CogBlogged from ‘December, 2011’

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog This SLices of Life comes to from the beach, in view of one of the key places I wanted to see in person, the Twelve Apostles along the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. Just like Mel Brooks and his Fifteen… Ten Commandments satire, sometimes you lose a few in the wash. Clearly this was demonstrated how ephemeral Apostles made of limestone can be, as Carl Berger shared his 2002 photo of the same spot (and I am not making any inference linking Moses and Carl ;-) There was another 10+ minute section for this slice, but once again, the levels on the Android Voice Recorder app went bonkers and the levels are way high. I think I found the right menu option to prevent this– the one that says “Your new iPhone 4S will be delivered before you get home [...]

Lastly, and I really ought to just finally go to sleep– today’s photo adventure presented three scenes that turned into animated GIFs. I am finding that keeping my T1i in the mode the shoots successive shots, I can get a series of photos suitable for GIFing. First up, while waiting for the bored barista to make our coffee, I spotted this lonely accordion player, and the scene was made funny when a woman popped out of a door next to him. it is only 3 frames, and maybe it would be better to isolate the central motion, but the jerking of the guys in front makes it comical to me.

Today was another treat to hang out here with Rowan Peter as we had a few adventures in the Melbourne CBD playing theremin, opening the StoryBox, and pleading with some Canadian to come ice skating. It was so nice of him to take a day off of work (though that seemed to be a bonus) and also to prop me up via hotspot tethering all day from his mobile phone. We did a snatch of live broadcasts on ds106 radio, though I learned a lessone I did not know- if there are no listners, then the twitter bot does not go into action, so I should have tweeted out some advance notice rather then counting on the stream info being relayed. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Stop one was the Giant Theremin I had visited last Monday. We played around there bout 15 minutes doing [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog This may be the highlight of my trip to Australia. I came all this way to where a Team Canada hockey jersey to push a lawnmower.. But this art spells COGDOG! Woooooooot Cutting grass. I’ve not pushed a power lawnmower since sometime the 1980s, but as just a small part of a fun two days hanging out with Rowan Peter was getting this opportunity to mimic the feat he pulled back in March when he traced a ds106 into his grass. In fairness to the crying of Jim Groom, he can pump his pride knowing the reason Rowan discovered ds106 from its beginning almost a year ago was Rowan already a reader of BavaTuesdays. So Rowan demonstrated his craft0 he had been honing the canvas in anticipation of my arrival. We discussed the challenges of a capital “G:, and opted [...]

Not unlike the scared question of how many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop, I just counted six clicks needed to do a Google Image search for content that is licensed for reuse. Six. Here we go. (1) Go to Google image search. It has that new sparse google look, lots of white space. Gone is the “advanced search” link. Let’s try to find images of white horses we can use in our own content. (2) We get results- note that among the filter options on the left, there is a lack of any options for licenses. (3) With some scrolling to the bottom, I spot the link to the “Switch t Basic Version” (like who knows what that means?) (4) Now I get a search result page with advanced search link on it. I am closer. but am already deep in the [...]

I did not catch the stream of the ds106 presentation at the CUNY conference by Mikhail Gershovich and Michael Branson-Smith, so I did not hear their response- but Mikhail’s tweet bemused me: Amusing because who can really say what a University “feels”? Nah. It really shows how thin the understanding is of an open course, in the assumption that the experience of the open participants is the same as the one that students are paying tuition for — a “course is a course of course of course” to misquote Mr Ed. Yeah, why should some people get for FREE what others are paying for? Opening your stuff pays back in the long run. That was my lesson first learned in 1994, when I realized a set of tutorials on web page creation I was putting online as a workshop for my local participants, could be useful to other people elsewhere– [...]

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant was a book that Barbara Ganley recommended when I was in the first legs of my road odyssey, because of its setting in Wyoming where I was traversing. Of course, I had to follow the suggestion, and had downloaded it to my Kindle on my iPad… where it languished until months later, where I finished it in south Florida, the opposite of rural Wyoming in almost every measure. Alexandra Fuller’s writing is both as sparse and vast as the setting of this story- it is a true story involving the tragic accident that took a young man’s life. It is interesting in that the “story” is almost an anticlimactic bit at the near end- in fact the whole book is more or less the building of the character, through a vignette of smaller stories. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC SD ) flickr photo shared by Thruhike98 Back in 2007, I had this insane cross country tour of Australia- a fantastic invitation, opportunity, and no second guessing it for a minute.. but it was done as a visit to every capital city in a 2 week time span. I was working mad hours right up until I left, and it was my first weekend here, my first presentation stop in Hobart, Tasmania– when I came down with a cold. The show had to go on, so I presented, socialized, coughed my way around the country. i got a doctor’s housecall in Adelaide, and some scrips, and every possible suggestion for a cure, but the CogDogWog was strong: cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog So on this current trip, it was my choice to return to Tasmania since I hardly saw it. [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog Here is my Slice fo Life recording from my trip into the future, as our ds106 colleauges west of the international date line refer to it. On Friday, November 25, yes Black Friday, I drove from Strawberry to Phoenix, got a ride to the airport, flew to San Francisco to Sydney to Melbourne… here is the future. Slices of Life 003 The drive down from the Arizona high country did not disappoint, with the winter phenomena of seeing clouds that hover over the high mountains, even down to the road. I had always passed this one spot south of Rye, near Deer Creek, a lovely little horse ranch that reminds me of Bonanza. Today was the day to stop and take that photo. cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog There is some relevance on this trip [...]

cc licensed ( BY ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog It was an honor, privilege, and a hoot to be invited to come to Melbourne to do a 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story presentation for the PLP Network project here. This all came about because in October, during my road trip, I paid a visit to the home of Sheryl Nussbaum-Beach in Virginia Beach (get it, beach? beach?). We have known each other for a long time online but had never met in carbon form. Over dinner, she told me that her colleague, Will Richardson (whom I did not get to meet on the loop) was unable to attend the culminating meeting for their project in Australia, and would I be interested in going in his place to do a keynote? I think I said yes before her question ended. Thanks Will, we had way too much [...]