CogBlogged from ‘November, 2011’

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by TFDuesing I must admit that when I come across other people’s flaming #FAIL tweets I experience a wave of “hey- over reaction, eh?”– until it is I in the fiery rage of being done under by a bad consumer experience. And here is the thing, no matter how it sounds, We are in a unique time where at least for now we can have a place to voice such complaints — and sometimes there are results (I have my own success story after fighting Canon on shoddy rebate practices). I find it utterly stunning that companies would continue practices that attempt to wear down consumer complaints with the leaden weight of their own bureacracy. So for the sake of others who might hear, or find themselves falling into the same pit, or maybe someone who has a pipeline to pursuing consumer [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog It’s my first day here in Melbourne, a glorious sunny one, and my energy is good given a good long sleep on the 14.5 hours jaunt from San Francisco to Sydney. And why is it no surprise that all they way from Price Georges British Columbia should Grant Potter find an interesting thing for me to see here? His reference to Giulia was her inspired performance at the Sanctuary ds106radio jam last May in Vancouver and she retweeted it my way. My plan was to head there MOnday when I am exploring the city with Rowan Peter. The article Grant tweeted was not very specific (at least to jet lagged me) which bridge it was on, as there are about 5 within a short distance here. So it was just crazy serendipity when I emerged from the trail adjacent to [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by confidence, comely. Here’s my call/plea for some flickr photo tagging help. You won’t have to think too much. If so, go back and have more turkey. On November 29, I am doing a storytelling sessiong for the PLP Connect project in Melbourne, Australia- (1) Thanks Sheryl for offering me the gig, (2) thanks Will for not being able to travel so #1 could happen. My main qualifications might be a pony tail ;-) Anyhow… their event is wrapping some activities around an ARG story of Periwinkle the Penguin, who seems kind of meek– Peri finds him/her facing a boxing match with a tough Aussie, Joey the ‘roo. I’m doing a 90 minnute interactive session based on 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story, and am designing some activities built around these characters- namely part of it will be creating [...]

Okay Scottlo, I am on track to follow your lead of Always Be Reflecting. Scottlo, aka Scott Lockman, is one of my friends i have never met, an educator in Japan who connected via the narrowest of chances to ds106radio. For the past few weeks, he has been engaging in a practice of audio reflections (see Slices of Life 01 – Introducing the Project). As described, it came out of his interesting in Action Research, and in his audio discourses- with himself on the streets of Tokyo– he uses it as a platform to sort out his challenges in teaching and more– But in thinking this through, a bigger question has emerged. And it is a question I’ve not given enough time to thinking about. I’m not very clear on how to word the question yet. It goes something like: what does it mean to be a teacher? or what [...]

From the “what was once extraordinary is now obvious” department…. Do we marvel enough at how often we say “I found it on the internet” and it is no big deal? That is what my friend Harry smiles and says at the end of this video- he found the plans for his aquaponics graden on the internet “where everything happens”. What’s Aquaponics? The answer is where everything happens. This was a visit I made to see his project, a setup that uses a recirculating system that migrates waste from fish to provide nutrients to vegetables growing hydroponically, and the outflow of that going back to feed the fish. That alone is a beautiful ideas (as are the vegetables), but take that analogy even farther, to that virtuous flow of information. Don’t ever let it be swept away. Do not let a future happen where future parents will lament about loss [...]

cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo shared by h.koppdelaney I have great news to share- given the generosity of people who have donated financial support, and one anonymous donor in particular, I have sufficient funds to keep Feed2JS running at least through June 2013, and maybe longer. For those not following this untrending topic, Feed2JS is a service I developed way back in 2003 while at the Maricopa Community Colleges- it exists as a platform for people to set up cut and past code to create a dynamic display in their own web sites of content generated by RSS. As a matter of historical note- the idea for this was inspired by a site David Carter-Tod had created- the Wytheville Community College News Center. It was that example where I saw how via JavaScript a server script could could be called, passed a URL for an RSS feed, [...]

How are mere mortals going to motivate themselves to produce videos given the epic quality of the ones by Michael Branson Smith? Must we shave heads and show dark ominous videos in the dark? The Horror! If you have no idea, check out his latest masterpiece, the ds106 Confessional I for one plan to flush all my videos down the crapper. MBS rocks the video space!

I admit it. I have a problem. I can stop at any time, but why would I want to? Yes, I am addicted to ds106 since my first exposure. All the things i could say about it- the energy, the group of people i have become deeply connected to, the power of the radio community, the truly open-ended nature of the place (unlike any other “course”)– the fact that it is more than a course– all of these are things that people who have a similar addiction know without saying. The thing is, how do you express to the non-exposed? It is a lot to take in. For some ds106 has changed their lives, others their employment situation, and others have even gotten a religious confessional experience. There is more out there, more voices, more stories, and it could be yours too. Get bitten by the ds106 bug. What are [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog The loop is now closed, having returned home on Friday, November 18– this is one day past week 22. I have to say that doing these weekly updates were a blast and saved me the trouble of writing actual blog posts. Number of days on the road: 148 Miles Driven: 15,035 — That is an average of 101 per day, Longest driving Day: the last one 620 miles from Amarillo, TX to Strawberry, AZ. Most Recent 1000 mile marker: 15,000 miles, south of Winslow AZ Number of States/Provinces driven in: 29: Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming, Idaho, Washington, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delawre, New Jersey, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Number of [...]

I do not have the fancy red shoes, but I do have a kick-ass red pickup truck! cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog My 2011 Road Odyssey closed its lop last night when I got home at 6:30pm to my home in Strawberry, AZ, 15,030 miles and 5 months since I left in late June. This last bit was a manic sprint, covering 2200 miles from Fort Myers Florida starting Monday morning. I do not highly recommend that travel mode. It was my choice, driven my the fact I signed up to do a trip to Australia starting.. next friday. Parked in my driveway, I did a short ds106radio broadcast of the coming home moment, walking in my door, and also archived it on my phone recorder. Coming Home I was just about 30 miles up the road, the place where the AZ 87 heading south [...]