AliaK's blog

why would someone pay you to make video / media if you're not getting lots of hits ...

there was a discussion about why would somebody pay you to videoblog if you're not getting huge amounts of traffic (amongst other questions / points). the thread started talking about online advertising. I didn't read all the replies, but here's what I'm thinking..

read the original thread

my reply # 1 and # 2 (below)

I think one day people will be shooting / making video / media as stringers and sell that to people who need video / media, likely businesses who can afford to pay. another layer to news program's stringers/freelancers but on any topic, not just news. ala Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash. so people will be taking videos for themselves and to upload and be paid if someone uses/downloads it. when archive.org started I was reminded of this also - "The Library" - a collection of clips from creative minds & people uploading as they will. so the utubes and googles et al will become clip libraries. most will be noise, but some will be useful for others. it happens in a small way now, how many of you have had people see a clip or video and ask if they can use it? similar with photos. eg I've had people see a photo and remember a place or a personal memory and ask if they can use it. after a while of people posting videos / photos / media - patterns will develop and certain topics / styles / genres will be sought after. anything is possible - the niches, the popularist content, the everyday life, the world around us. in the future when the world is different people will want to see how it was. I wonder also if it'll affect our memories & the way our brains connect thoughts & images as the ease of storing photos/videos to trigger memories is different now to even say 30 years ago, but that's probably another thread. I wonder then if it'll lead to obsession ala until the end of the world when Claire became obsessed with watching her recorded dreams on her portable video player. I think the two ideas (book/movie) will merge & expand.

I think this has all been mentioned here before - a while ago.. so a refresher. but, I think it's getting closer. especially with google etc & their searching capabilities and tagging / metadata so common place these days. if I were a big business this is the way I'd be going anyway.

oh, also, which is why I think ads on videos is an old media way of thinking. like ads on tv. (which will phase into product placements soon enough). people will still use them now whilst they make money from them but I don't think they'll be necessary or used in future as they'll be regarded as spam. similar to what was mentioned earlier, people ignore spam on the net now, so in the future when the generations change, they'll lose their power. the information / message will be the currency. & hopefully the creative mind! :)

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extract from Snow Crash (by Neal Stephenson) about the library..

"The business is a simple one. Hiro gets information. It may be gossip, videotape, audiotape, a fragment of a computer disk, a xerox of a document. It can even be a joke based on the latest highly publicized disaster."

"He uploads it to the CIC database -- the Library, formerly the Library of Congress, but no one calls it that anymore. Most people are not entirely clear on what the word "congress" means."

"And even the word "library" is getting hazy. It used to be a place full of books, mostly old ones. Then they began to include videotapes, records, and magazines. Then all of the information got converted into machine-readable form, which is to say, ones and zeroes. And as the number of media grew, the material became more up to date, and the methods for searching the Library became more and more sophisticated, it approached the point where there was no substantive difference between the Library of Congress and the Central Intelligence Agency. Fortuitously, this happened just as the government was falling apart anyway. So they merged and kicked out a big fat stock offering."

"Millions of other CIC stringers are uploading millions of other fragments at the same time. CIC's clients, mostly large corporations and Sovereigns, rifle through the Library looking for useful information, and if they find a use for something that Hiro put into it, Hiro gets paid."

"A year ago, he uploaded an entire first-draft film script that he stole from an agent's wastebasket in Burbank. Half a dozen studios wanted to see it. He ate and vacationed off of that one for six months."

"Since then, times have been leaner. He has been learning the hard way that 99 percent of the information in the Library never gets used at all."

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just out of interest, there's also some interesting papers about this book.. google 'neal stephenson video library' and there's even some interesting discussions

http://www.utpjournals.com/simile/issue16/blackmorefulltext.html

http://library20.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=515108%3ATopic%3A5678

Zills & Arabic Percussion

yesterday I bought a dvd on Arabic Percussion - it's a how - to / instructional dvd by Yinon Muallem, "Master of Percussion". I don't think I'd be able to carry a traditional drum around with me on my travels, and I thought they were made from wood & animal skin so wouldn't be allowed back into Australia by Customs anyway. I spoke to the guy from the shop and he had modern versions not made of wood or animal skin which sounded great when he played them but I said I'd think about it.. instead I found a couple of pairs of finger cymbals / zills - like the ones bellydancers use. the larger ones are the more professional versions and sound the best. the smaller ones are the cheaper ones found in most of the stores at the markets. but these fit my hands better so I thought I'd start with them. you wear them on the thumb and middle finger and can do a couple of strokes - hit together then open again for the higher 'ting' and hit together and stay together for the 'clap' sound. the store had a dvd also for bellydancing, hopefully it's got some English. their website lists the classes but it's in Hebrew so I can't read it yet..

http://www.arabesque.co.il/ - the arabic bellydancing & musicians site
http://www.yinon-muallem.com - the arabic percussion dvd site

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Olam Qatan - a chat about Israeli, Turkish & Middle Eastern music and books

Olam Qatan is a spiritual books and world music store in Emek Refaim St, Jerusalem, Israel. I spoke briefly with it's owner Ya'qub ibn Yusuf, who explained some of the music and books available in his store. Sounds like there's a fusion of East meets West happening in Israel and Turkey, which is really interesting to hear. It's great to speak with Independant store owners - their passion for music & books is contagious and it's great to discover new sounds and genres.

RENEWING THE ANARCHIST TRADITION - A Scholarly Conference

The eighth edition of the Renewing the Anarchist Tradition (RAT) conference, sponsored by the Institute for Anarchist Studies, once again aims to provide a participatory and scholarly space in which to reexamine, reinvigorate, and make relevant the social and political tradition of anarchism.

At previous conferences, presenters have proposed topics that ranged from the character of social change to the ongoing relevance of categories such as class, community, and labor; from the changing shape of the state and capital to emergent forms of both domination and resistance in a globalizing world; from the character of twenty-
first-century technology to the functions and potentials of anti-authoritarian art and propaganda; and from anarchism's relation to geopolitical concerns such as terrorism and war to its ability to grapple with issues of identity such as race, gender, and sexuality.

Read more for the Calls for Proposals or visit http://anarchiststudies.org/node/146 for more details. http://www.homemadejam.org/renew has archives of previous year's conferences.

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Soundscapes @ Tower of David, Old City, Jerusalem

Soundscapes Exhibition, in the courtyard of the Tower of David, Old City of Jerusalem, Israel, wednesday 25/07/2007. Outdoor instruments play compositons as people walk around the grounds. there's a light show also which highlights the instruments playing. it's a beautiful space and the sounds are very melodic.

www.towerofdavid.org.il/

"Numerous oversized instruments, including a harp, drums, tambourines, bells and contrabass, are automatically played by computer command producing an original composition. Mechanical arms play the instruments and each creates its very own sound."

moos and lost notebooks from 1995

back in the mid 90s or so I used to hang out on a couple of moos with some of the outlook crowd. I found one of my old notebooks on the bookshelf during this trip home and it has some of my notes on how to connect and lists the urls etc also. I used to use the name Alia back then though the name became too popular so a few years later I added the K for Kath/Kathy and became AliaK. one of the pages has my notes on how to request my name.

here's some of the notebook pages. I used to make the notebooks out of old 5.25" floppy disks and recycled paper from work - these disks weren't being used as often by this stage.. amazing how times change!!

I remember making a hammock that swung softly when someone sat in it and a room called blacony - nothing too flash compared to what the others were doing but it all worked ok! one day I'll have to go through some old disks and see if I can find any files from back then, that's if the disks even spin up at all..

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substrate processing app images

I've been trying out some processing apps - Substrate is one of my favourites. written by j.tarbell from complexification.net. it creates a generative image from colours in a specified source image using a simple algorithm.

I used this photo of Auckland countryside as the source image. here's the results:

http://complexification.net/gallery/machines/substrate/ for j.tarbell's amazing works.

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US Congressional Future of Video Hearing - videos on youtube

YouTube CEO Chad Hurley is being questioned at the US Congressional Future of Video Hearing - Box Elder has posted videos from the Hearing on The 463 - Inside Tech Policy blog.. let's see what the outcome will be..

There's also videos about Net Neutrality also

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fiducial markers, reactable, table top interface controllers

reactable - interface controllers - reactivision - table top interface controllers

tabletop interface controllers and systems are becoming more popular over the last few years. youtube is helping get the word out there - it was interesting to see a post on Stealth Board linking to the youtube video below and the guys talking about how cool it was and that it's the music of the future & it being alien music. !!
sounds like the genres are crossing over.. !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc

reactable / reactivision

http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/?software

http://www.iua.upf.es/mtg/reacTable/

http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/nime/index.html

http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/?publications

http://maniaxmemori.net/log/index.php?2006/12/07/2-dialectique-du-caillo...

http://sourceforge.net/projects/reactivision/

conferences

http://itp.nyu.edu/nime/2007/workshops.php - NIME

video processing languages / systems

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Aus & NZ post code + gps co-ord list

do u know if there's a NZ postcode, gps co-ord list available? drupal does some nice location things with gps co-ords and it might be possible to add the google maps to the venue/artists locations if u're wanting something like that?

the location module does it now for US postcodes, but I haven't seen a similar NZ based list. it'd be easy enough to create the data in correct format if such information exists and is freely available.

I think the post codes in NZ would have to pick a general co-ord as of course they cover a wide area.. eg pick a centre point or edge point. I saw the NZ posts maps of post codes, I guess we could always overlay them over a map with co-ords and make a rough list if need be. perhaps start with a couple of the larger cities if that's where most people are centralised?

similarly I'm looking for an Australian list also. I can get the postcodes, but don't have the gps co-ords

update: UK, Australia & NZ seems to be unsupported in google maps and yahoo maps so this probably won't work...

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drupal - freelinking

FreeLinking is a module that might work for Stephen's point (in feb minutes):

o Nice to have: create direct links to DB entry points in content
o [[artist/Birchville+Cat+Motel]]
[ [ artist/Birchville+Cat+Motel ] ]

http://drupal.org/project/freelinking

"The freelinking.module for Drupal implements a filter for input formats, creating links to existing content or links to new content creation via automatic linking of CamelCase words or words with double-square-bracket delimiters. It can be used 'wiki style' to provide links between content or easy creation of new linked content. It does not implement a 'wiki' type of content; this can be done with the flexinode module or using another core content type like blog or story."

there's drupal 4.7 & 5 versions.

here's an example of drupal 4.7 on my main site.

http://www.aliak.com/freelinking

I'm using it's default settings at the moment.

- it added a menu (which you could remove/change if u prefer)
- it's gone away and found some CamelCase words that are in the content on my site (I'm assuming after a cron run on the site)
- some terms list 'create this content' - if u click this it will create a blog entry for the term. though it didn't seem to go an add all the existing articles that use the term into the content. (it's probably better for new content so would be better suited to AF site)

- the PixelPress term says 'view this content' - this one does take you to the existing article. this article has been modified and includes the filter. PixelPress is written multiple times in the article and each one links back to the freelinking list of terms.

- so you could probably modify the section it's linking to to goto artists/TermName rather than freelinkingTermName. (or wherever u wanted it to goto).

I'll try this out and see how the module works & test on drupal 5 also (it's a new site - http://www.aliakprojects.com - I've only been trying views and cck there so far) http://www.aliakprojects.com/artists/list is a basic example

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drupal features and development links & info

some links for drupal features and module development.

CVS
http://cvs.drupal.org/viewcvs/drupal/ has an example/browsable view of the drupal code & contributor code CVS system.

themes

http://themegarden.org/drupal50/ has some drupal 5 themes, though it seems the themegarden has recently been closed.

http://drupal.org/project/Themes has some screen shots of themes.

artists sites & groups

http://groups.drupal.org/art-music - this replaces the http://www.drupalart.org/ site.

CCK - Content Construction Kit

http://groups.drupal.org/content-construction-kit-cck - group for Content Construction Kit (CCK). this is the new system to replace flexinodes and allows you to create different fields.

http://drupal.org/node/101723 = Content Construction Kit handbook

http://drupal.org/project/Modules/category/88 - lists the different field types for CCK

Views

http://drupal.org/project/views - there's also a system called Views which are like database user views and allow different collections of information to be collected and then displayed once integrated into the theme. from this page:
"This tool is essentially a smart query builder that, given enough information, can build the proper query, execute it, and display the results. It has four modes, plus a special mode, and provides an impressive amount of functionality from these modes."

http://drupal.org/handbook/modules/views

theming CCK fields

theming individual CCK fields - http://drupal.org/node/62466

theming CCK & views to create a scheduling grid (good examples of how to customise which could be applied to other CCK node types) : http://groups.drupal.org/node/2647

http://oif.eafarris.com/cck_theming_in_drupal_4_7 - this is the site of the creator of freelinks module. he's using CCK on his site and shows an example of how he made and themed a custom version of weblinks module in CCK

tutorials & documentation

http://groups.drupal.org - for general info on different sections of drupal project

drupal video tutorials and screencasts -
http://drupal.org/node/124318

support @ bryght.com - http://support.bryght.com/

http://drupal.org/handbooks

writing your own drupal modules

http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-dojo = a group for writing your own drupal modules with some lessons/tutorials

http://drupal.org/contribute/development has some ways people can help with drupal development

http://docs.drupaldojo.org/getting-started-with-drupal-development - there's a coding lesson coming up on 11th march. & they're working on a "Getting Started with Drupal Development" handbook

http://drupaldojo.com/lessons/ - has some of the lessons

http://drupal.org/node/508 - module developers guide

http://drupal.org/node/17914 - how to build drupal 4.7 modules

http://drupal.org/node/82920 - building drupal 5 modules

http://drupal.org/node/318 - drupal coding standards

http://api.drupal.org/ - drupal api's

http://drupal.org/node/49768 - drupal object reference

http://api.drupal.org/api/HEAD - examples from drupal head

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mathematical knitting

knitting patterns have a certain mathematical quality to them. knitting is basically a binary system - knit & purl stitches. so it's possible to knit binary sequences, letters eg convert the letters to ascii hex, then binary - some people knit their names as signatures in their work.

people knit in fibonacci sequences and end up with patterns and colours / stripes that somehow seem natural, just as the fibonacci sequences showing up so much in nature.

so I'm keeping a list of some patterns and urls for sites on logical / mathematical knitting.

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there's also the crocheting - such as the hyperbolic plane crocheted recently by Daina Taimina as a way to describe it physically. I need to practice crocheting though, so will stick to knitting for a while

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XML course notes

Expand - Collapse

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World Changing Book

I've just bought this book so I can read it when I get back to Aus for holidays. the World Changing site has heaps of useful articles so I'm hoping the book will too!

http://www.worldchanging.com/book/

the blurb from the site:

[quote]
"Worldchanging: A Users Guide for the 21st Century is a groundbreaking compendium of the most innovative solutions, ideas and inventions emerging today for building a sustainable, livable, prosperous future."

"From consumer consciousness to a new vision for industry; non-toxic homes to refugee shelters; microfinance to effective philanthropy; socially responsible investing to starting a green business; citizen media to human rights; ecological economics to climate change, this is the most comprehensive, cutting-edge overview to date of what's possible in the near future -- if we decide to make it so."
[/quote]

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