I started a new Maybe Logic Academy class called Share This Course! by/with Mark Pesce. the outcome of the class is to learn more about sharing and to write a collaborative book called Share this Book. so far it's week1 and the discussions have been great. there's a amazing range of talented people who've joined up so it'll be interesting to see what comes of the project - there's academics, IT/computer people, writers, students, artists. we're reading related articles & having discussions. feel free to join in if you like? this class is using a new (for me anyway @ MLA) pay-what-you-like model.

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here's the info from the Share this Course site's About page :
Share This Course! is an experiment in creative collaboration. We're working together to understand how the sharing technologies and culture of the early 21st century can be applied to the specific task of creating a book which talks about this new world of shared culture, knowledge and power, a book titled Share This Book.

We started our journey on 21 November 2009 and expect to be well into it through at least the middle of February 2010. This blog is our main gathering point, where we meet to discuss, to debate, to create and to produce. If you’d like to join us, please register on the blog and dive in!

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Crankthesteza.org is a new brisbane Net / independent label in Brisbane. I am looking for the unusual, usual, weird and bizarre forms of music. Check it out and drop us your tracks on the drop box..

We also hire P.A's and production gear with a community approach. Will soon have a production library and memberships are coming soon.

Drop by and have a look.. any feedback would be greatly appreciated..

Thanks Stoicdee

peas :)

I've been reading Erik Davis' "Techgnosis" book and thinking about MUDs and MOOs again. I used to play on the MOOs back in the early-mid 90s and read up about them again to see if they were still running a while ago : mud articles + moo articles. so I was thinking on the train home last night that twitter seemed very similar - it seems similar to IRC to me, as well as the MUDs/MOOs - the syntax of the commands ie the @ like the @command_name in MUDs/MOOs & IRC. some twitter software uses the auto-reply DM when people follow you, so I was wondering if you could reuse / subvert this to be used in a MOO/MUD on the twitterverse? or even not using DMs, but just open tweets.

USE YOUR TALENTS TO EXPAND THE GENE POOL

Charles Darwin discovers social networking! Salute the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, and the 150th anniversary of The Origin of Species, by sharing your adventurous vision of evolution and mutation in Gene Pool (pool.org.au/genepool).

Gene Pool takes evolution way beyond survival of the fittest, sex and the 'selfish gene', or scientists in lab coats. Cultures and ideas mutate too. Contribute a poem, story, photo or tribute, or perhaps a home movie or mini-documentary, a piece of music or field recording. Use other people's contributions to create your own recombinations, mash-ups, mutations, mixes and musings - or slice, dice and remix gems from the ABC archives - Gene Pool is full of possibilities.

In an ABC first, Gene Pool releases content from the ABC's archives under a Creative Commons licence so it's free for you to download and rework however you wish.

the guys at Sticky sent an invitation to join the We Make Zines NING group today. We Make Zines is a online community for zine makers and zine readers. the discussions are all about the zines and issues involved with making them & distributing them. this year I want to try this - maybe take some thoughts / notes from my little notebooks and make a zine. or some thoughts from this blog - though even the blog is mostly project listings, not my own thoughts. maybe time for a shift.. am I too old to make a zine?? hopefully not.. I want to (if I ever get round to it) put some of the info & interviews from brisbane dance parties archive site into a zine (hopefully a collection of them) too - then possibly a book later on. I like reading the zines from the Sticky subscription - they seem to be from a range of people - different ages & backgrounds. I like the letter ones - reminds me of the letter writing I used to do whilst growing up. these days I manage a few postcards to friends whilst overseas - it's nice getting messages in the mail, and I think the kids love them. I wondered about a video zine too - maybe stored on USB memory sticks or dvds. I posted a 'video zines' message to the artists in the cloud group - sounds like people are interested to try it out too.

Announcing Synaesthesia, Art, Science & Technology Discussion Group on the Leonardo Education Forum (LEF)

Following the Synaesthesia Discussion on YASMIN Discussions List, during the month of February 2009, we wish to inform you that this discussion will continue on the Leonardo Education Forum on the topic of Synaesthesia, Art, Science & Technology.

To join the discussion, please register at: http://forum.lefnet.org/node/26

This Discussion Group invites comments on Synaesthesia, Art / Science topics as well as announcements on art projects, research and relevant events.

The LEF Synaesthesia Discussion Group is part of the Leonardo Synesthesia and Intersenses Special Project launched in 1999 by Jack Ox and Jacques Mandelbrojt (www.leonardo.info/isast/spec.projects/synesthesia/synesthesia.html) and is currently moderated by Veroniki Korakidou, PhD Candidate - Research Associate at the University of Athens NT Lab, Communication and Media Department.

VloMo08 - Videoblogging Month 2008 has started now that November is here. People from around the world are posting videos on the VloMo08 site

my first post this month is the Strawberry Fields Strawberry looking for lost clubs in the Valley video - it was filmed in Brisbane whilst I was on holidays there on 09/10/2008, but I think it's a nice way to start VloMo08.

http://blip.tv/file/1417068

a quick spur of the moment video since there was a strawberry in the Valley. it made an appearance at the Reunion party with Vision Four 5

knitting resources and links

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knitty (online) magazine
http://knitty.com

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online knit communities

knit-list
wooly thoughts yahoogroup
wooly thoughts site
subversive yarn

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knitted toys

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/knitlist/message/90742
Squid Hat
Chicken hat
Knit Spider
Knit Veggies
Knit Dinos
Jess Hutchison - Her pattern booklet is fantastic!! but now out of print (i have a copy)

I just saw the email for the upcoming Maybe Logic Academy courses - there's another by Douglas Rushkoff called Corporatized - An Alternative To Corporatism & Beyond coming up in January 2009 - scheduled for 6 weeks from January 12 to February 22. his last class "Technologies of Persuasion - From Propaganda to Paranoia" was great - the class was very popular and had a lot of people in it. the first few weeks moved really quickly, by the last few weeks it was running at a slower pace so I could try and catch up. I was doing the The Crazy Wisdom of Philip K. Dick class with Erik Davis at the same time, so I was running behind on the Rushkoff class as the PKD class was so interesting! Fingers crossed there might be another PKD class with Erik Davis too - I asked and they said Maybe! (excuse the pun :)

I think Rushkoff's new class will be really interesting, especially as in the Persuasion class he mentioned his thoughts on the global economy and how we should be using a different 'money' system & alternative currencies. He's written many books, and columns with newspapers such as New York Times & Guardian of London. He now also writes for Arthur Magazine, which I think in some ways has taken over from where Mondo 2000 and previously Reality Hackers magazines started. Arthur No. 29, May 2008 has one of his articles, Riding out the Credit Crisis which I think was very timely considering the state of economic affairs around the globe now with some regions stating they are in a recession. this month's Arthur # 31 - October 2008 has another article by Rushkoff called "No Money Down" (pages 26-27) which is worth a read too - the pdf's are available to download on their site (part A has this article). he also has a forum on his site where some of the discussions can take place & continue from previous (and I'm assuming future) MLA courses, boing boing posts, Arthur articles and his books.

from Riding out the Credit Crisis :
"Whatever the case, the best thing you can do to protect yourself and your interests is to make friends. The more we are willing to do for each other on our own terms and for compensation that doesn’t necessarily involve the until-recently-almighty dollar, the less vulnerable we are to the movements of markets that, quite frankly, have nothing to do with us."

...

"Think small. Buy local. Make friends. Print money. Grow food. Teach children. Learn nutrition. And if you do have money to invest, put it into whatever lets you and your friends do those things."

---

today 18/10/2008 was the Sydney Drupal Camp - held at University of NSW campus in Camperdown & hosted by the Drupal Australia Group. Ryan Cross did a fantastic job organising the "unconference" with assistance from many people in the group. I'm too tired right now to write up my notes about it - suffice to say it was a great event and I learnt a few new tips to try out. I'll try write more tomorrow & post the photos (I only took a few) after some sleep. I'd helped out by recording audio of the sessions which will be uploaded to the group site & available for those who couldn't make it.

attached are the raw notes I took during the day - pasted below for searching purposes. I spent all day in the "B" area - which was beginners, but they went through some of the new drupal 6 modules I haven't used much yet. area "A" was more for the hardcore programmers.

photos @ http://www.flickr.com/photos/aliak_com/tags/drupalcampau08

there are more photos by woulfe / Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney @ http://peu.pharm.usyd.edu.au/content/drupal/content.html

crowdsourcing is defined by Jeff Howe from wired.com on his site http://crowdsourcing.typepad.com as "Crowdsourcing is the act of taking a job traditionally performed by a designated agent (usually an employee) and outsourcing it to an undefined, generally large group of people in the form of an open call." [The White Paper Version] and [The Soundbyte Version] "The application of Open Source principles to fields outside of software.". He coined the term then later wrote a book about the subject : Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business.

this is the page you receive should you try to access YouTube whilst in Turkey. at first I thought it was a problem with the hotel internet connection in Istanbul, but I could (almost) read / understand some of the text of the message. and I googled it and found many articles about it from 2007. and there's an updated 2008 wikipedia entry saying this is the second ban.

I love watching the TED Talks. it's great they publish the videos as it's REALLY expensive to attend the conference. tonight I've watched a few :

Sir Ken Robinson : Creativity and Education
his talk was very entertaining - he's quite funny!, and he raised some good points and examples of how modern education system is designed towards getting people jobs, since it was formed since the introduction of industrialisation. as we don't know what will happen in the future, how can we educate children correctly to prepare for the future. and how creativity has a lesser importance in the education system of today. I liked a couple of comments he raised - listed below. the full transcript is on the TED blog page

"creativity now is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status"

...

MOBILE LIFE CONFERENCES and EXHIBITIONS

New Submission Deadline: 2 June 2008

-- mSOCIETY 2008 -- The 1st International Conference on Mobile Society
-- EURO mGOV 2008 -- The 3rd European Conference on Mobile Government

15 -19 September 2008, Sheraton Voyager, Antalya, Turkey
http://www.mgovernment.org/events/index.html
mlife@mgovernment.org

mLife Events Organization decided to extended the submission deadline
to June 2nd, both to respond to various requests for extension and to
organize the special sessions better.

Electronic submissions are open and can be accessed via
http://www.mgovernment.org/confadmin/

Please see the confenence brief below and more information on the
conferences, program highlights, topics, organisers and supporters can
be found at the http://www.mgovernment.org/events/

Cheers
Kushchu, General Chair

---- Please feel free to forward

MOBILE LIFE CONFERENCES and EXHIBITIONS

Netaudio, the Offline Festival for Online Music comes back to London after a great festival in Berlin in 2007

Netaudio'08 will take place from 22nd to 25th October 2008 at Shunt, a extensive labyrinth of tunnels underneath London Bridge Station.

Over four nights we will celebrate the creative output of networked musicians and online communities with talks, workshops, showcases and performances. Parts of Netaudio'08 will be programmed through an open call for entries. With this call we would like to give you the chance to put our attention to your creative activities related to the festival theme.

Call for entries runs in 3 strands: performance, installation and conference. For more information and to download the entry forms please visit: http://www.netaudiolondon.cc/blog/137/call-for-entries

Saturday May 10, 2008
2 PM PDT, 5 PM EDT, 11 PM CEDT

As part of the 4th Annual Open Space Victoria Voice++ Festival
the AVATAR ORCHESTRA METAVERSE will perform two new mixed reality compositions: XAANADRuuL by Canadian composer Jeremy Owen Turner, and The Heart of Tones (mixed reality version) by American composer Pauline Oliveros.

The performance will take place on Second Life, on site at Open
Space in Victoria, BC, Canada, and will be audio streamed live on the web. For
updates and listening urls, go to http://avatarorchestra.blogspot.com/
or see web stream urls at the bottom of this post.

Audio Web Stream urls:

Shoutcast server 1
http://d-oo-b.cc:8034
Listening url server 1
http://d-oo-b.cc:8034/listen.pls

Shoutcast server 2
http://d-oo-b.cc:8036
Listening url server 2
http://d-oo-b.cc:8036/listen.pls

Shoutcast server 3 (reserve)
http://d-oo-b.cc:8038
Listening url server 3
http://d-oo-b.cc:8038/listen.pls

--

PROGRAM

I was checking out the NZ Audio Foundation website again today and came across a link from an email on the AF-l about funding from Damian from Frey. it's an interesting argument. I think Australia is similar to New Zealand in this way, but also at a glance I think New Zealanders have the creative support advantage over the Australians, or so it seemed to me at least, as they have MANY! support organisations helping the artists. will have to do some more research to see if my assumptions are founded.

The SALA-MANCA GROUP is a group of independent Jerusalem-based artists that creates in different fields: performance, video, installation & new media since 2000. Sala-manca's works deal with poetics of translation (cultural, mediatic and social), with textual, urban and net contexts and with the tensions between low tech and high tech aesthetics, as well as social and political issues.

The Actv website (actv.co.il) is an independent digital content library , offering video footage on a variety of subjects: Civil and Social issues including: human rights, animal rights, video activism, environmental issues etc; Cultural content e.g.: music videos, short movies, documentaries, independent VJ shows, theatre footage, animated shorts , dance, art, poetry readings and independent films.

The Israeli Center for Digital Art (Digital Art Lab) was established in order to promote and exhibit New Media and video art and undertakes to reflect the cultural and technological influences on the visual art. In the center, changing exhibitions are held by Israeli as well as international artists, that give current approach to net.art, video art, photography, animation and interactive sound. For those involved in the contemporary artistic field, the Center is used for research, creation and projects’ counseling.

no-org.net is a Jerusalem art network, launched in December 2003. It serves a platform for experimental projects in the area of netbased and digital art and for the exchange of independent information on contemporary art.

Art, Music, Culture in Jerusalem today - event listings and what's happening around Jerusalem

TechGnosis maillist website
“Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away."
-Philip K. Dick-
VISIT TECHGNOSIS AT: http://techgnosis.info
SUBSCRIBE to TechGnosis List: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TechGnosis/join

http://www.maybelogic.org
http://www.maybelogic.net

http://edge.org/

http://www.techgnosis.com - Erik Davis' site

http://www.undergrowth.org

http://www.barrelfullofmonkeys.org

http://www.entheo.net/ - entheogenesis Australia 2007 conference

http://www.docquan.com/lib_dead.html - an online collection / library of interesting books

Last November I took part in NaVloPoMo - videoblog posting month. it was a lot of fun and was a good way to remember to do something creative in between working. I know a lot of people can't help but be creative all the time, but I find sometimes I get so tired from work that I become passive and tend to watch more than do. so this was a good reminder to get into the habit.

in 2008, Semanal is happening - similar to NaVloPoMo but posting one video a week instead of one each day. this is much more manageable for me at least as I can usually make one on the weekend. the hardest part then becomes finding time to watch everyone else's videos!

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..