Posted by Jerry on November 25th, 2007 — Posted in DIY, Journal, Technology
It all started with a pen. It rolled off the back of the desk and I didn’t hear it hit the floor. When I went exploring I encountered a tangled mess and enough dust to build a nest in.
I had read earlier of methods of decluttering cables – most of which seemed to involve specialised racks from IKEA. It was time to get creative. Howards Storage supplied a couple of wire baskets and Woolworths supplied the six-way socket and it fitted the baskets perfectly. I also had to get the DSL modem off the ground too. I decided that although rear installation would hide the cables effectively, there were times when you need to see which lights are flashing, so I decided on a front mount beneath the desk, but still off the floor.
And here is the result – four screws (supplied with the racks) mounted the whole lot in a neat fashion and the wires were each coiled out of the way. I used some velcro cable ties from Clints Discount Warehouse to keep the coils together. The whole lot took about 15 minutes and the result is an easy access for the vacuum cleaner and a neat arrangement of cables tucked well out of the way. Now to tackle the entertainment system!
Thanks to Sharon for the link to the declutterer 🙂
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on November 20th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology
The Fuji Finepix camera S5700 has a ten ttimes optical zoom and is a 7 megapixel camera. I particularly like the large lens size as it copes well with relatively low light conditions, such as indoor evening shots. But my standard test for a camera is how well it takes a moon shot at its greatest zoom. And here is the result
It was taken using the the full zoom and full digital zoom on the Manual setting (shutterspeed 500, aperture F3.5 ISO100) – okay I’m impressed – and it cost no more than the canon powershot cameras I had used before. I had looked at these cameras before, but was put off by the XD card media – well now they have updated and take both XD and SD cards – making them compatible (finally) with most card readers.
This camera is excellent value for money and a great entry camera if the prices of digital SLR cameras have been putting you off.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on October 22nd, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology, Writing
What does the Newseum, Sistine Chapel and the Sydney Harbour Bridge have in common? They have simulacra in virtual world Second Life. For some the build raises the question of whether real life (RL) museums are a thing of the past. a Washington Post article poses the question:
Are museums in the bone-and-pigment business, reliquaries of the past? Are they in the theater business, telling stories through sensational lighting, presentations like stage sets and costumed interpretive actors? Are museums in the experience business, forced to reach for ever fancier gizmos and blockbusters to compete with the sports world and Disney for family time and money?
Perhaps they are all of these things and more. But then even the RL artworks within medieval or Renaissance religious architecture were about experiencing the virtual. Consider the perspective studies that appear to continue RL architecture into a fresco. Perhaps SL is a little bit like that.
Is it as good as the real thing? It depends on what the real thing is. The lovingly detailed Michaelangelo fresco copy in the virtual Sistine Chapel can be viewed as a real lovingly detailed Michaelangelo fresco copy in a virtual Sistine Chapel, while the one in the RL Sistine chapel is also real – yet partially virtual in virtue of its function as art, and overlaid with centuries of interpretation so that before you see the real one your concept of it is preconfigured before you get there. The difference being that in SL you can fly up to the ceiling for a closer look! The SL one is built here at vassar/165/91/24 (slurl).
The Newseum museum of news offers a parallel build in SL of the one currently being completed in Washington DC USA – or it will if they release it to the public (something they haven’t yet decided upon). So it is a virtual museum in several planes – in RL (still being built); in virtual form (as a build in SL) and in further virtual form (it doesn’t exist yet).
This is precisely the discussion evoked by Magritte’s famous painting: “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” (This is not a pipe) – because of course it is not a pipe, but a representation of one.
After that the distinctions just get a bit academic.
Thanks to Archinect for the link.
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Posted by Jerry on October 18th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology
There must be new FaceBook applications coming out by the hour, but on a rare occasion something special emerges. This time it’s not a new way to poke someone or throw things at them, but a bridge between two worlds.
SecondLife Link is a facebook application that links two of the web’s most popular social software forms – social networking site FaceBook and virtual world Second Life. This is one of those “why didn’t anyone think of this before?” moments – well they have now and it’s been developed by Fire Preibisch and Jared Mitchell – a couple of expats living in South Korea.
It’s deceptively simple – its a Facebook app that lets you see the online status of your friends in Second Life – so you can know better when to meet up. You can also let people know where your second life home is, or let people know your favourite spot in Second Life so they can go check out your place, and you can match up people with their secondlife avatar (you can also search facebook for their avatar name too). I think this is only the beginning for this app – and it’s so far the only one that links the two in this way.
Cheers
Jerry
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Posted by Jerry on October 15th, 2007 — Posted in Journal, New media, Technology, Writing
A while back I joined an online writers discussion group in virtual world Second Life – one of the things they discussed was the forthcoming issue of SLiterary journal – a literary arts journal in Second Life and using fictions based on or in second life. The journal pays real world rates for stories.
You can pick up the latest edition of the magazine in-world or download the PDF (or click on the image).
The journal is interesting as it is an old media format crossing into new media. The fact that it is primarily available as a notecard in SL means that the reader has to be new-media savvy and familiar with how this virtual world works. It requires a form of new media literacy to access the journal – although it will subsequently be released as a web-based document too.
The journal is edited by a real-world journalist and supported by a small editorial team. The whole thing is paid for by advertising sponsorship – mainly companies with a presence in Second Life. We are a long way from seeing writers able to support themselves on Second Life journalism, but it is interesting to see the first signs of Second Life being taken seriously by old(er) media. The presence of old(er) media in Secondlife is growing with sites like the Australian ABC broadcast media proving quite popular. I suspect it will not be too long before serious academically refereed journals appear in SL. Already there are signs that SL is being taken seriously by major educational institutions, such as MIT and used as a teaching space for new media literacies.
Cheers
Jerry
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