CogBlogged from ‘October, 2003’

Barely relevant to the rest of this blog, what follows are the collections of thoughts that brewed, frothed, fermented, distilled during a weeken of travel. On the heels of a trip to Columbus for the NLII Focus Session on Learning Objects, I actually returned home to Phoenix, but weirdly enough did not exit with baggage to my car to go home as normal. Nope, the trip was not over, it was a plane change for a flight to Reno, Nevada, on route to a friend’s wedding Saturday in Mammoth Lakes, California.

What follows, or rambles are some thoughts on today’s NLII Focus Session (October 10, 2003) at Ohio State. I should say now that the best part of these events are getting to meet colleagues face to face, and without a doubt the attendance of 60 were all people I respect and value their varied work in this weird arena. However, bottom line, I am not sure I have anything more in focus on learning objects.Frankly I thik it is a mistake to focus on them. They are not as important as the learning activities we can create from them. Maybe it was a mistake to buy for the plane ride a copy of James Bishop’s “Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist” a review of the life and works of my favorite acidic writer, Edward Abbey. In addition, I did miss the last 2 hours to catch a plane so I could [...]

Well I feel safer having implemented my blog-spam defense perimeter but apparently there are still some pesky cockroaches sniffing around the edges. Here is another one for those keeping their blog spam filters up to date: IP Address: 219.141.115.94 Name: gifts Email Address: gifts-catalog@yahoo.com add to the banned domains: lstor(dot)com with a variety of un=related crap attempted to shove as link in my blog. You can pretty much spot the spam when your email notice arrives with NOT a URL referencing an entry in your blog, but one featuring a link to the MT comments script, e.g.: http://jade.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/cgi-bin/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=xxx Spammers. They make a squishy, crunchy noise when you slam your foot down on ‘em.

Here is a sneaky dog’s first peek at Learning Objects: Believe It or Not!, the gist of what I am presenting 1:00 PM Friday as part of the “Learning Objects Lounge” at the EDUCAUSE/NLII Focus Session on Learning Objects. Please do not alert the lawyers for the Ripley’s enterprise. It was an irresistable metaphor. Actually the format is a DVD (see a screen shot of the menu). The purpose here is to provide some real-life stories via video (not previous

Our learning object bloggers Lora and Boris are making a second appearance at the October 14-17 NMC Online Conference on Learning Objects. Taking to a new level their story presented at MERLOT 2003, a garden varierty PowerPoint, for the NMC conference they have speaking parts as well, as the presentation appears via Macromedia Breeze, the platfom for the NMC conference. More later on the “Breezin’” experience (is it a “mighty wind”?), but Boris and Lora are spending the weekend prepping. Their session becomes available to registered participants Monday, and later that afternoon, there is a scheduled live chat with the audience. It is an interesting format, let’s see how it flies. We are honored that NMC has given the dynamic duo the first day spotlight, given that the morning keynote is “Mr LOs as lego blocks”, Wayne Hodgins. After the conference, we should be able to provide a link to [...]

Wahoo! Thanks to the clear details from Jay Allen, Killing Comment Spam Dead, in relation to an earlier yelp, it looks like we are flipping the score on comment-blog-spam. It wa snot too much work to download and install 3 MT plug-ins and modify the various MT templates. There is a small but not painful delay on loading of comment previews, but the trap works. Two more URLs for Jay’s blacklist that have infected us (deliberately “dotted” so no extra google points for these cretins): mneuron(dot)com satellite(dot)menguma(dot)com Life is good. So far.

I give up. The rate of blog comment spam to this site is bothersome, now with 10 banned IPs (which likely does very little), and going in to remove the comments manually is getting very old. The latest, unrelated, un-meaningful, unwanted, undesired, unethical, un-freakin’ stooooopid crap that arrived in my comments: IP Address: 219.184.4.154 Name: dish network Email Address: dishnetwork@freemail.com And the usual list of inane links to another spammers crappo site I will not visit. This is obvious a script doing this spam attack as the structure is always the same, the IPs are not tracable once it reaches Japan: Traceroute has started … traceroute to 219.184.4.154 (219.184.4.154), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets 1 * * * 2 [my iSP's network] 15.335 ms 12.484 ms 13.696 ms 3 [my iSP's network] 23.842 ms 10.19 ms 23.003 ms 4 [my iSP's network] 12.215 ms 15.485 ms 8.534 ms 5 [...]

It is likely impossible to describe in text NobodyHere… It is a site to explore messages, relationships of words, metaphors, and variety of interesting gadgets. “How does this work?” Just click. All pages are connected. “Why?” Because I like to express myself using animation, text and programming. The site has been on-line since 1998 and grew into 105 pages. I’m not making any money with it. NobodyHere is supported by the Netherlands Foundation for Fine Arts, Design and Architecture. Here’s how it works (I am guessing). From the animation of the slumping typist, you can click the little icons that appear on the screen. If you moseover the scrolling list of words on the write, more text will appear. Each of the icons or scrolling words link to a little animation feature, each one differently. And then there are these bug icons all over the place. There is quite a [...]

Ouch, I just hurt mysefl laughing… The folks at J-Walk blog have done it again. Find out all about Spam University, ” the world’s top-rated educational institution for the growing spam industry.” Under Admissions: Spam University receives thousands of applications every month. Regretfully, we can’t accept everyone who applies. Consequently, we have stringent requirements for acceptance. We’ve found that the best Spam U students have the following characteristics: * Attended at least four years of elementary school. * No more than three felony convictions * The ability to count to 20 without removing your socks * Toilet-trained (at least for #2) * No more than 36 tattoos * Familiarity with computers (i.e., you’ve seen one in a store or on TV) If you meet these qualifications, we encourage you to apply. Even if you don’t meet these qualification, you should apply anyway. You never know… Check out the Courses, the [...]

Wow, these TypePad blogs just continue to pop up, all nicely organized. Here is Ratchet Up “is John Schott & friends, featuring links, often daily, to something of interest in digital culture and the arts.” These are not just your typical blog echoes from elsewhere, each story is originally written and tastefully illustrated. The Ratchet Up brief is to be “popular.” It’s not a high-level, jargon-giddy discussion amongst the digirati, although a few hang out here. We speak mostly in everyday language, but after a couple of drinks in the lounge we like a big word or two just like the next guy. The goal is to have fun and as best we can flash smart, and we welcome equally the wise and the wiseacres. If you send a post the Ratchet will credit your effort. Toss one more RSS log on the aggregator.