Sit down, this may come as a shock, but the internet is being used for evil. Surprized? Didn't think so, but either way its time to abandon the internet. This is incidently the last entry in this blog.
Social networking - an epically awesome way to distract from anything remotely constructive. But isn't all virtual reality farms and 'likes'. Nope, people far too clever and with a warped sense of right, wrong and decency have decided they can tell if your gay or straight from the content you post and the friends you have on facebook and alike, shown here. This dosen't have much of an impact in western states which are hopefully tolerant but say you were entering a country like the one in Africa which just made it punishable by death and it was decided based on your facebook account you were gay - sad times all round.
You can't even protest properly anymore over the internet without being found out and traced over social networking sites and caught. That or countries such as China will block you from them all together. Slactivism - slacker activism. This is another way social netwrks are ruining the protest, using our own lazyness against us - we join groups, feel good and then forget about them. I'm guilty of this like anyone, but have raged against the x-factor, do it! Do it now! An internet wise government is bad news all round, in a internet take on the journalistic process of soft soaking governments hire people to spread the good word about them. Having been employed by a music pr company to do the same maybe I can't really talk but done by governments this has serious implications on freedom of opinion and speech. Something taken to extremes by potential laws such as this.
But wait - take a minute from barn raising and wagon building to hear about the awesomeness of podcasting. Building on the development of RSS feeds this maybe the first and only good thing to come from Apple. Its good for videos, pictures and music so ideal for catching up TV or radio prgrammes you've missed - it also means you don't have to go looking for stuff, it comes straight to you - good times. Its easy enough to make your own as well so everyone can make random podcasts and inflict them on the world with ease. A directory of UK podcasts can be found here.
Right, for now that it for this blog - hope you've enjoyed the content, embeds and everything else. Now back to putting information about myself into social networking sites and buying things from websites. Take care :)
Thursday, 17 December 2009
Sunday, 13 December 2009
Lecture 10: Its near the end of the year - time for an overview
Yep, it's getting on for christmas time - that time of year when everybody starts making 'top 10s' of the year, so here's one of sorts. But inbetween all this retrospective thinking get Spotify, theres a sign-up form here so you don't need an invite. Music streaming is blatantly the future.
Lulu, blogging, interactive fiction, P.O.D - they all need things without which they couldn't possibly operate (and thankfully humans are still one of them). If we're getting deep then lets start with words, but I'm not awake enough for that much though so lets fast forward slightly. Lulu and blogging - you may never be able to buy a copy of this blog bound and printed but they're more similar than they first seem. Both need word processors, both need html and xml coding,both need encryption, both require e-commerce (although this is more like a collection of technolgies if you want to be picky) - the list could go on ... and on. They could have practically have been seperated at birth. Having said this their mechanics do work slightly differently, here is someone who probably had too much time on thier hands - but it does show all the magic behind blogs. Blogs also need RSS feeds to build their lists and notify people. And by their very nature depend on hyperlinks - but then again hyperlinks are more a stylistic and referencing tool so are more of a convention. Tricky buisness this for 20 to 12 on a Sunday night. Seperated at birth, maybe, but Lulu clearly went to a different school when it was growing up in internet land because its a whole world of seriousness. In order to function Lulu needs e-commerce, a nice easy term for a collection of technolgies, so websites can stock its books and people can run the website. As importantly as this however Lulu depends on the PDF, this allows it texts lovingly created by someone to be stored in an unchangeabe way and sent off safe in the knowledge that despte the really really obscure font everyone will see it as you intended. Speaking of printers - thats a whole other can of worms that Lulu depends on.
Speaking of printers, printing on demand is another publishing form that depends on them to make its little world go round (its ok you can say it, smooth right?:) ). Like Lulu P.O.D also needs databases to operate, boring but essential like wheetabix. These make sure every text is waiting and ready, and importantly not lost when the vanity press comes calling. PDF's also play a big part in P.O.D, telling the printer what to print out. Lulu, blogging and P.O.D aren't a million miles from eachother in terms of their core technology but interactive fiction stands alone ... you'd think. And to be fair in some respects it does, it depends on programming language to make it work - but in the same way the word processor is development platform needed by Lulu and blogs, Inform or its counterparts are need by interactive fiction writers to even dream of creating things. In the e-publishing class interactive fiction is the kid who turned up in year nine, learnt most of the same things just with a different take in them. Interactive fiction needs the interent (itself a collection if technologies) just like all other forms of e-publishing, and just like all other e-publishing needs a set of distribution technolgies. However blogs like this show the potential for the core technology in interactive fiction to change and evolve - something true in all e-publishing.
Right, essentially all you need to know is that most e-publishing share their core technology with a few variations here and there. But now its sleep time, but as well as that its christmas so heres a festive video - funny stuff :) Nos da, come back soon for podcasting.
Lulu, blogging, interactive fiction, P.O.D - they all need things without which they couldn't possibly operate (and thankfully humans are still one of them). If we're getting deep then lets start with words, but I'm not awake enough for that much though so lets fast forward slightly. Lulu and blogging - you may never be able to buy a copy of this blog bound and printed but they're more similar than they first seem. Both need word processors, both need html and xml coding,both need encryption, both require e-commerce (although this is more like a collection of technolgies if you want to be picky) - the list could go on ... and on. They could have practically have been seperated at birth. Having said this their mechanics do work slightly differently, here is someone who probably had too much time on thier hands - but it does show all the magic behind blogs. Blogs also need RSS feeds to build their lists and notify people. And by their very nature depend on hyperlinks - but then again hyperlinks are more a stylistic and referencing tool so are more of a convention. Tricky buisness this for 20 to 12 on a Sunday night. Seperated at birth, maybe, but Lulu clearly went to a different school when it was growing up in internet land because its a whole world of seriousness. In order to function Lulu needs e-commerce, a nice easy term for a collection of technolgies, so websites can stock its books and people can run the website. As importantly as this however Lulu depends on the PDF, this allows it texts lovingly created by someone to be stored in an unchangeabe way and sent off safe in the knowledge that despte the really really obscure font everyone will see it as you intended. Speaking of printers - thats a whole other can of worms that Lulu depends on.
Speaking of printers, printing on demand is another publishing form that depends on them to make its little world go round (its ok you can say it, smooth right?:) ). Like Lulu P.O.D also needs databases to operate, boring but essential like wheetabix. These make sure every text is waiting and ready, and importantly not lost when the vanity press comes calling. PDF's also play a big part in P.O.D, telling the printer what to print out. Lulu, blogging and P.O.D aren't a million miles from eachother in terms of their core technology but interactive fiction stands alone ... you'd think. And to be fair in some respects it does, it depends on programming language to make it work - but in the same way the word processor is development platform needed by Lulu and blogs, Inform or its counterparts are need by interactive fiction writers to even dream of creating things. In the e-publishing class interactive fiction is the kid who turned up in year nine, learnt most of the same things just with a different take in them. Interactive fiction needs the interent (itself a collection if technologies) just like all other forms of e-publishing, and just like all other e-publishing needs a set of distribution technolgies. However blogs like this show the potential for the core technology in interactive fiction to change and evolve - something true in all e-publishing.
Right, essentially all you need to know is that most e-publishing share their core technology with a few variations here and there. But now its sleep time, but as well as that its christmas so heres a festive video - funny stuff :) Nos da, come back soon for podcasting.
Wednesday, 2 December 2009
Lecture 9: Fiction for the 5 second generation
Do you like interactive fiction but need pictures? The Japanese have the just the thing, Ren'Py. Words, colours, music and even a couple of choices here and there, what more could you want?
Right Ren'Py, essentially its a nice little programme. You write in characters, add sound and music, and for the win from a first time point of view the programming language actually seems far simpler than interactive fiction. Intrigued, try this. This a random game I found on the internet, but one of the biggest successes of the medium has to be Inanimate Alice. A great strengh of Ren'Py is that it can be put in an exe. format, so everyone can get it and stare inanely at it on there touch screen phones and other fashion statements. Sites like this show the potential for Ren'Py and visual novels to be distributed on mobile technology, but blogs such as this also highlights the issues it can face. When Apple owns your soul and everything else in world, Ren'Py will be the last thing standing - showing a few querks with the distribution still.
This will be nice, apart from the fact that for all the easy programming language and pretty colours Ren'pys are very limited. You won't be able to pick up the screw driver or put on the dressing gown - you'll be able to choose whether to ask the girl out - or not, and be irritated out of your mind by the music. In this respect its a little like hyper-fiction (sad times) and those adventure books where you could go to page 77 to fight the dragon. To be fair visual novels like Inanimate Alice do have little games and alike which can be quite fun. Fiction such as Ren'py and Interactive Fiction are still individual occupations such as actual reading from actual books but at the same time require a new sense of literacy - helping identify them as new and deveoping disruptive technolgy arguably. So don't blink or soon they'll be beaming stories into your head soon.
That is all for this week, come back next week for more e-publishing related rants :). If you want to make a Ren'Py, download this and this might help. Nos da :)
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