Posted by Holly Witchey on Wednesday July 1 2009
I am not a metadata standard, but I play one on TV.
Posted by Holly Witchey on Wednesday July 1 2009
Just opened my facebook account for a last check before retiring this evening and found that one of my friends had taken the following quiz:
What metadata standard are you ?
If I listen carefully I think I can hear Nero fiddling outside my window.
Posted by Nik Honeysett on Wednesday July 1 2009
There are a number of technology-related phrases that I hate and Computer Wizardry is one of them. But my all-time favorite hated phrase occurred on a children’s television news program called John Craven’s Newsround back in the early 90’s. (Ahh, where is he now?).
We had just launched a CD-ROM version of the interactive kiosk system we built for the National Gallery. The real National Gallery. The one in London. Microsoft Art Gallery, buy it on Amazon now. It was a fairly big deal at the time and it made the press and a kid’s television news program – now that’s press coverage. I committed the introduction of the piece to memory:
Scientists have managed to shrink the entire collection of the National Gallery onto this CD…
I am a scientist.
My other claim to fame at this time was to have my hand photographed holding said CD-ROM for a piece in the technology section of the Grauniad newspaper. I’d provide a link but the Guardian archive doesn’t go back that far, oh well. I should add these attributes to my resume, Scientist and Hand Model.
Anyway, Computer Wizardy turned up again today in reference to a show going up in Amsterdam next week, see NY Times: Digital Images of All Rembrandt’s Work on Show:
“full-sized digital reproductions that attempt to recreate the works as they emerged from the artist’s studio rather than as they exist today”
and the offending piece:
Employing computer wizardry, pieces of canvas or panel that were sliced off centuries ago have been patched back on. Colors are restored to the vibrancy they had when they came off the master’s brush. Details hidden in darkness because of aging pigments emerge into view.
And if you really want to be offended:
In some ways, the high resolution images are more authentic than the real paintings, said Ernst van de Wetering, a leading Rembrandt scholar who supervised the project.
Gotta hand it to the Dutch, they’ve legalised Drugs, legalised Prostitution and now they’re legalising passing off digial surrogates as the real thing. (I wonder what the job market is like out there…)
Posted by Holly Witchey on Tuesday June 30 2009
Corning Museum of Glass
Children and teens get in free–beautiful objects, great didactics, engaged visitors, interactive demos…they are doing it all right!
Posted by rcherry on Tuesday June 30 2009
I was at a recent seminar entitled “Looking for the Upside in the Downturn: Time-Tested Models of Nonprofit Innovation” hosted by the School of Leadership and Educational Sciences at the University of San Diego. Notwithstanding the paradox in the title, there was a really good session on collaboration, a subject near and dear to my heart. Dr. Mary McDonald, an expert in non-profit leadership, gave an excellent presentation on social capital, the intrinsic value in social networks that binds us together and breeds personal investment in collective success regardless of personal connections, in a community collaborative network. After jokingly defining collaboration as “unnatural acts performed by unwilling participants”, she used a couple of simple analogies to define 3 distinct kinds of collaborators:
The collaborative network requires much more risk, but it also yields much higher dividends. We are almost all collaborating on some project, although we don’t usually stop and think about the science of it. But when you start thinking about how you collaborate or how your collaboration really works, you might find some of the reasons things are not going as well as you would like. What kind of a collaborator are you and what kind of collaborations are you in?
I was at a recent seminar entitled “Looking for the Upside in the Downturn: Time-Tested Models of Nonprofit Innovation” hosted by the School of Leadership and Educational Sciences at the University of San Diego. Notwithstanding the paradox in the title, there was a really good session on collaboration, a subject near and dear to my heart. Dr. Mary McDonald, an expert in non-profit leadership, gave an excellent presentation on social capital, the intrinsic value in social networks that binds us together and breeds personal investment in collective success regardless of personal connections, in a community collaborative network. After jokingly defining collaboration as “unnatural acts performed by unwilling participants”, she used a couple of simple analogies to define 3 distinct kinds of collaborators:
|
Individuals (with minimum social ties) |
Cocktail Party – Arrive Alone, have a drink and leave |
I am in it for me (and my own group) |
||
|
Direct Relationship (with network social ties) |
Potluck – Bring a dish to share and eat together |
I am in it for you and me (and both of our groups) |
||
|
Collaborative Network (with social ties & social capital) |
Collective Dinner – Prepare a joint recipe “spaghetti dinner” together |
I am in it for all of us |
||
The collaborative network requires much more risk, but it also yields much higher dividends. We are almost all collaborating on some project, although we don’t usually stop and think about the science of it. But when you start thinking about how you collaborate or how your collaboration really works, you might find some of the reasons things are not going as well as you would like.
What kind of a collaborator are you and what kind of collaborations are you in?
Posted by Holly Witchey on Friday June 26 2009
Follow the link below to an article posted online yesterday at BBC News. It seems that Australian wallabies get into poppy fields, consume the poppies, and, once they are high the wallabies hop around in circles creating crop circles. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8118257.stm
The article is terrific but even more terrific are the comments posted below, it’s so good to know there are so many whimsical people left in the world. Give me your tired, your poor, your platypuses yearning to breathe free…..
Posted by Ari Davidow on Thursday June 25 2009
I feel like I’ve really put my foot into yet another soggy area, e-communications. The laws of unintended entanglements are in full swing.
A few years ago we noticed that we were having trouble getting our emails through spam filters. We wanted to use HTML email because it is prettier and people enjoy reading it more—and they seem to respond better. Creating HTML email upped our spam scores with many ISPs, though, and of course, creating lots of HTML emails (this is not the place for my rant on what “HTML email” means, code-wise) was not how we wanted our web developer to spend time.
We migrated from one vendor to another, and right now, when we send out e-letters, we use a service called Constant Contact. The service is, indeed, admirable and reliable in some regards. They made it relatively easy for us to set up templates so that regular staff can put together the e-letters and e-blasts without relying on our developer. But, that just scratched the surface of what it turned out we needed.
(more…)
Posted by Holly Witchey on Thursday June 25 2009
…What bothers me is the mind-numbing omnipresence of this topic almost every where I go these days. I feel a little like a lemming who hasn’t quite gone over the edge of the cliff yet, who has a sudden awareness that the cliff edge is coming, and at the same time realizes there are so many lemmings pushing me forward that I can’t hold out much longer and I’m destined for the long drop.
This morning as I was walking over to my last day of Fluid Engage (http://fluidproject.org/projects/fluid-engage/) at the University of Toronto, enjoying the sunshine and 90 degree weather at 9 am in the morning I came upon an analogy for why I’m concerned about the topic of user-generated content. What popped into my tiny dinosaur brain this morning is the idea that user-generated content is like “self-satisfaction” (that’s a euphemism by the way). User-generated content makes the person generating the content feel good and it accomplishes several goals of museums (to allow the visitor to give something back, to feel like they are a part of the institution, the information provided is frequently relevant and useful to museums). Ultimately though users generating their own content is not as all consumingly satisfying as having an intimate, emotional connection with another person about content that both parties are passionate about. I’m hoping for a world where interesting user-generated content meets engaging museum-generated content and we all get a big bang for our buck.
And…if you would like to see a list of other euphemisms for self-satisfaction (and you have a sense of humor and aren’t easily offended) try this link: http://www.p7a77.net/mums/mumsterms.html.
Posted by Nik Honeysett on Tuesday June 23 2009
Like a philanderer I have a number of different browsers on the go at the same time. I have three right now: IE, Firefox and Opera, and I’m just about to add another with the release of Safari 4. I’m actually not sure why I do this, maybe its a hang-over from my programming days and cross-browser testing. Maybe its a hang-over from my bachelor days…
<reminisce>Cross-browser testing used to be so much easier. First it had to work on Netscape, ‘cos that’s all there really was, then it was IE ‘cos that’s all there really was. There was a period in between when the distribution was equal so it was a question of allegiance, and now it looks as though we’re at that point again with IE and Firefox.</reminisce>
But I’ve been using Opera because it has one really essential feature. Nope, nothing to do with the social networking hooks it provides. The most essential feature for me, and I’m not sure I can explain it fully, is that it works incredibly fast with our online purchasing card provider. For some reason, reviewing and updating items on our payment system is extremely slow on IE and Firefox, but instantaneous on Opera. Sadly, a chunk of my time is spent reviewing and approving visa payments – boy do I wish I could do that to “she who must be obeyed” – so having something that can do it much quicker is crucial.
The next release of Opera has some really compelling features, almost revolutionary (although the strict interpretation of “revolution” is “the same thing coming around again and again”). According to one of Opera’s Product Analysts, Opera Unite addresses “the Internet’s unfulfilled promise”. A hefty claim but this product might actually speed up the appearance of a social operating system.
From Opera’s Website, its built-in features include:
- File Sharing – A simple and safe way to share files directly from your computer
- Fridge – A “fun” place for people to leave notes on your computer
- Media Player – Access your complete home music library from wherever you are
- Photo Sharing – Share your photos with friends around the world without the need to upload them
- The Lounge – Invite your friends to a chat in The Lounge hosted on your computer
If these weren’t enough it also features a built-in Web Server. Now we’re talking.
There have been lots of conversations about Cloud Computing (Wikipedia: a style of computing in which scalable and virtualized resources are provided as a service over the Internet – think Google Docs), and as many people are happy with storing their data in the cloud as there are unhappy people. So, while you may be happy to host your content on Flickr or Facebook among others, with this product you can host it yourself.
Naturally there’s a caveat: you have to join the Opera network. I probably won’t but as a step towards a time when you have a product like Opera hosting all your stuff that you bring to the social network party, rather than having to join individual networks a re-enter the same information, bio, pics, etc, this is pretty awesome. In such a world, questions like what happens to my images when Flickr goes tits-up become irrelevant.
If you’re really, really interested in Opera Unite, see this great (somewhat cynical) review: Thoughts on Opera Unite by Chris Messina.
Posted by Holly Witchey on Tuesday June 23 2009
I’m spending a couple of days at the University of Toronto at meetings for the Mellon’s Fluid Engage project (http://fluidproject.org/projects/fluid-engage/). We are having a primer on user-centered design this morning and the presentor just showed us this smart idea from an Amsterdam designer. One small touch keeps public urinals 85% cleaner. http://www.urinalfly.com/
