Nothing like fake news to brighten the real world. The Onion—a satirical news source that needs no introduction, unless you subscribe to urban legends—has finally used some of that Miramax money to enter the video arena, competing with user-generated YouTube spoofs and televsion shows. Good luck to Todd Hanson and the rest. I wonder how much the creative process will change.
Molotov Alva leaves Straightworld behind
The premise is this: At the start of the year, a man named Molotov Alva disappeared from his California home. A director, visiting Second Life, discovers a series of video diaries by an avatar of the same name. In the first one, “Out of My Skin,” Molotov explains his initial sense of disconnection from “straightworld” and how he is losing the memories of that life. To prevent this from happening again, in-world, Molotov is documenting his existence. Quoting Socrates and illustrating his various metaphors through virtual objects, he claims, “I’ve been in my second life so long, I’ve forgotten.”
Relational Experiences by Design
Mikhail Bakhtin says our interaction with technology is dialogical, making a distinction from the abstracted, static notions that are the subjects of traditional design. The Stone Center has developed a relational-cultural theory that puts the relationship—not the individual—in focus. We are strongest when we are in relation. Finally, Katja Battarbee describes interaction in terms of the type of interaction and the type of experience, suggesting a higher plane exists for co-created expression. This is an attempt to bring these ideas together into a map of the externality of experience.
Get a DandeLife
I was reading Ross Mayfield’s notes on a Wikimania talk when I noticed a little green and yellow icon in the sidebar. This turned out to be a web widget for DandeLife, a social biography network built around telling stories of personal experiences. Kelly Abbott is the idea guy behind this, but Ross Mayfield is [...]
Evil Spock is Coming to Town
Evil Spock asked me to guest blog for the holiday season, so I told my story of holiday disillusionment and lost innocence. Because my chosen persona — Ensign Redshirt — actually had some history on his site that didn’t match my backstory, some respectful editing ensued. Alas, my logic for selecting ER was that, in [...]
How to Be Creative
From the Drafts list of unfinished posts comes a look at Hugh MacLeod’s contemplations on creativity. Hugh is the guy behind GapingVoid.com, which I wrote about earlier this fall. He provides a lot of commentary on each of his 31 flavors of how to be creative, but I’ve cut them all up into groups that [...]
GapingVoid.com
In hunting for a blog about blogs, I came across this effort as a followed link during my search. Hugh MacLeod makes his living (currently) selling wine* for a tech-savvy South African company. He enjoys his living, though, drawing cartoons that are freely distributed through Creative Commons. His puts both of those things together in [...]