Way To Nowhere

Project B Goes Public - And Im very happy :)

[UPDATE] 25 June 2009

Wow!  My Map currently has 120 views!  Im glad to see that it is proving so popular!  Thanks to everyone that has taken the time to check it out and leave comments and ratings.  I might even be inspired to do another :)

It was with great delight that I received an email from Mr Michael Salmon (The author of The Monster That Ate Canberra, which my project was based on) letting me know that there were some ‘influential people’ who liked my work very much.

I was also very happy when I visited the Gungahlin Community Council web page and found that they had written an article about the web page I had created for the project :)

I cant say thank you enough to Michael for his support in the work I have done for this project.  My google map currently has 77 views and the website hits are growing each day.

We had joy, we had fun, we had seasons in the sun.

..and now Networked Media Production has come to an end.  It’s been a really interesting unit, and while a lot of the concepts that we covered weren’t knew to me, I guess I never really sat down and thought about them to the extent that I have since our first lecture.  Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is something that still haunts, confuses and frightens me, but I have a much better understanding of how it works and what a powerful tool it is! ( a brief visit to my Web Production and Design site will show the trials and tribulations I have gone through with the great beast CSS). 

We discussed blogs, and as evidenced by this very post, created our own blogs as a way to reflect  and analyse on the things that we have picked up along the way.  For the most this Blog still feels a little confused, as my audience at this point is my tutors and fellow students, people who I assume have the same level of understanding and implementation as myself (if not better in some cases). 

While I now find that a blogging service like Wordpress would have been a much better choice when it came to being able to record my Blog’s traffic and popularity, Tumblr have implemented a new feature called “Tumblarity”.  This feature is nowhere as comprehensive as Wordpress’ amazing recording, but it does let me know a few things about my Blog.

• My Blog is not in the top 50,000 Tumblr Blogs.
• I have a Tumblarity of 3 which is unchanged since yesterday.
• I have a total of five followers (and one of those five is me - sigh)

None of this is particularly Earth shattering, and it would have been much nicer in retrospect to be able to track which posts were more popular, have an ability to leave comments (Stupid Tumblr).  So, while I’m not about to win any popularity contents, I do hope that the content I have posted at least entertained you four people that have taken the time to read it :) 

I found the ideas of Remix’s and Mashups quite amazing, especially the Mashup of George Bush singing U2’s “Sunday Bloody Sunday” As I posted in an earlier Blog I was also entertained (and somewhat confused) by “The Interactive Playground of Paul Neave” which is well worth checking out and a great example of using an application programming interface (or API) to bring together some great media into something unique! 

While API’s, Mashups and Remixes have a great use for more mundane things like Restaurant locations on Google Maps etc, I can see that as far as an entertainment point of view the possibilities and limitless! I have enjoyed maintaining this Blog, I can see that in the future maintenance of my blogs Id like to add much more content in the way of videos, sound and images as well as a level of Web 2.0 as far as having a comments section, and this will probably be done through another service like Wordpress. 

I have chosen three posts that I hope you can take the time to go and read, and perhaps think about following me after the unit ends.

Data Visualisation

Multiplicity

Web 2.0

I started this blog with a quote from Back to the Future, so it only seems fitting that I close with one as well.

“The Future is whatever you make it - so make it a good one!” 

Peace!

The Monster that Ate Canberra - Now in stunning 3D

The Monster that Ate Canberra - Now in stunning 3D

Well, that’s not entirely true, and we may be jumping the gun a little here, so lets take a step back….to 1980! 

Shaun didn’t really want to go to Canberra, but this is how it happened… 

This is the year that I started school in Canberra after moving here from Sydney, and it was in the Page Primary School library (Don’t bother looking for it - its now a housing estate) that I first discovered the book “The Monster That Ate Canberra” by an author by the name of Michael Salmon.  I wont spoil the story, Ill save that for the assignment piece, but I will say that there was something about this ‘monster’ travelling around Canberra eating things that appealed to me. 

So, now we jump back to 2009 and the Networked Media Production unit that this blog is all about.  My initial plan was to create a Data Visualisation, but for some unknown reason the whole idea of the Geo Narrative featuring Alexander Bunyip came to mind while I was googling the idea of Data Vis.  From there it was all systems go.  I made a blog post at the time and Id like to expand on this now… 

Have we hit a barrier? 

This is where my first problem arose.  How do I present a well known children’s book without breaking any kind of copyright?  Well, I took a chance and found Michael Salmon’s official website and decided to send Michael an Email.  I gave Michael an overview of what I was planning to do with his work and asked him for his permission to use to work in the project and within hours I had an enthusiastic reply with his full approval and best wishes. 

Within days he had also sent me a signed copy of the recent colour version of the book, an “Alexander Bunyip History File as well as several other books Michael had written and illustrated for my children.  Barrier?  No way José! 

Pictures Pictures Everywhere … but not the ones I want!

 I initially started placing all the ‘place marks’ in Google Maps and doing searches through Flickr for images that were able to be used under the “Creative Commons” license (And was disappointed to find that there weren’t a lot of photos available for the locations I was searching for.  I still had the scans from the book to include, but I wanted to include some photographic references to the locations.  What I eventually did was incorporate the two!

I took the original photographs that I had found in Flickr and created a bit of a Mash-Up in Photoshop to combine them with the images from the book (This technique was also used to some degree in the original 1972 publication of the book).  Following the terms under the Creative Commons license I attributed the original photo to the artist and made links to their page on Flickr in the posts. Its done! 

But I want something more, something better, something bigger!!!! I remembered seeing the 21 Steps Google Map from the site “We Tell Stories” and I liked the way that it had been represented.  It had something ‘more’ to it than a simple map.  Unfortunately it was something that with my level of experience I was unable to replicate. 

So, the narrative had been added to the place marks, the photos had been incorporated, I had even gone as far as adding Wikipedia links for parts of the story so that the ‘geo narrative’ could also be used as ‘info-tainment’ but I just wasn’t as happy as I could have been with the ‘finished’ product.  Google Maps worked well enough to show WHERE the story was taking place, but it needed something more, a certain level of interaction or a sense of ‘being there’.  The Answer … Google Earth! 

Just like being there - minus the expensive travel costs and risk of Swine Flu 

There is something quite different to having a ‘birds eye view’ of the harbour bridge in Google Maps and having a stunning view of the harbour complete with 3D representations of “the coat hanger’ with the Opera House in the foreground.  Its something very attention grabbing.  My initial thoughts were that I wanted to really ‘show case’ the locations that Alexander was visiting, and Google Earth gave me this ability.  It also gave me the opportunity to customise the ‘narrative bubbles’ using some basic HTML and include some custom graphics as headers.  I didn’t like the way that Google Maps left the altitude that the locations were viewed from up to the reader, and Google Earth let me set ‘snapshot views’ with the locations view set at the point I liked and though best represented the narrative going on in the story. 

And on the seventh day I rested, but then still wasn’t happy and started again.

 It was complete!  I had a Google Map that included custom graphics that I created for place marks.  It had photos from others, graphics created as a mash-up and original content from the book.  I had Google Earth with all its 3D goodness and I had my Tumblr account.  What I also had was a link to my Google Map that included the God Forsaken “IFRAME” reference.  I posted the Google Map link in Tumblr.  It didn’t like it, so I tried Blogger, no luck there, Wordpress - again, the HTML Gods mocked me.  I wasn’t happy!  Every time I tried I got the link, but the Map itself would not show!  What was I to do?    So, I created a whole new page for it! 

Wordpress Pages to the rescue!

 Having used Wordpress for my first assignment, I was familiar with creating pages and this is what I had decided to do with this assignment.  This would also give me more of an opportunity to present the whole project on a single page including instructions, links and photos to show off the undertaking.  And that is where “The Monster That Ate Canberra” took shape. 

It offers information and download links to Google Earth, links to the Authors page and also information on the Creative Commons licence.  It was also handy to link to the kml file that you could download to view the map in Google Earth.  So now, may I introduce

THE MONSTER THAT ATE CANBERRA GEO NARRATIVE. 

Tumblr. You are falling behind….

Well, things ‘seem’ to be going well with my next project, but I am disappointed in Tumblrs inability to have certain tags in a post such as the iframe one that Google maps likes to use to post a map in a window.  Sigh.  As far as the map itself, well - its looking pretty good.  Not long now - keep at it young man!

EXTREME Blog Makeover - Tumblr Edition

Oh Tumblr.  When we first met I desired you for your simple design and basic layout, but as time goes by I cant help but let me eye wander.  I see other blogs out there as I surf the grimy back alleys of the internet.  They beckon me with their alluring colours and tasty widgets.  Yet, each night I come home to be with my beloved Tumblr blog.  Why?  Because I love you.

I still find you so uncomplicated and easy to get along with.  But my dear old Tumblr, you have to admit - you are one ugly blog!

But there IS hope.  The CSS Institute is offering us the chance to make you sexy and tempting.  An Extreme makeover is called for.  Now, unfortunately CSS aren’t coming in to do the makeover themselves, but I have been given the tools to become your own personal plastic surgeon.  You can trust me, it will all work out.  We just have to take a walk around, have a look at what we both like and then rummage through the CSS doctors bag until we find the tool for the job. 

All will be well my friend, trust me :)  (Think Dr Steinman from the game Bioshock)

Data Visualisation

This weeks lecture was about Data Visualisation.  Data Visualisation is a way to communicate ideas and data in a way that can often be much easier for a viewer to grasp.  People (as opposed to computers) are not very good at numbers.  To me the number 314159265358 is just a REALLY big number.  From the size of it, I can tell that its more than the number of Weetbix that I had for Breafast, but I couldnt tell you if it was more than the number of red blood cells in my body.  im not stupid (I Swear) Im just human. 

What humans ARE good at are the following things;

• Scale
• Colour
• Shape
• Position
• Movement

This is what Michael described as “Visual Wetware” and in taking these five ‘skills’ into account, we are able to take these really big numbers and put together something that makes more sense to us “meat bags” (Which once again goes to show that one day in the not too distant future, Robots will rise and become overlords of our world)  But I digress….

Swarm takes the stories that are currently being ‘digged’ and visualizes these stories with circles that grow and become brighter in color as they receive more diggs!  You can even set it as a screensaver - nice!  So, just now we have taken the numbers that done mean a hell of a lot to us, made them pretty yellow circles, and move them around the screen.  PRESTO - Human engagement!

Now, as a human, I can take a look at each story, look at which circle is bigger and brighter and know which ones are popular at this moment.  I dont ’need’ to know that one story had 32324343 digs and one had 34322654 - beacuse ‘that’ doesn’t look all that different to me, but I ‘do’ know what a big yellow circle looks like compared to a little yellow circle.  I ‘did’ go to pre-school you know ;)

If you head over to Digg Labs you can check out a whole bunch of ways that have been created to view digg posts as they happen.  Sure, you could just head over to the main digg page and read them one at a time, but there is something far more appealing about this data being presented in such a aesthetically engaging way!

You never never know….

Friday was a kind of weird day for me.  I was thinking about our next project for Networked Media Productions and how I was going to get my hands on certain information and how that information could be used without breaking copyright and all that jazz, so I went out on a limb and started scouring the internet.

Very quickly I stumbled across the name I was looking for.  This man is an author of a very popular and personal favourite book of mine from childhood.  Now, I’m not going to go into too many details at this point (You will all have to wait for the finished product) but I will say that one single email to this fine man made such an amazing difference to what I am now able to deliver with my assignment.  Sure, there is still the ‘technical’ side of things and how to attach all the bells and whistles, but at least I know which bells and whistles I have to work with now.

My point here is, I guess if you never try, ask etc then you will never actually know what the outcome may be.  Of course, as the weeks go by I will fill you all in with some more details, but I just wanted to say “Today, Im happy” and Im hoping that you will all enjoy the finished product!  I guess you could also say that Friday saw me adding another resource to my “network”.  :)

Peace!

Multiplicity

Multiplicity is a cool way of saying “lots and lots and lots of things”  As human beings, we just aren’t very good when it comes to dealing with large numbers.  We all have the ability to look up in the night sky and say “Oh look, there’s the moon” or take a trip to the movies and say “there were probably ‘about’ 50 people in the line to see Star Trek.  But we all reach a point where things go from having a definable amount to just being ‘lots’. For example I could say to my son “look up in the sky, that’s the moon’ and both he and I could clearly count the number of moons, but when he turns and says “Coooooool, but Dad, the stars looks amazing, how many are there” my answer would be “lots”.  As a mere flesh bag I just cant fathom how many stars there are in the sky, I just know there are more than I can count.  Another thing that occurs to me is the fact that there are so many stars in the night sky is something more than just ‘mind boggling’ its also very pretty.

You see, multiplicity has some kind of aesthetic appeal to it!  Where one thing like a fish or a bird can seem mundane in isolation, suddenly to see a school of fish or a flock of birds makes them amazing. 

People are just simply blown away by the most simple things when they are grouped together.  Show somebody an M&M and its somewhat underwhelming but show them a giant glass bowl filled with M&M and all of the sudden people get all excited and start jumping around (Hmm, THAT could just be sugar?)  On the other hand, ask that same person to count the number of M&Ms and all of the sudden they wish they had the one lonely M&M again. 

This is not the case when it comes to computers.  Computers are good at the mundane.  Computers are good at mathematics.  There is a fantastic video called the 1K project which shows 1000 cars all racing around a track at the same time and once again it has this really amazing aesthetic to it.  If they had shown each car race by itself 1000 times it would be a very boring experience. The same could be said for having someone guide this car through the same track 1000 times.  But give a computer a task like “Hey Computer, take this one car, race it through the track 1000 times and then put it all together to show all the cars racing at the same time” and the computer will just go ahead with the task wit no complaints (unless of course it gives you a “I’m afraid I can’t do that Dave” answer and then, well you have bigger problems than producing a cool looking video for Vimeo :)

We can also experience Multiplicity when we go shopping online for Domo-Kun dolls.   Sure, you might be able to walk into your local Ma and Pa store and they might have one or two sitting on the shelf, but you go to Amazon and BAM, you have a whole choice of Domo-Kun dolls to choose from.  You see, Amazon aren’t limited to shelf space.  A better example of this would be music, as we have very quickly moved away from a physical object when it comes to purchasing our choice of tunes.  While I can still go into JB Hi-Fi and search for a copy of Angels And Airwaves (and ultimately not finding it on one of the many shelves) iTunes is a different story.  I can simply type Angels and Airwaves into the search function and within seconds I have iTunes feeding the virtual album to me!  iTunes doesn’t have to worry about having enough copies of an album to go around to all the people that want it, they simply replicate something as many times as required.

As a side note, I find this kind of interesting.  In the ‘old days’ something was released in a limited number.  Things become ‘rare’ due to this and became sough after items, there is something cool about having an old LP with its cover art work, fold out jacket with goodies inside like a calendar etc.  Where does this leave us today where music only exists as a digital file with a screen shot showing on our iPod? 

Just food for thought…..

Web 2.0

“The cake is a lie!”

Web 2.0 is also a lie!  Its not something you can buy from a store, you cant pirate it from a torrent site.  Yes, you can go buy the shirt, (I don’t even know what the shirt is saying!) but at the end of the day, Web 2.0 is not something I can put my sweaty hands on . . or is it.

You see, Web 2.0 doesn’t actually exist in the way that Photoshop CS3 or Word 7.1 does.  It is more of a ‘perceived second generation on “The Web”.  In the ‘old days’ the internet was more like a public library.  A place where is was all look and don’t touch, where the all powerful web designers and overlords gave us online content and we, like hungry little children suckling on the technology teat, devoured the rancid milk that was Web 1.0.  But then something changed…. 

Web 1.0 children became the grown ups.  We weren’t happy with Web 1.0 anymore, we were tired of looking but not touching and that’s why we forged ahead and created a new world order of Internet interactivity.  The web became less like a public library and more like the back alleys and toilet walls of the big city.  All the Web 1.0 kiddies had a voice and Facebook, Twitter and Myspace gave us the ability to tell everyone in the world, at the top of our voice . . 

“I’m at Subway eating a steak and cheese melt” 

You see, the concept behind Web 2.0 is all about communication, information sharing and collaboration.  These days everyone has a voice and the chance to voice their opinions, and then others take those opinions and combine it with other peoples opinions with the use of API’s and then the next thing you know Metacritic  can tell us that “The Lonely Island” CD has a ‘metacritic’ score of 7.1 out of 10 as based on 8 user reviews.  Rolling Stone Magazine, The New York Times, Billboard, the giants that used to be “the word” on reviews don’t seem as important anymore.  Who cares if one individual from a corporate giant told us that Dark Knight was ”an enthralling second instalment” when 1575 people just like me had something else to say.  That’s right, I can be an individual on the internet - - just like everyone else…? 

Web 2.0 isn’t just about hordes upon hordes of people screaming out to the universe and wearing emo clothes and displaying your ‘edgy’ photography of your 14 year old friend half dressed in her best Goth gear and vacant yet somewhat confused glare.  No, it does other cool stuff too.

Web 2.0 is about the ‘long tail’ approach.  Content that was once created and met with thunderous applause and sales and then faded into obscurity can now experience a form of ongoing life (Hey, how else would I have gotten my hands on  Bruce Willis’ “The Return of Bruno” CD?).  Sure, Sanity didn’t have a copy (Does Sanity have copies of ANYTHING decent), a fact which I’m sure if they had infinite shelf space that would have had that CD and everything “The Hoff” ever committed to record, but Amazon does have this luxury, so music sins of the past can be passed on from generation to generation. 

Web 2.0 has a look and a feel about it.  We have mash-ups, remixes and a certain design element where things are shiny and new, full of vibrant colours, sexy contours and reflective surfaces. 

How can YOU get involved in Web 2.0?  You ARE involved in Web 2.0 right now Billy.  Reading a blog and leaving a comment, digging it and twittering about this amazing piece of writing while telling all your friends about it on facebook, creating fan art based on my likeness and posting it to deviantart and then making an artistic reply video about my thoughts and posting it on Youtube, you clever little fellow.  Enjoy, before Web 3.0 sees you hooked up naked in pods full of some gelatinous goo while your life force is being fed to our robotic enslavers…….