danah boyd….no capitals but plenty of sense!

I loved this response to the “We Googled You” article! danah says it so well by describing our generation as less concerned with public identity as the last. We are growing up with it so it will, if it hasn’t already, become the norm. This is a loose link but just look at how the Hey Hey It’s Saturday skit that was redone last month was responded to by the public! Funny part is, it was performed 20 odd years ago with no public backlash at all. Funnier still, all the dudes in it are originally from non-aussie backgrounds! My my how things change ay!?

The other part that is worthy of note is the talk of fame. danah is right, we are conditioned to believe that success is a result of fame and that being known to many is a true indicator of our worth. I can relate and i’m not that happy that I can! I’ve sat there often and thought maybe I should go on BB…?!?! I’m also trying to build a career as a DJ/Producer, but for what? To get a bit of fame and be done with it? The World Wide Web has opened so many doors for so many people now that achieving mass fame may in actual fact be harder than it used to be! Sure, there are more avenues, but for each avenue there are oh so many more people trying to head that direction. With these generations growing up with stars in their eyes, are we set for major problems, or will we all eventually settle for being famous to the 15 people who read our blog, as David Weinberger has described it?

The limitations of text

The Limitations of Text
Sometimes as we type emails it is easy to forget that the thoughts and emotion that lie behind the message are not necessarily tranferred to the text of the email. While the use of emoticons (or ‘smileys’) can help, consider the context in which your email will be read and whether the content could be misinterpreted.

I particularly like this section of the module content. It rings true for me in so many situations, both professional and private. SMS Messages are another situation where misinterpreting is so so common. Especially in professional situations I used to word my emails to harshly. Even though for me they sounded concise and well written. I think the conciseness actually converted to abruptness. It’s a fine line between the two!

Think Before Replying
The limitations of text can often lead us to misinterpret the intention of emails. Coupled with the instantaneous nature of email commnunication, this can often lead to unnnecessary miscommunication. If you ever feel the need to type an emotive or reactive response to an email, allow yourself time to cool off.

This is a motto I swear by and instill upon peers in my workplace! Its funny to see how much of this content I’ve already used or adopted without any knowledge of it being recognised in study! Its good to see!

Salam Pax

I’ve been hooked on reading Salam Pax’s blog since I looked into it for the blogging essay. The actual wartime writings are here.

There is also an awesome interview on Andrew Denton’s ‘Enough Rope’. Transcript is here. Normally ABC are great for videos but not this time. Youtube didn’t seem to have one either. Funny how these days i just expect the video to be online somewhere and am very, very suprised and angry at no one in particular when it isn’t!!!

copyright and the creative commons

The material on this really got me thinking. I want to research it more. And will. Like most other things on here I hope to get there once I catch up the course material!

the downfall of an audiobook

I’ve been using audiobooks for a while now as I spend a lot of time on the road. They enable me to read a book whilst I am driving.

This concept has been great. Until now. I need to look back at what I have read to find info for assignments etc. Now, I do purchase the hardcopy versions of any audiobooks I have purchased. It’s expensive, but a price I am happy to pay for the efficiency it affords. But this efficiency is out the window if I then have to re-read the hardcopy in order to locate passages I found valuable.

The solution? The ultimate solution would be a PDF version of the book provided with every audio file. But, even the authors who promote the “everything everywhere all the time” concept haven’t got behind this idea. What if each audiobook came with a reference document which loosely aligned times with pages? Not ideal, but still it would make things slightly easier…

For now, I guess I best get reading (real reading)!

editing a wikipedia entry

In my last job I actually created a wiki as an IT Knowledge Base for the company. In saying that, I was unaware a page existed on wikipedia.org that discussed the wikitext system so I used the very basic language without references etc.

Trying to add to a page has proven to be difficult! I feel ill equipped to knowledgeably contribute to anything existing. I was going to start a new page on “Belongil Fields” (Byron Bay) as that is where I am temporarily residing, however, wikipedia recommends contributing to an existing page first!

NEWSFLASH Just made a few edits to List of Australian music festivals and List of festivals in Australia. I also suggested via discussion that these pages merge…will wait to see what sort of changes happen!

wikipedia is (not) a credible resource

don’t u think its funny that we are discussing how wikipedia and blogs are excellent new sources of information but we are still required to look for more ‘credible’ sources, like news articles and alike for references…??? when looking at blogs how do we distinguish between a credible author and an incredible (?) one?