I have finally moved over here: http://www.mooseplum.org/
Who knows, maybe I will even start posting more often again.
11 March 2012
20 November 2011
Why the Japanese are better at marketing than we are.
Nope, nope, that about says it all.
Just look at the link: http://www.sunokotan.com/index.html
Perhaps it is the benefit of an animist culture? Or one that never went through an extended phase of industrial form as aesthetic?
It is a much deeper question that an aluminum cooling stand might indicate.
12 October 2011
25 September 2011
20 July 2011
19 July 2011
BioCouture
Keep referring people to this and having to look it up again, so here is is. You too can wear organically grown faux leather that looks pretty much like dried skin.
If the product doesn't take off, at least they have a future making props for post-apocalyptic horror movies.
Okay, I will probably want this when the transparent vinyl jumpsuits of the 1970s make a come back, this time in organic fabric. With any luck it will happen when I am in my 80s and I can really shock the see-thru socks of people. We came so close to getting over our hangups, but then we fetishized the solutions and slipped backwards again.
16 July 2011
Biiru
Though it fail to explain why Japanese beer by and large is ... ermmm .... very mild.
Okay, except for Hitachino Nest and other microbrews.
Via One Inch Punch.
10 July 2011
The Poet of the United States
Cleaning out old AdBusters magazines and found (or perhaps refound) this little story, which someone was nice enough to post online for all to read.
Enjoy.
09 July 2011
SLArt Museum
I mentioned in the last post I went for a walk in Second Life down a good old Linden road. An honest to goodness walk. The walk ended up here:
A collection of museums of mostly Second Life art that takes up a good chunk of the mainland sim it inhabits. Won't say all of the art was good, but much of it was, and some was really must see. Like the framed pictures in the above image. The ability to get things to look like that in SL is something to be in awe of.
Set aside at least two evenings to amble through it all.
Careful with the link, trying to just click the spot on the map might land you under the road or something. That's what happened to me when I went back. And this particular museum is a bit of a maze because of the transparent floors. You have been warned.
05 July 2011
Waterfalls
I did something unusual yesterday, at least for SL. I went for a walk.
Now, I will often buzz out in a random direction flying over sims looking for interesting things, but this time, I hopped on the nice Linden road half a sim from my mainland holdings and just went for a walk. Or perhaps, since I was being something that walks on all fours, a canter.
Walking about on mainland SL can be a wonderful experience, at least in places where people haven't destroyed the Linden public works that allow you to walk around, or even take the train. It immerses you in the random creativity of people and forces you to experience what is there instead of taking you to some known or intended place. Sometimes it even makes you go ... I never realized this was right next to that, and I go to both of them all the time. And it is only something that can be experienced by getting out of the insulated private islands and wandering about the mainland.
On this day I found quite a few interesting things, the first two of which are here as a set. They are waterfalls. Both wonderfully done. Both probably looking much better at night, which it was. The locations are where I was standing when I took the pictures.
It helps, maybe, that there was a small plot of land selling bunnies and playing ChouChou on the audio stream right at the top of the first waterfall.
13 June 2011
A day made of glass
Interesting, but is it really the future we want? On the other hand, now that the idea is there, will we even have a choice in the matter?
Via Next Nature.
11 June 2011
06 June 2011
05 June 2011
New Look for 2011
My new look, if anyone is interested. The horribly broken wrists courtesy of the pose ball. I'm not in pain, honest. (I should have taken a picture of what it did to my back. Ooof!) Can someone get me something to drink ... with a straw? And possibly a stretcher?
Same me, not counting some small bits of tweaking not visible in this picture, different skin.
My favorite Infinity skins, by Maximillion Grant and now under the LOGO brand name along with the works of Polly Pavlova, have some new series out that take not only look great but take advantage of viewer 2 tricks and tools.
LOGO is one of the two skin lines I have found that work on smaller frames in SL. The other is more popular, but I don't like the way it looks on me quite as much, and it requires wearing a cleavage reduction layer, rather than just having skins with less shading. Needing less breast shading instead of more is always a challenge in SL. As is avoiding inflatable doll crotch.
But what I like most about LOGO is that you can go online to their custom skin creator and design your own from a menu set. I think they still give discounts for multiple combinations purchased off the same base skin, but don't quote me on that until you've tested it yourself. Before the skin was what you purchased, but now you can buy mod layers to expand your options without having to buy every singly possible combination. This is especially useful for some of the older skins, which he is busy adding new features for, and which have a very large number of lipstick and other makeup options.
In any event, my older skins are all from their "Natural" series, while this newer one is from the "Divine" series. And my really, really old skins are all also by Max before he started his Infinity series. I confess to finally having deleted them. They look like cartoons now compared to the newer stuff.
Now if SL would let me make my eyes more Asian without making my eyebrows all bushy ...
Oh, and the awesome hat hair is Roxy in plum by EMO-tions. I have been spending lots of time coming up with outfits to go with the hair, and it definitely goes with the Divine skin set. Be forewarned though, it is a very laggy sim.
The LOGO blog.
The LOGO teleport map.
04 June 2011
Review: Mamaa Saiz
Haven't done one of this in a while, and am totally out of practice, but here goes ...
A wonderful hour just sitting here in SL listening to Mamaa Saiz siging what he sings. A mellow combination of music with R&B overtones, or maybe that is his voice.
The guitar work is masterful and you feel each little pluck and strum playing on the strings of your heart. A sort of warm, ever so slightly misty-eyed, wonderful. Accompanied by a voice with just enough gravel to give it body without losing that smooth melodiousness that makes a singer so perfectly listenable.
Each song comes with the story of why it is in his collection, and each is sung as if it is a personal piece of himself. Most of the music is a selection of Americana with a distinct feeling that these are songs he has lived, not jsut come upon at some point and liked. Close your eyes and you can see him sitting there with the original artists jamming away.
If he is performing in SL, make the time to catch him. It will be the most worthwhile hour you spent in SL all week.
I think there is something in my eye, making it hard to type. Honest. So back to listening to the music.
Just don't ask him for any Joan Baez.
03 June 2011
01 June 2011
The Education Cycle
Let's look at a typical business proeject cycle. It looks something like this:
There are more complicated models, but this one is nice and simple and covers its bases.
Now let's look at a comparable education cycle. It might look something like this:
It is a problematic model. One might even argue that it is not a cycle at all:
Now it is easy enough to argue that these three images paint a very unrealistic picture of how education works. And the argument would be right. Much planning and work takes place outside the classroom. The instructor has to plan and develop courses, assess themselves and their courses as to what could be done better, and then bring the implementation part of the cycle to the classroom.
In this model, the classroom operates more like the shop floor, tackling one task at a time according to a plan handed down by management. But that is exactly the problem.
The classroom is not the shop floor of learning. It needs to be an active and collaborative process of managing the education of all participants. But, unless we turn the entire process of education over to the students (which, like an anarchist state, is a great idea on paper but not all that practical in actual implementation) we can't just grab a traditional business project cycle as our model for how to develop effective educational systems.
That is not to say business models can't help us think about education. It is just to say that like a good business, we need to be looking at 21st Century high-tech models, not early 20th Century industrial models.
The way we do that is by bringing both development and implementation into the classroom. Which is to say, we plan and develop courses and academic resources that can dynamically adapt to the needs of that particular classroom. Then we build on that. In other words, we need a much more agile approach to education.
26 May 2011
21 May 2011
16 May 2011
The Monoculture of American Education
An important read on why the United States educational system is a dangerous monoculture that has been abstracted from reality.
Mike Rowe's Testimony Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation via the Discovery Channel
See also Mike Rowe Works.
I will resist the urge to say Bloom's can suck my big rubber implem- ... oh, wait.
Spy On Your Camera!
Did you know that digital cameras include tracking information on exactly what camera took the picture? It is public information. You can call it up in Adobe Photoshop and look at it. (Which, by the way, also stores information on who editing the image, but in encrypted format so Adobe can spy on you and make sure you are using a licensed version).
Now, has your digital camera been lost or stolen?
Put the two together and you have a new Web service to offer people, the Stolen Camera Finder.
15 May 2011
14 May 2011
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