I’m working with the NEASIST Program Committee on our spring program about various new technolgies that libraries are experimenting with. Just finished a bibliography for the event. And we have a blog. I just love all this stuff: rss, syndication, podcasting, social bookmarking, etc. I’ve been feeling so many “wows!” and “aha’s!” lately when I try all these new tools. It seems like we’re in a period of more intense and quick change (than usual) with Internet technologies these days. It’s fun!
April 29, 2005
Syndicate, Aggregate, Communicate
Comments Off
April 18, 2005
Boston Village Gamelan – a fun, free concert
Friday night David and I went to a free concert by the Boston Village Gamelan. If you’re not familiar with what a gamelan orchestra is, here’s the definition from “answers.com.”
gamelan: An Indonesian orchestra composed mainly of tuned percussion instruments such as bamboo xylophones, wooden or metal chimes, and gongs.
I heard them play once before at First Night a few years ago. This concert was more interesting than the one I remember because it included singing. What was really fun was watching a group of 4 men seated in the back who sang and clapped rhythms for certain sections and a young boy (maybe 6 years old) who sang and clapped with them. He was good and obviously having such a good time!
Also there were quite a few kids in the audience and since it was fairly informal, they laid on the floor in the front and drew pictures or stared at the musicians (who were also sitting on the floor). It was fun looking around at the audience and listening to the music.
Here is a sound sample (not of this concert, but of some gamelan somewhere on the Internet): http://alek.zipzap.ch/gamelan/s/jawa_sm.wav
Comments Off
Kayking on the Charles
Yesterday, Daria and I did our first kayak of the season. The weather was so perfect! It felt so warm (70!) after freezing in the 40s the day before. At Charles River Canoe and Kayak you can rent a double kayak for $15 per hour. So we did that for a couple of hours. It’s a really fun way to get out in nature and get a bit of exercise. What does this have to do with gadgets? Nothing… except that it’s good for a gadget freak (like me) to get out from behind the computer and get a bit of fresh air and exercise!
Comments Off
April 3, 2005
Blinders – a funny play!
Last night I went with a group of friends to see a play written by Pat Gabridge (my friend and coworker’s husband) called Blinders. It’s a political satire about the “scientific” discovery of 2 supposedly identical human beings and the lone reporter who sees that they aren’t really identical. It’s sort of an Emporer’s New Clothes theme, and very timely, even though it was written a while back (1997 or 98?). I thought of the corporate media and how so many lies are portrayed as truth with everyone jumping on the bandwagon of what’s popular. When chatting with Pat after the play he mentioned that he thought at the time he wrote it that it would be less relevant in the future, but instead it’s become more relevant. (sadly) It touches upon everything from presidential debates, to the pope, to believing in your own vision in a time of mass brainwashing. I highly recommend it! It’s at the Boston Playwright’s Theatre…. Out of the Blue Theatre Company.
Comments Off
April 1, 2005
Charming Hostess: vocal trio
Tonight I went to a wonderful concert by the “radical vocal trio” called “Charming Hostess.” I was intrigued, because I love a capella singing, and I sometimes miss the old days when I used to do a lot of choral singing myself. They were excellent, combining rhythmic breathing, clapping, tapping, and sounds, with very tight harmonies from Eastern Europe and the Balkans, mostly. You can hear some samples on their web site…. but the songs they did tonight were actually much better than those samples.
Comments Off
March 21, 2005
Photos from the anti-war rally on Boston Common
Check out my photos from the antiwar rally yesterday:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nic221/tags/antiwar/show/
Also posted some of them to Indymedia:
http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/display/34057/index.php
I’ve been enjoying working with Indymedia Boston lately. Lots of fun people, lots going on! Eventually we’ll be working to improve the web site, and maybe even get a Podcast going for the site. See: http://boston.indymedia.org/
By the way, all these photos were taken with my little Nokia camera phone. It’s quite handy for snapping quick shots while walking around. No need to mess around with settings or fumbling with a big camera. Just hold up the little phone and shoot!
Comments Off
March 18, 2005
I love Flickr!
So last night I finally had time to play around with Flickr – you know, the trendy photo service that lets you “tag” your photos (i.e., personal metadata), and then search by tag to see just your own photos, or everyone else’s too. You can make up any tags you want and assign as many as you want to each photo or group of photos.
The thing that really made me want to try it, was the fact that you can set up an RSS feed for any of your tags. Now that is really cool! So it means that you can provide a feed that contains photos based on a certain subject or word and whenever you add new photos to Flickr with that tag, your readers who have subscribed to your feed will see the new photos.
Here’s my Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/nic221/
So for example, here are the feeds for:
- my whole Flickr site: RSS feed | view photos
- just the tag “friends”: RSS feed | view photos
- just the tag “glass”: RSS feed | view photos
I don’t have very many photos uploaded yet, but I’ll gradually add them. I can see right now that I’m going to want a paid account…. the free one only let’s you make 3 “sets”, and I want lots of sets. Though of course you could just use the tags as virtual sets, but I like the “sets” feature for grouping photos into albums.
Also, this makes me want to get a “real” digital camera… I only have my Nokia camera phone…. it takes OK photos, but not great or high resolution… it’s very basic. Another gadget I want to buy!
Comments Off
February 13, 2005
Living better cinematically (my sister’s blog)
My sister has a blog called Living Better Cinematically, where she writes reviews and descriptions of “ephemeral films.” (She collects them). Here’s the subtitle of her site: Reviews of film ephemera, including such things as educational films, industrial films, military and propaganda films, tv commercials, movie trailers, shorts, experimental films, and movies made for non-mainstream audiences.
It’s pretty cool. Check it out. Many of those films are freely available to download from sites such as the Internet Archive.
Comments Off
Inspiring movie: Born into Brothels
This weekend I saw the movie, Born into Brothels, with my friends, Eva and Evelyn. It’s a wonderful documentary about a photographer living in the red light district of Calcutta, who gets to know a group of children of prostitutes and teaches them photography. It’s really great to see the faces of the kids light up when they have an exhibition of their work in their own city. It’s so great to see someone treat them with respect, help them develop their skills, and in spite of terrible circumstances of their lives, they get a chance to express their own artistic vision. It’s a good example of the role art can play in anyone’s life, especially as a way to deal with difficult circumstances.
Check out the Kids with Cameras web site for more infomation about the project.
Comments Off
February 11, 2005
Glass + magnets = fun
A couple of weeks ago I went to a magnet party. My co-worker, Christine, invited people over to her house to learn ways to make really great magnets with glass, glue, and magnets.
Here’s an example of the type of magnets we made.
I used the “index” print from some recent photos that I sent to an online photo service to be printed. You know, the tiny little samples of each photo? They were just the right size to make some cute, little magnets that were actually photos of my friends. I also used some abstract art cards and little Japanese stickers.
This was so fun… I want to make lots more magnets!
Comments Off
