assignment two: Geo-narrative rational

For my second assignment for networked media production, i chose to create a geo-narrative. The narrative I have created is a contrasting visual tour of Canberra, through the past and present. I used photos from Canberra's past and recreated the shots, to give the viewer an visual idea of how Canberra has changed over the years and what features have stayed the same.

To create this, I first had to find photos taken in the past that showed of interesting aspects of Canberra, like views of the city and shots of the city center. I found what i was looking for on the National library of Australia's website, which features photos that illuminate Australia's past. But to use these photos in my narrative, i had to gain permission from the National library to recreate them. Lucky this was a fairly easy process, all i needed to do was fill out a form, that was provided online, about what i intended to use photos for and sign that i would comply with the restrictions set in place for recreating these photos. Then it was a simple thing to go into the library and talk with the photo office about the assignment and I gained permission to use the photos.

Next I had to travel around Canberra and recreate the photos, to show how Canberra's landscape has changed. Then all I had to do was use Google maps to create the Geo-narrative by uploading my new photos to Flickr and then link both these photos and the photos from the National library to location markers on my Google map and give contrasting descriptions with each photo about how Canberra has changed over the years.

The interesting thing about this type of networked media production is its potential for unlimited creative, interactive storytelling. By having the ability to link images to locations on a map with such ease, can allow media producers to give greater depth to locations. Because it's digital recreations of images, various images can be used in different ways and locations to show off different narratives. The this can also become a problem, as with such ease of reproduction, copyrights on photos may not be followed and an artists photos may be stolen with out their permission. So it is always important to respect the owners wishes, when recreating their digital content, otherwise your own work may be stolen in the same way.

Anyway i hope you enjoy my visual tour of Canberra and how it has changed over the years. ols

quick post

hi people this is just a quick post to say im a little late in doing my blogpost rational for my assignment and for all you people dying to read it and see understand my amazing assignment, you'll just have to wait another day...catchyou kids tomorrow.

it's zombie apocalypse time

Hi peoples, this week I'm again discussing the up coming assignment and like i said last week, i will fill you in on the detail. As you know from last week, i am working on the geo-narrative and i am focusing my story on a what if? The main theme is what would some people do if there was a zombie apocalypse in Canberra and how would they try to survive. It's essentially focusing on a small group of people and their action during the day of the zombie apocalypse. I'll give posting more info as the week progresses and the due date draws nears, but until then peace out boys and girls.
ols

assignment two

well since there was no lecture this week and so there was less stimulus for this post, i guess I'll talk about the coming assignment. We have been given two choices, create a datavisualisation or create a geo-narrative on google maps through photos. I've decided to do the geo-narrative, as it offers a greater creative freedom and i can explore a different story telling medium. i would tell you more about what I'm going to do, but i need something to talk about next week. Catch ya later kids. ols

datavisualisation

This weeks lecture focused on datavisualisation. Datavisualisation is all how expressing information or data in a visual format. Doing this helps to understand what the data means and can help in finding out information that would be near impossible without the visualisation.

The best data visualisations feature a depth of information, interactivity and an attractive visual scheme. These features help with understanding and allows the viewer to easily comprehend what the data is showing. A good use of colour schemes help with this, as it allows people to grasp the data's meaning instantly. For example using red, yellow and green can help when representing levels of good, medium and bad. This colour scheme's meaning is universal, as it is known because of traffic lights and through this, people can under linked meanings associated with it.

So essentially, datavisualisation's can greatly enhance a how raw data can be represented and understood.

Multiplicity and tutorial ideas

OK so yesterday's lecture was about multiplicity and reiterated the idea of collective intelligence. So in today's tute, we explored these ideas further, and were assigned into groups and were given the task of thinking up an idea for a website that utilized collective intelligence. My group had the idea of using collective intelligence to track cars around a city in real time.

The basic idea was to give every registered car a free small G.P.S tracking device. This device then would then be able to provide the cars location in real time. All the data from all the cars would then be shown on a website with a map interface, as a white dot. This would enable people to see in real time, where the all the traffic jams, road accidents and delays are. People could then use the website to plan routes and avoid traffic congestion. This would then save on time, fuel and carbon emissions.

This service data could also be utilized by governments to plan future road works and create greater traffic conditions, which would also improve on time, fuel and carbon emissions. The data would be recorded and anybody could look back on previous records to see different traffic patterns and problems.

The problems with this idea is that it would take a massive amount of server space both to host and to process the data in real time and there would be a slight privacy concern.

This idea would be completely impossible without the use of collective intelligence, as without the collective co-operation of car driver using the G.P.S tracking device, the data would never be collected or utilized.

Anyway this is the basic idea of our tute presentation. I hope this might inspire some people. ols out

collective intelligence and the cute shiny slidey stuff

Ok cool that last lecture was quite interesting, as it talked about the new generation web verses the old generation web. The greatest point of interest is collective intelligence, or the many to many model. This is opposed to the old one to many model. Are you confused? OK I'll break it down for you. In the early years of the internet, that basic idea of sites, was to provided content for the general public. The site used the one to many model, by have only a few content publishers and content controllers to provided the info that goes onto the site. But nowadays, site creators can utilize collective intelligence for the content of their site. This means the amount of data that can be provided as site content goes up astronomically (this actually depends on the amount of visitor who use the site) and all they need to do it provide a user friendly framework (or the cute shiny slidey stuff). Great examples of collective intelligence include Wikipedia, Ebay, Youtube and Facebook. So in conclusion collective intelligence, or the many to many content model, is one of the great breakthroughs of the world wide web and it has made the internet a crucial part of peoples lives. ols out

the holidays are over

well long time no speak. The holidays are now over and it's time get back to lectures, readings and tutes. The main thing I've been thinking about when i now look at some websites, is the way the colour scheme is set out. Most of the sites all try and use soft, complementing colour schemes to aid the readers ease of viewing, but some have varying success. Some use clashing colours to emphases the main parts of websites, seen here at http://astroboyflyingabovetokyo.blogspot.com. The creator uses white as the main content backing and black as the background for everything else. This is a great colour scheme, as it clearly defines what the viewer is seeing. It is also truly effective when the colourful content of the blog posts is taken into account. Because the blog focuses on colourful fashion designs, having anything else then the black and white scheme could be a potential clash for whatever colorful design is posted, at any given time. S this is an example of a website colour scheme done well.
ols out.

late assignment

ah this is just a quick post to say that the assignment is late and at the current moment my time is better spent finishing it, then it is sent crafting a blog post.

website thoughts

Ahhh this site design is making me think too much. Should i do a wiki type approach...or an awesome 2 sided topic discussion? Anyway whatever the final site turns out to be, it should work well.

censorship

hi peoples, today I'm going to talk about the internet censorship issue that's being discussed in Australia. The main issues here are protecting children from viewing inappropriate websites with explicit content, blocking dangerous sites like bomb making and terrorism sites, the decision to have opt-out filters or mandatory filters, whether the government can be trusted to look out for our best interests and abuses their power, and the question of if access to the internet is now a human right.

It is true that the internet can be used for devious intentions which can harm children, ranging from the child pornography industry, which is an evil thing that physically and emotionally scars children, to a child accidentally finding websites with content that confuse and scare their little minds...and I'm not talking about advanced algebra.

The case can be made that the government should use it's power to protect the children, but the method is now continuously being questioned by a multitude of opponents, ranging from human rights petitioners, tech heads talking about if it you actually work, child welfare groups saying the money would be better spent elsewhere and general people who would still like to access their happy good time content.

A major problem is that the government would blacklist website and the Australian public would not know whats on the list. A Dentist's site was blacklisted because 18 months beforehand, her site had been hacked into and made to link to a site selling sex toys. The problem was fixed but 18 months later her site was banned. This is just one way in which the filtering process can hinder the general public.

Another problem is the slowing of internet speeds for Australians due to the filters application. i don't have much more to say on this point, so I'm just going to extent this sentence a little to make the paragraph look neater.

This blog i guess can only inform you on the basics of the issue at hand and it isn't the best platform to go into the level of detail this issue needs. I guess i should be happy just to inform my readers about the issue and hope they extent their interest further by researching further and gaining an informed opinion. The best bet is to start with either Wikipedia or Google and go on from there. Happy hunting if your interested, if not enjoy the rest of your day. ols out

thoughts on website design

Ok readers, this is a mini-post directed at Michael about website design, or more importantly one certain aspect. I was just wondering is there a way to randomize the pages shown on a site, when the readers access it? For example if I wanted to have a link on my site, which linked to 2 different pictures, but it was randomized so that different people could get a different picture when clicking on the link. Can you create an HTML random generator link? This is just an interesting question i thought to ask and hopefully some of you readers will get back to me. ols

html, coding and blue sunny skies on a friday afternoon

Greetings all, it's a wonderful day, so I've decided to write this outside. Anyway today's post is mainly about the ease of website making and the joys of html and css or hyper tag up marking language and cascading style sheets. When first seen, websites look pretty complicated, but html is actually simple, if time consuming stuff. It's just tagging features so that the computer can understand it. Css also simplifies the process, well more like cuts down on the time consuming nature of website building. It effect of one file controlling the style of an entire website allows the creators to change the website to a different style, even if the website has hundreds of pages. Damn cool, if not actually cool, stuff. Anyway the amazing day is wasting away, so i'm going to go enjoy what i can. Catch ya kids. Ols

this is number 1: on blogs

so so yo so. This is a blog post. The first actually, one of a future many. But that's all later. I think this first blog should be about blogs. Love them or hate them blogs are windows into peoples minds, or their fake persona that they want you to see. Either way blogs have become a simple, easy and direct way to spread the word, be it about politics, lifestyles or general random stuff. I guess that's easier then shouting from a mountain top, but if your so inclined to do so, i wish you well in your mountaineering pursuits. Anyway blogs, they are the future, or the now, depending on your view point. At this point in time I'm a little stuck on what to add to this post, so I'll leave it there. Peace