Month: January 2017

From Twitter – VR art at its finest?

This is my first post on “VR” commonly referring to the latest crop of virtual reality head mounted displays offering an all-encompassing field of vision through screens, and movement tracking. With the talk of cyborg augmentation of a human, and the concept of trans-humanism appearing in the readings, I realise I very much fit the look of part-man, part-machine when I’m wearing the device. I was also struck about how art forms much of our cultural heritage, and how that can now be consumed in a very different manner, forcing artists to rethink their creations, and how they are consumed. I wonder too if the formation of this visual “bunker” now completes the digital reality highlighted by Hand (2008).

“Digital reality is perfect. It provides the bunker self with immediate, universal access to a global community without people: electronic communication without social contact, being digital without being human, going on-line without leaving the safety of the electronic bunker .” (Kroker and Kroker 1996: 96-7 in Hand, 2008 p39)

from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

January 12, 2017 at 08:03PM
via IFTTT

ref: Hand, M (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, chapter 1 of Making digital cultures: access, interactivity and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp 15-42.

From Twitter – An experiment of open learning?

I will be interested to reflect on this question later in the course. Has being part of an open community (relevant perhaps more to latter stages of EDC) helped or hindered my own performance? Does the idea of being able to view everyone’s contributions in a spirit of openness actually change what I write, or do not write for concern over what might be thought of me by those looking in from the “outside”?

from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

January 12, 2017 at 06:05PM
via IFTTT

From Twitter – I for one welcome our new neural linguistic interpreter. And not a fish in sight.

It’s well worth a read of the post but also the comments to the post I’ve linked here. It appears the claims of the original author were slightly overblown. That said, Google has improved the efficiency of machine translation substantially, importantly, its ability to learn-on-the-go. When considering the rate of increase of computational power, and the miniturisation of the same, how long will it be until the ability to understand via an interlingua powered by a neural network like the one identified from Google below is embedded in our own body for real-time interpreting. This could be the step toward being cyborg or transhuman that a lot of humanity would be willing to take without moral or ethical qualms.

from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

January 10, 2017 at 12:20AM
via IFTTT

It’s alive! Images as its memory

I was able to insert an image in to my tweet from my clipboard. This is a very useful feature, and one which I take for granted. With the press of three buttons and a short gesture of the mouse, I’m able to capture a memory in digital form. Part evidence, part reminder of what I saw on-screen. Such a facility to extend my memory, and my ability to explain something is an “enhancing technology” which Miller (2011 p221) describes.

from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller

January 09, 2017 at 01:05PM
via IFTTT

ref: Miller, V. (2011) Chapter 9: The Body and Information Technology, in Understanding Digital Culture. London: Sage.

Twitter – IFTTT and Twitter seems to be working

It’s been suggested that we use IFTTT.com to help build a lifestream. I haven’t used Twitter in some time, so this should be fun.

January 09, 2017 at 01:02PM
via IFTTT

Hello world!


Welcome to Education and Digital Cultures 2017. This is my first post on this “Lifestream” blog.

The Course Guide is here for those who are interested in what’s going on with the frequency, type and source of the blogposts, here’s an extract to help put it all in context:

Half your final mark will be given for a lifestream:blog which you will set up and maintain  over the 12 weeks of the course. A ‘lifestream’ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifestreaming)
is a means whereby an individual’s tweets, blog postings, image postings, YouTube  favourites, and other feeds can be pulled together into a single blog stream. For this course,
you will be supported in setting up and maintaining a lifestream:blog in WordPress, which will bring together all the digital fragments of knowledge generated by your studies over the 12 weeks of semester. The visual artefact (block 1) and micro:ethnography (block 2) will  feed into this, as will any blog postings and comments you make, or other web you choose
to include in the stream.

The lifestream is designed to demonstrate your engagement with the academic themes and content of the course – you are not expected to include personal and social content.