
And Peg Finders is extremely pleased to see that Stuff On My Cat has been nominated (which inlcudes three images of stuff on Peg's cats, Tartar, Kirby (Peg, is that really a helicopter on your cat?! Of course, that's nothing compared to what's on Julie...), and Julie--very cool!). This blog reminds me of one of my favourite internet phenomena, the life and times of Oolong, the Pancake Bunny and Hironori Akutagawa's head performance art.
I'm really interested to see a new awards category added this year: Best Teen Weblog (with at least some of the finalists doing a double-take at being categorised as a "teen"). This year's contenders are:
