Wonderful (planned) musical incidents in real-life places brought to light by WQXR new York … their “Q2” music by living composers is a treat! Listen and/or donate to WQXR to keep them going. This article has to do with their annual “High Notes and Low Tones for Classical Music in 2013” awards which led me to review some videos of music-related flashmobs. This was under their Frequent Flier Upgrade section in which players from the Philadelphia Orchestra performed onboard a flight before takeoff. More and more orchestras have blogs and other ways to keep in touch. [Read more…]
Archives for 2013
Spellicopter in 1983 — Edutainment hits the streets
DesignWare’s best-seller Spellicopter was released in 1983 and went gold and platinum, selling zillions of copies. It was on the SKU best-sellers list month after month. (Below the fold—a video of Spellicopter being played!)
The 10-ton resume is not the whole story
I had to review my resumé recently to create two paragraphs for a couple of “Board members” pages. I have a small pile of academic appointments and jobs that I can put into a bio. But to me there’s an interesting additional component in lives that are filled with creativity and great breadth of experience. All of which I find hard to describe in the standard bio format.
So where do I put “created and operated a half dozen mixed-reality real-world interactive games that combined phone, email and SMS messaging in a follow-the-trail-through-the-real-world storyline” — on a bio?
And where do I put “recorded 8 albums of experimental music” on a resumé that is so heavy with Computer Science credits?
I guess mostly an artist’s bio is his or her portfolio, isn’t it?
As the mouse turns – Are you twisted or are you straight?
Are you “straight” or are you “twisted?”
You’ve probably never thought about this, but if you are currently using a mouse, take a look at how the mouse is positioned with respect to your screen. Is the mouse pointing straight away from your body, or is it twisted around to point directly at your screen?
I constantly find that I’m unconsciously twisting the mouse to point toward the screen (first illustration), even though this makes no difference whatsoever in how it functions. It doesn’t get smoother—it doesn’t get faster—it doesn’t gain precision. Sweeping it leftward in an arc still moves the cursor to the left across the screen. Pushing it toward the screen still moves the cursor upward.
Tech and Peace
As many as 10 years ago, the term “ICT for Development” or ICT4D came into popular use. It was based on the premise that information and communication [ICT] technologies could be used as a cornerstone in economic and human development.
The efforts have been rangy — from the “One Laptop per Child” project to projects where cellular (phone) technologies would be used to bring health education and services to remote communities. (See also OLPC on Wikipedia.) OLPC is a particularly good example of the ICT4D genre because over the years it has brought a large number of its computers to children, but has not achieved the broad success sought for the project by its founder, Nicholas Negroponte, co-founder of the M.I.T. Media Lab. i’ve written