CogBlogged under ‘Blog Pile’

cc licensed ( BY NC ) flickr photo shared by Tom Sigh, I found a case where my script was not working (it was for photo ownsers who never set themselves a nickname). I had to dig in deeper than I have gone with XPath, and was mostly my own ignorance as to whay I was having trouble extracting the right string. I got quick help from StackExchange. You can find details at http://cogdogblog.com/flickr-cc-helper/. I also found out that Chrome users should see new versions of the extension pushed to their browser a few hours after an update, they are automated. If you want to force it go to Window -> Extensions (or Tools -> Extensions) make sure Developer Mode is checked, and click “Update Extensions”. Doh. Firefox users can update from the Userscripts site by clicking the big green install button. And hopefully flickr won’t be monkeying with their [...]

A poem made of TZ episod titles? Oh yeah, brought on by Todd Conaway. Mine is called Be Sure The Job Is Done… I Shot An Arrow Into The Air And When The Sky Was Opened The Four Of Us Are Dying Where Is Everybody? You Drive The Fear A Hundred Yards Over The Rim A Nice Place To Visit The Grave The Fear The Lateness Of The Hour The Silence What’s In The Box He’s Alive

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by craig.letourneau.photography I’ve known Cole Camplese for some time, we’ve blogged together, presented together, hung out all night after dull conferences together, drank together, I’ve dropped in and stayed at his house several times. I can remember the first time I came across his work- I was at Maricopa in the early 2000s bouncing around the web looking at the ways these new Apple things called “iPods” were being used, and came across a post of his how he had jury rigged a “consumption” device as an assessment tool. I had scoffed at twitter when I first came across it in late 2006, but it was his description of an idea how to use it for communications among his PSU team that pushed me over the edge to come back to it in 2007. With all this, I have been [...]

A Wiggle Spectroscopy ds106 assignment: Take two photos of the same subject from slightly different angles. Merge the two photos into a single looped, animated gif to create a wiggle stereoscopic image that simulates 3-D. A very good tutorial explaining the full process can be found on Martin Sutherland’s website. I did not even intend to create this, but I took two photos in succession with my iPhone, and there was enough difference of angle (and the motion of my new friend Amyaz moving behind the bottle), to make it work as a wiggler. I used the PhotoShop Script “Load Files into Stack” and then simple GIFfed them out at a 0.2 second frame rate. It almost suggests the frenetic influence of rare rum from India? Perhaps. The back story… It was almost an accidental choice when I booked a room for two nights at the Black Squirrel Inn www.blacksquirrelinn.com/ [...]

Playing more with the #ds106zone for the Twilight Zone episode of the Invaders. All of the screaming, banging, and destruction might is averted if Alien Lady checks her iPhone. Instead of getting zapped by laser guns and whopping spaceships with her axe, instead, Alien Lady and Jim Groom laugh at old stories over the best tacos in Virginia, perhaps the entire east coast. Messing with the Macguffin may be one of my all time favorite ds106 assignments, because technically it is pretty simple (superimpose some text on a screen capture of a movie scene): Wikipedia defines the MacGuffin as “a plot element that catches the viewers’ attention or drives the plot of a work of fiction.” For this assignment forever change the plot of a movie, tv show, etc. by changing a single line of dialogue. Put this new line of dialogue below a screen-cap of the moment in the [...]

Probably the most well received talk at TED Tea Party City was Alien Woman, who shared her personal and moving story of thwarting the alien invasion. This Fantasy TED Talk assignment is brought to you by the ds10zone: Create a scene from a TED Talk being given by a fictional character. Obscure or well known, feel free to have your fictional character pontificating on their story, and their “essential truth” that has come to be known as TED Talks. Week’s 1 assignment suggested using one of my all time favorite episodes, The Invaders, which in typical TZ fashion, leads you into an assumption of character that gets flipped in the end. A power of this episode is is spareness, one actor (A pitiful “victim” played by Agens Morehead), almost no dialogue, and music that builds the suspense. The woman’s contortions, moans, and screams draws us into seeing her as the [...]

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog I’ve lost track of the count, but for 3 or 4 years, Jon Breitenbucher has invited me to remotely present 50+ Web 2.0 Ways to Tell a Story for faculty participating at the College of Wooster’s annuam Faculty Fellowship institute. When he approached me again in December, I asked if here would be interest in having me come to Wooster to do it in person. Not that I mind presenting online, but maybe we could do more in person. And Jon said, “Let me check.” And he did. And that is how I ended up boarding a train in Flagstaff to ride 2 dys to Cleveland (the train was my idea). I decided to mix and match parts of sessions I did in Asia in March, to focus more on what makes storytelling compelling and things about the shape [...]

Yahoo apparently brought in a high priced expert consultant to help them plan a rollout of a flickr update cc licensed ( BY NC SA ) flickr photo shared by WilWheaton First all the change in the layouts, which I admit I like as a design- it forefronts the image. But alas, the change did again break my CC Attribution Helper script. It took a few rounds of XPATH fiddling, but there is a new update available. Yet the flaffle over what the new accounts mean is staggerling clownish. Most everyone I heard form on twitter was as confused as I what these new accounts mean for existing pro users. Most think they are being asked to choose one of the new accounts (you do not). Why would I want to switch to Free? Just because it is free? It suggests I need to do something by August. I’m staying [...]

cc licensed ( BY NC ND ) flickr photo shared by JLM Photography. Disclaimer: Yet another blog post without a destination in mind; this is in the vein of open ended wondering, probably ripe for shooting arrows at. Batteries not included, void where prohibited. I’ve been dabbling, writing, teaching about digital storytelling for years, I still cannot tell you what it is, as a definition. For sometime, I’;ve had this niggling question that has been knocking to be written out. It is a question. Is there a difference (or anything meaningful) in making a distinction between when storytelling is used as a strategy for some other goal as opposed to a goal in itself (just to tell a story)? A few months ago I was at a conference, and sitting in a session on SEO. OI think it was because I did not move quick enough out of the previous [...]

cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by cogdogblog My pal Todd Conaway invited me to be a speaker at his school, Yavapai College, in Prescott, where they are running a three day faculty institute (Todd claims when he started, this event ran fo 6 days, that is hard core!). Yavapai is a multi campus system that serves the county of the same name. I faintly recall attending a regional conference at this campus in the mid 1990s when I was a young mullett headed kid at Maricopa, but I hardly recognized it. I was told they had a major buildout since then. It’s quite modern with a lot of well done architectural design touches, and reflects much fo the college’s focus on community and fitness. Todd asked me to do a round of Amazing True Stories of Openness- the audience was really into it, but I think [...]