Collaboration and erasure

So, a few little things I fancied commenting on today.

First is the strange case of Boing Boing and Violet Blue (be warned, some stuff on Violet's blog is NSFW). To sum stuff up, Violet recently found out that Boing Boing deleted some posts she had made there. They don't seem to wish to tell her or anyone why exactly they've done this (which apparently happened a year ago). All they've said is that "Violet behaved in a way that made us reconsider whether we wanted to lend her any credibility or associate with her." and that they "were trying to do the right thing quietly and respectfully, without embarrassing the parties involved." Violet seems to be as in the dark about this as everyone else, stating that "I still have no idea what they’re talking about — except that it seems to be personal? — and really don’t understand why I’m being attacked, nor why they’re stating they kept it a secret (and are behaving this way) out of “kindness” toward me." There's lots to read about this and even I still haven't made my way through all of it. I'm a fan of Violet's work, so I'm on her side. I'll be interested to see if this ever gets solved.

Using Violet as a link, I'm jumping to NxE's Fifty Most Influential 'Female' Bloggers, where she appears as number 28. Also on the list (at number 41) is Cali Lewis from GeekBrief.tv, one of my favourite video podcasts. Looking through the list, I don't recognise many of the names, making me feel a tad "out of the loop". So, if anyone wants to point me to any good web stuff, whether it be blogs, podcasts or just anything along those lines, then feel free. I don't need any funny picture sites though, thanks.

Changing direction completely now, you might have seen the new Orange adverts. Their new slogan of "I am who I am because of everyone" is pretty much a translation of what Ubuntu means. I'm guessing it's meant to encourage people (at least in some abstract way) to communicate, rather than to collaborate and work together, the way Ubuntu does. I'm thinking it could be a bit too hopeful of me to start wondering if Orange might start producing phones running Ubuntu MID.

Sticking with ideas of collaboration, one of the newest TED talks is by Clay Shirky. In it he talks about institutions vs. collaboration and gives a great explanation of why stuff like open source software works and how he sees this as the future of technology.

TED's been talking to me again

So, once again I've been watching various TED talks and there's a couple I'd like to bring to your attention.

The first is Johnny Lee's "Wii remote hacks". While the possibilities he's realised for a (relatively) cheap piece of technology are astounding, what interests me most is the end of his speech, where he talks about how the web has enabled the sharing of his ideas. He mostly talks about online video distribution and YouTube, but it relates to other community/collaborative/web 2.0 technologies that allow for the sharing and development of ideas.



The second features Tod Machover, the creator of Guitar Hero. He talks about his various other projects that bring the ability to create music to anyone. These kinds of projects were something
that we somewhat touched on in my undergraduate music tech course, but taken much further. That part of the course was something that really interested me as it really fully went against the side of the course that encouraged convoluted approaches to music creation that I really didn't enjoy.

It's such a small world

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 46: In the inside front cover of the "author's preferred text" of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, there's a quote from the Minneapolis Star Tribune that describes the book as "A dark contemporary ALICE IN WONDERLAND... Imaginative, well-crafted [and] highly visual".

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 47: In his TED talk, back in February, about finding the true face of Leonardo Da Vinci, Siegried Woldhek shows portraits he's painted. He zooms in on three specific portraits, these are of Audrey Hepburn, Saddam Hussein, and Lewis Carroll. Carroll appears to be taking a picture of Alice Liddell.

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 48: I was bored the other day and started stumbling. The first page I came to was two pieces of Alice inspired art by Eva Soulu, apparently for an album entitled "Wonderland" by The Penultimate Truth.

Let's find the perfect blend

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 34: Alice Loft posted this picture in the Facebook group, "The Art of Neighbours" and Vanessa Parr described it as "Ringo in Wonderland"

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 35: In a performance at TED back in 2007, Jill Sobule and Julia Sweeney performed a song about "imperfect heroes" that mentioned Lewis Carroll and Alice.

Howard Rheingold at TED

Grammar, spelling and proof-reading.

"Curiouser and curiouser!" cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).

-Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

So, I've been called a "Grammar Nazi" in the past, and all kinds of variations on that tired old theme. I like people to be readable. I have no qualms about people writing in different idioms and using contracted and evolved words (I regularly use words like "wanna" and "kinda" and "mo"). I positively encourage people to use "made-up" words (I love the Urban Dictionary). What I do not like is bad practice that confuses meaning and confounds expression. "ur" is not an evolution of language. "i" is very much bad practice.

The beauty of language is that you can use it to mean exactly what you want and that said meaning can be multiple. The decoding of language should not be focused on what you are saying, but on what you mean.

The internet is (mostly) a text-based medium and so you would think that people would take care to make sure it is known exactly what they are saying and what they might mean. Unfortunately, this is most often not the case. I will often chastise people about errors and encourage them to proof-read their work. I do this, not only because it encourages good practice, but because the way you write online sets the tone of how people will perceive what you are saying. In the same way that I am writing this in a somewhat formal style (without words like "gonna"), CAPITALS OVERTLY EMPHASISE THINGS, and things like (possibly intentional) spelling or punctuation errors result in the intelligence level you present dropping.

My problem is not that people aren't speaking correct English, it's that they aren't making clear what they are saying.

One thing that majorly gets to me is a lack of proof-reading. One or two errors in a piece of writing is understandable, but constant errors suggest you haven't read through what you've written. If you don't care enough to read what you've said, why should I care about what you have to say? Also, proof-reading is not only for catching mistakes. It should be used to work on how well you convey your meaning. If you don't proof-read, how do you know how your writing works as a whole? A piece of writing relies on the interpretation of the reader. If you're not a reader yourself, how can you know what that interpretation could be?

To finish this off, I'll leave you with a talk by Erin McKean. If you've read Ubuntu Music, then you should know of TED Talks. This talk is most definitely my favourite talk they have on offer. Not just because it's fun and entertaining, but because Erin has some brilliant views on the evolution and use of words.




Think of words as children. Allow them to grow and evolve and do exciting and interesting things with them. But, please, for the love of God, don't abuse them.

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 8: On tonight's "Friday night with Jonathon Ross", Noel Fielding (of The Mighty Boosh) talked about Bruce Forsyth and mentioned that "Play Your Cards Right" had big playing cards "like Alice in Wonderland".

Alice in popular culture sighting no. 9: On Channel 5 tonight, a show called "Valley of the Sex Dolls" featured someone (I didn't catch her name) from S.I.R. Video Productions who had a tattoo of the Cheshire Cat (the Disney version) on her upper right arm.

-Alice