texting the video

I'm geeked about this video:



From BoingBoing Gadget,

Digital filmmaker Dennis Liu has produced a video for the The Bird and the Bee's lovely single "Again and Again," in which the lyrics, melody and vocals unspool in surprising ways across his Mac's desktop in a beautiful visual harmony... ending in an artfully delightful pimping of the band in question that makes buying the track on iTunes almost hypnotically compulsory.

What amazes me is the seductive familiarity of the applications streaming across the screen. How it highlights the "you can do it"-ness of new media, plays with the many creation/editing/publishing tools we have, literally at our fingertips. I dig how it includes dialog boxes and mundane widgets like calendars, virtual post-its, and clocks along with text/image/video editing software. I like that includes drop-down menus, audio visualizations and screen savers. I like, I like, I like! (I'm also a sucker for the twee pop.)

Passive vs. Active Research

I spend a lot of time thinking about how the presence of computers (& Internet access) can and ought to change classroom practices. I had not thought about how the Internet might change comedic invention. Reading this Newsweek interview with my favorite comic Eddie Izzard changed that:

You mentioned Wikipedia. Has technology made you a better or a different comic than you otherwise would have been?
I think a different comic. I never used to research anything. I used to let research come to me. I used to sit there watching telly, and a program about sharks came on and then I'd know about sharks. Now you can say, "Sharks, how do they work?" Then you go online and find out that they haven't evolved in 2 million years—which means they're very happy where they are just killing and killing. Also I can do gigs and just advertise on the Internet. In fact most of this tour was just put out on the Internet first.

Non sequitur

I just got a catalog for Levenger. As someone with a penchant for office supplies, I enjoyed perusing the pages of fancy pens, desk accessories, and their analog-cool note cards-organization system (the FranklinCovey'esque descendant of the hipster pda). But it was their pads of specialized paper -- or more specifically, their argument for its benefits -- that was blog-worthy. Seems interruption (1, 2, 3, 4) is being invoked to shill paper.

Why Levenger paper may help you think better

How tempting it is online to switch from email to spreadsheet to Internet to document, each time interrupting your flow of thought. Paper, on the other hand, has a way of grounding you, even as your thoughts race across the page. Focusing on the paper in front of you—especially well-designed, high-quality stock—can give you more time to stay with your thoughts.

Try the paper method for at least some of your note-taking and see what—and how—you think. It may lead you in new direction.

The paper is cool; it's the argument I don't buy.

Cory Doctorow on Interruptive Media

The Pleasures of Uninterrupted Communication

I love communicating too much to be interrupted. Whether I'm writing an essay or a novel, composing an email, or chattering with someone by voice, the last thing I want is to be given a jolt of useless adrenaline every time something new lands in my queue... The mature information worker is someone who can manage his queues effectively.

Would that I were so disciplined. But he's right. Effective information work does take some personal habits and intervention in default settings. In addition to shutting down auto-alerts, I like non-distracting streaming audio that helps the time pass as I write -- mostly innocuous techno.

Here's a link to Clay Spinuzzi's nice summary of work on fragmentation.

[via BoingBoing]

w00t!

It's official. Gaming lexicon is becoming mainstream.

Merriam-Webster's word of '07: 'w00t' [M-W, NYT]

I've been using it in IMs for a while now, and if faculty are using it, it sure ain't street anymore.

[Caveat: no info on how "reading level" is ascertained]

Personalized Sharpie Markers -- Want!

Product page [via BoingBoing]

Before there was 1337 speak...

An interesting post on the jargon of various trades at the Modern Mechanix blog, "OLD WORDS GET NEW MEANING IN Queer Trade Lingoes" from the February, 1933, Popular Science. The section on "Ham Jargon"bears some resemblance to 1337 speak, for similar reasons of efficiency.

Since his language is generally talked via the air in dots and dashes, he has been driven to cut everything clown to the “bones. “Old man” becomes OM; “young lady,” YL; “nothing doing,” XD; “see you later,” CUL; and “fine business,” FB.

I'm totally going to start using "FB" in my chats.

dudes, I need professor advice

Question from friend via Facebook...

Are we confirming or ignoring friend requests from our students?

My response:

Because I teach about writing, new media, online culture, and professional communication, I see Facebook as an extension of my teaching. I accept student friend requests because participating online like this is part of my pedagogy. Therefore, I seek to model good, professional, ethical online participation and "friending" them and allowing them to see how I manage my online identity as *part* of my professional identity is in my teaching perview. For those who teach in other areas, the purpose and boundaries are less clear. It's up to you. If you do deny them, however, I'd include an explanatory note that you are using Facebook for personal reasons and I'd change my settings so only friends can see your content. I think we're either all in or we have to use social networking spaces privately.

WinTabber -- at long last

My students frequently hear me rant about technologies I dislike. One of my longest-standing complaints is that Windows won't give me control over the order in which programs appear in the task bar at the bottom of the screen. For some reason, the order of that workspace is important to me, but I can't drag the tabs to order them as I would have them. To get the order I so desperately crave, I tend to open programs in a particular sequence -- but you're out of luck if you want to move anything.

A former student emailed me a Lifehacker post about WinTabber to let me know there was a solution.

Is it bad that my techno-rants are so vitriolic that former students send me emails about them?