NetDynam 2.0

without sound, this slideshow seems somehow lacking in depth.. and, well, lacking in the use of the affordances of the web wrt availablity of recorded sound as well, i have to admit.

at the same time, the slides are to some degree self-explanatory and an enjoyable way to think on the notion of ‘affordances’ and what it might mean for web design.

and then this one is packed with so much information, you need to have your finger ready on the *pause* button to take it all in adequately.

another link here to the blog page of the “information warfare monitor”, coming out of canada, and using the resources of three ‘independent’ research institutions.
it publishes short reports rather than papers, and links to other reprts, news articles and so on – all related to the way cyberspace is used as an arena for espionage and counter-intelligence… authors are affiliated with the named institutions, and so far i have not read any further than a couple of the posts to find out what if any political ideology they support. so far, nothing sticks out – but then, as i am left of centre it is no doubt going to be found wanting in some way by anyone on the right. i note that what i find neutral and mealy-mouthed is damned as ‘biased’ by conservatives the world over. go figure as they say.
anyway, looks like another good resource for web-based investigations.
on content this time, not expression. i.e. not related to interface functionality.

here’s a link to a site maintained by Luke Wroblewski on web design. quite a useful resource. of course, we are encouraged to “buy the book”.

[aside] instead of adding a link to my bookmarks folder, if it is on-topic as far as blog design and interface is concerned, it seems good practice to archive it here too.

[well, i will not try inserting a photo into this post this time - a link will have to do.   but then...]

the thing is, we made the trip over here to adelaide (again) from sydney last week. if you go the shortest route, the drive itself, i.e. actual drive-time, takes 18 hours. usually we drive about 6 hours every day, stopping for lunch and a wander in the middle. and, since we do not like driving at night (nothing to see), we usually take about 3 days and two nights to get here. but, also it is now winter and the days are shorter, and as well we decided to go via broken hill and check out various backwaters along the way, and seeing as this entailed using some unsealed roads and also stopping regularly to take photographs, this time the trip took us about 5 days… lessee, we left on the saturday, and arrived in adelaide on the following friday… OK, 6 days.

so far i have uploaded some of the recent shots to my flickr ‘photostream’, but i have not really had enough time to edit properly, hence it is a little untidy. i tend to take a few shots of the same objects at different angles and distances… oh yeah, now, this has been occasioned as well, by my trialing of the lastest acquisition, a fixed focal length 50mm lens. it takes me back to college days and the 35mm pentax, sigh. now i have a digital SLR camera though, and use a canon EOS body. yes, but normally these days, with the lens that comes with the camera, i can stay in virtually the same place and merely adjust the focal length to get diffferent framing options. now, i have to walk about the place. the benefit is apparently cleaner crisper shots, so i had to test this out. also, there are some shots i’ve uploaded to flickr that are pretty similar in content but i’ve wanted to test-change the aperture. so later on i will delete some of the repetitious ones.

earlier i wrote a very nice succinct blather about what i have done in the interstices of ‘not posting here’, and this post was meant to be a pointer to the fact that i have not been entirely idle. at the same time, into this post, i also wanted to insert a advertorial shot, a teaser, but this ole theme did not like that at all, and not knowing that i would be treated to a blank screen upon attempting to insert, i blithely tried to do the inserting after an easy upload as usual… after which, the blank screen and no recourse assailed me. my photo? or wordpress 3 and this theme combined? nobody knows.

meanwhile, perhaps a link to the photo in the medai gallery will sufiice… also i’d better “save draft” first….

here is the URL from our media library anyway….

here’s an interesting lecture on endangered languages in the anthropological tradition, and of course, it gladdens me heart that dan stands up to the chomskian idea that there is some universal grammatical criteria for distinguishing human language – and thus distinguish humans from other species (thus we should be allowed to exploit these ‘lower’ species – this is my extension, not dan’s btw)

recent article in “information week” plays right into my cassandra-like fears, and anxieties about the coming world-order of 1984-type double-speak. the writer, stephen saunders, apparently has some cache somehwre, although i admit having never heard of him.

recent article in new scientist took my attention, a summary of recent uses and advances in using software to gauge public opinion on various matters using keywords and frequency of use. the claim being that blogs and tweets are able to predict business trends – not directly, but by ‘measuring’ a sort of underlying, pervasive, social attutude.
not convinced myself, but interested in the work being done, i followed the link to the 4th international AAAI conference on weblogs and social media.

still ignorant at the time of what AAAI stood for (the association for the advancement of artificial intelligence), i investigated and downloaded some of the papers and presentation on the conference site

a short scan through the abstracts convinced me that i was not really convinced at all of the usefulness of their work, it purporting to give insights into the workings of the brain and cognitive processes through research based on software-driven text analysis.

at the same time, the free papers are a great resource, and it also linked me to the previous site i posted where, like TED, some fascinating lectures can be viewed.