static★red » July 03, 2009
Darren James Harkness' Content Clearinghouse
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Sour ‘Hibi no neiro’ (via masakaaa)

Play by Samuel Beckett Part 1 (via horsemanriding)

AIdomesticviolence.jpg (image): Briiliant & Effective poster bringing awareness to domestic abuse.

Black Holes - Sixty Symbols (via sixtysymbols)

Watch this right through to the end where the physicist shows real data of star movement at the center of the Milky way over the period of about 15 years- my jaw dropped.

Memes as Replicators

Ze Frank at Webstock 09 on Vimeo (via Vimeo)

PAPERGIRL: An interesting project that started in response to a German crackdown on street art. Participants act in a similar fashion to newspaper delivery boys/girls, riding their bikes around the city and “delivering” art to unsuspecting passersby.

Marco.org - (via rosiesiman, laurakaypea, creator unknown)

What Your Facial Hair Really Says About You

“Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is a horrible experience of unbearable length, briefly punctuated by three or four amusing moments. One of these involves a dog-like robot humping the leg of the heroine. Such are the meager joys. If you want to save yourself the ticket price, go into the kitchen, cue up a male choir singing the music of hell, and get a kid to start banging pots and pans together. Then close your eyes and use your imagination.”

- Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen :: rogerebert.com :: Reviews

darren Closing up shop on the Twitter account, but will continue to keep it open for "posterity." Just not using it.

staticred posted a photo:

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staticred posted a photo:

darren @LindsayBlackett oh, we intelligent people can see through the bill alright.

darren @DanaEpp "binging" has an entirely different meaning if you don't catch the MS search context first.

darren @arcterex ya, that's a pretty scary documentary.

darren I HAVE VOWED to begin twittering like @hodgman. That is all.

darren 's house is going to be a-buzz with workers next week, putting in new subfloor, flooring, cabinets, moulding and (eventually) countertops.

darren didn't realize how much he missed the birds in his yard.

darren another random thought: why do java developers have such a hate on for php?

darren random thought: are Canadian bit torrent sites bound by CanCon regulation?

darren has install dates for the new flooring! yay! house should be back to normal (actually better than before) in mid-June.

Heather's post got me thinking about the first concert I attended. It was a Sarah McLachlan show in Bellingham, WA, back in 1994. It was a genuine Experience with a capital-E, and really overshadowed any other concert since. Funnily enough, not so much for the concert itself, which was great, but for all of the events that happened around it.

It started with getting the tickets themselves. I saw a tiny ad for the concert in the Georgia Straight, saying that Sarah McLachlan was going to be playing at Western Washington University. I was a big fan of her music at the time (it was a Very Dark Period of my life, or at least so I thought at the time, and McLachlan's music Spoke To Me. I've since grown up a bit, though I do have a lasting fondness for her albums). I knew I Had to Go to That concert.

As a bonus, the tickets were not being sold out of Ticketmaster or any other agency. No, in order to get tickets for the Bellingham show, you had to drive to Nettwerk's office in Vancouver and pick them up there. It was A Pilgrimage! My friend Tim and I (I think it was Tim at least - it's hard to remember the details 15 years later) jumped in the car and drove to their offices on W 2nd. It was like heading to Mecca, as Nettwerk was the label behind a couple of bands I really liked.

It was a bit disappointing when we finally got to Nettwerk. I don't know what I was expecting - dancing bears, circus acts, or a lush interior dripping with musicians and awesome. Turns out Nettwerk was just an office with cubicles - albeit an office with cubicles right next to one of the best known recording studios in Canada. We paid some cheery intern for our tickets and started looking forward to the show, which was a couple of weekends later.

On the day of the show, Tim and I bundled ourselves into my car, and headed down to Bellingham. We wanted to get there a bit on the early side, because the tickets were general admission, rather than assigned seating. And my god, there was sure to be thousands of people waiting in line for the concert - how could there not be?

The drive to WWU was pretty uneventful (unlike the drive to Seattle I'd make a few months later where my car would catch fire), and we found parking near the concert venue pretty easily - which made perfect sense given that we were 8 hours early for the concert. There was, obviously, no massive line of concert-goers, and no teeming throng of rabid fans crowding the university. We were, quite literally, the first people to arrive at the venue. Including the performers.

So what does one do for 8 hours at a university campus, especially when you're wary of losing your place as first in line? We explored the immediate surroundings and buildings. We walked around buildings, went up staircases, got locked in backstage. Oh yes, we fumbled ourselves into the backstage, where Dave Kershaw was hanging out. Of course, we didn't know he was the traveling organist for the show, and just asked him how the hell to get out. Eventually, having exhausted places to explore within shouting distance of the venue, we just sat down in a hallway.

Funnily enough, it was when we sat down in that hallway that we actually saw Sarah McLachlan. Tim missed her completely, and I only caught her out of the corner of my eye as she walked right in front of us. She was way shorter than I thought she was - I'm sure she was no taller than 5'. By the time I realized it was her that had walked 2' in front of us, she had already turned the corner.

Eventually, we started the line for the concert, as it was apparent that people were starting to show up. Due to our arriving stupidly early, we were at the front of the line. One of the concert organizers was going around with a video camera, and somewhere in the McLachlan archives exists a video of Tim and myself acting like complete idiots excited about our position at the front of the line (I'm particularly proud on that video of the stupid t-shirt I was wearing at the time).

The concert was amazing. Because I was at the front of the line, it meant I had my choice of places to sit (there were no chairs, just a flat floor in an empty room). I chose center stage, right at the very front. It turns out that was the absolute best place in the house to sit, as it was 5' away from the band. I was so close I could read the set list taped to the floor. The energy in that room was amazing, in part because we were all packed so closely together, and in part because Sarah McLachlan put on a very powerful show. At one point I very uncharacteristically had a girl sitting on my lap swaying along to the music with me (being the social misfit I was at the time, of course, I had absolutely no ability to even get her name).

I attended a few other concerts after that, but I was never had another experience like it. I think, in part, it was because I've never been to a venue quite like it, but I think also it's that the first experience was so memorable that I never could replicate it.

On the cusp of the Battlestar Galactic series closer, I had a thought on a very specific piece of BSG mythology, specifically the phrase "You are the harbinger of death, Kara Thrace."

What if this is a positive, rather than negative thing? One assumes from the tone of the series that Kara is being marked as an Angel of Death by the hybrids that utter that phrase. But harbinger has a second meaning, which is a forerunner. Starbuck died on Earth and was resurrected, this we know.

We also know that the First Five rebuilt resurrection technology in the final days of Earth, as a way of escaping death from their own Cylon uprising. Could it be that Starbuck is the forerunner of the colonists (and rebel Cylons) reobtaining access to resurrection? Perhaps instead of bringing death to the colonists, she is instead leading them through it?

I suppose we'll find out in a matter of hours.

I thought, given the recent Day of Digital Humanities that posting the proposal I sent into DH 2009 would be appropriate. (Ultimately, the proposal was part of a panel that was turned down, so I don't think I'm offending anyone by posting it here).

A Twittering Beacon: using social networking tools to enhance digital humanities tool adoption.

Darren James Harkness
Athabasca University
dar...@athabascau.ca

There is a common problem among digital humanities tools: they are not being used in great numbers, and get little attention outside of the conference and publication circuit. Innovative tools are being developed, but - with notable exceptions such as the Orlando Project - no user communities seem to form around them.It is a problem whose solution seems to be elusive amongst digital tool makers.As Dan Cohen writes,“most scholars have not yet figured out ways to take full advantage of the digitized riches suddenly available on their computers.” This paper suggests a possible solution, based on existing social networks and community formation in blogging networks.

The power of blogs and social networking tools to create communities is well documented. Social networks have been used within rural communities¹, ethnic communities,² and academia.³In my MA research, I found that communities regularly form in and around blogs and LiveJournal sites, and act as a positive force in the development of those sites.⁴ Furthermore, it develops a stronger sense of understanding between the blogger and her audience.

The sciences have adopted the use of social networking tools with great success.The most recent example of this is NASA’s use of Twitter to document findings from the Phoenix Mars Lander.⁵ The public response has been outstanding; MarsPhoenix has over 38,000 followers as of November 12, 2008,⁶ and inspired hundreds of its followers to create epitaphs for the lander when it finally shut down due to cold.⁷As a direct result of this success, NASA recently expanded their use of Twitter⁸ to include the Spirit and Opportunity Mars Landers,⁹ Mars Science Lab,¹⁰ and Cassini probe.¹¹

Aside from increased public exposure, one of NASA’s great successes in adopting social networking tools is that it has created a much better understanding of its projects. Lack of understanding, as Claire Warwick et al suggest, is a key in understanding why there is a lack of adoption among digital humanities tools.¹²I have found this in my own work with digital humanities tools, such as the MONK project; documentation is scarce, and information on a system is traded through emails with programmers and project managers. Lisa Spiro summarizes the issues well: “in my conversations with researchers who aren’t necessarily interested in doing digital scholarship, just in doing their research better, I learned that they weren’t aware of digital tools and didn’t know where to find out about them.”¹³

Entry into digital humanities tools is currently difficult for those outside the field (and often even for those within it) and serves as a roadblock for adoption.  We can take a page from our colleagues in the sciences and make use of social networking tools to create a better understanding of how our tools work. 

¹ Gilbert, Eric, Karrie Karahalios, and Christian Sandvig. (2008). The Network in the Garden: An Empirical Analysis of Social Media in Rural Life. ACM CHI 2008, April 5-10, Florence Italy.

² Byrne, Dara. (2007). Public Discourse, Community Concerns, and Their Relationship to Civic Engagement: Exploring Black Social Networking Traditions on BlackPlanet.com. JCMC, 13 (1). [Special Issue of JCMC on Social Network Sites, Eds.: danah boyd and Nicole Ellison.], Byrne, Dara. (2008). The Future of (the) 'Race': Identity, Discourse and the Rise of Computer-mediated Public Spheres. In A. Everett (Ed.), MacArthur Foundation Book Series on Digital Learning: Race and Ethnicity Volume (pp. 15-38). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

³ Hewitt, Anne and Andrea Forte. (2006). Crossing Boundaries: Identity Management and Student/Faculty Relationships on the Facebook. Poster presented at CSCW, Banff, Alberta., See also Academia.edu.

⁴ Harkness, Darren James. (2008) The Effect of adding a zero: the blog and identity.Master's Thesis. University of Alberta, Department of Humanities Computing.

⁵ MarsPhoenix Twitter Account. http://twitter.com/MarsPhoenix

⁶ Johnson, Bobbie. “Mars Phoenix: Nasa vows to carry on twittering across the universe” Guardian Online. November 12, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/12/twitter-phoenix-mars-nasa

⁷ Madrigal, Alexis. “R.I.P. @MarsPhoenix: The Twitter Epitaph Contest “ Wired Science. October 30, 2008. http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/10/rip-mars-phoeni.html

⁸ Terdiman, Daniel. “Mars Phoenix Lander completes its mission” Cnet news November 10, 2008. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/nov/12/twitter-phoenix-mars-nasa

⁹ MarsRovers Twitter Account http://twitter.com/marsrovers

¹⁰ MarsScienceLab Twitter Account http://twitter.com/MarsScienceLab

¹¹ Cassini Probe Twitter Account http://twitter.com/CassiniSaturn

¹² Warwick,C., Galina,I., Rimmer,J., Terras,M., Blandford,A., Gow,J., Buchanan,G. (Forthcoming). “Documentation and the users of digital resources in the humanities.” Journal of Documentation 65(1), .

¹³ Spiro, Lisa. “Doing Digital Scholarship” Digital Scholarship in the Humanities (blog) http://digitalscholarship.wordpress.com/2008/08/11/doing-digital-scholarship-presentation-at-digital-humanities-2008/