...then, software methods eat all other methods

eg: Music as software

I like walking when I am in a new place. When I am in a human habitat I map postboxes or do some OSM. If I trekking then I try to take pictures of flora and fauna so I can add to Biodiversity map on iNaturalist.org along with capturing the trail for sharing.

iNaturalist.org is a place where you can record what you see in nature, meet other nature lovers, and learn about the natural world.

The easiest way is to download their Android or iPhone app. But I generally enable GPS tagging¹ in my phone camera app and then take pictures with it while I am walking. Once I reach home, I upload them to iNaturalist. The picture’s EXIF has all the information required to add an observation to iNaturalist.

Couroupita guianensis @ Bangalore

For example I took the above picture at Nrityagram near Bangalore. I took multiple pictures of the same to be sure. Once I reached home, I added the same as an observation. As you can see the location, date info is pulled from the image itself.

Added Observation

You can do this for any species found anywhere in the world. But this blog post was mostly to talk about smaller Bangalore Biodiversity Project. It’s a page on iNaturalist where I aggregate the species found in Bangalore. I am doing this so it becomes easy to get information on species in Bangalore.

Bangalore BioDiversity Project Page

If you are doing research or visualizing something about Bangalore, this could be an important piece of information. You can download all the data as KML. Most of the data is available under creative commons. So just use the data accordingly.

Map and Export/Import Options Available at Bangalore BiDiversity Project

If you are student or nature lover I invite you to become a contributor. It would be a great addition to the community. If you become a contributor you should know that. The data you submit to iNaturalist will be available to the community under some form of creative commons license that you can choose. You can also submit sounds/audio along with pictures. Also note that there is a data sharing relationship between inaturalist, India Biodiversity Portal and Global Biodiversity Information Facility.

What are you waiting for? Go for a walk, takes some pictures of plants and animals and submit. It could be a great way to log your walk in a park or in western ghats.

Get the book.

This fascinating novel of ideas begins in a cemetery where Strulovitch, a man of some importance, recognizes an even more notable banker. Shylock is sitting on a stool, reading Portnoy’s Complaint to his late wife.

Strulovitch invites Shylock home for a visit. Shylock, he knows, is a divisive figure: “No two people feel the same about him. Even those who unreservedly despise him, despise him with different degrees of unreservation.”

It turns out that Strulovitch and Shylock share a long history of trouble with their daughters. It’s not the ducats that Shylock minds, it’s the daughter. And it’s not so much losing the daughter as that goddamn monkey. More pressingly, Strulovitch’s sixteen-year-old Beatrice has run off to Venice with a football player who has a thing for very young Jewesses.

They have troubles to talk about, these two aging Jewish intellectuals. “There’s nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so. Our greatest weakness as Jews is forever to be thinking the worst of ourselves.”This is part of The Hogarth Shakespeare, a series of commissioned novels that revisit Shakespearean plots. Impending treats include Margaret Atwood’s Tempest, Anne Tyler’s Vinegar Girl, and Jo Nesbø’s Macbeth.

Shylock Is My Name takes its questions seriously. Shall we not revenge? Why not? The quality of mercy, after all, has always been strained.

They walked the rest of the short distance to Strulovitch’s hearse-like black Mercedes in silence.

“Ah! I’m surprised,” Shylock commented when he saw it. A black chauffeur was holding the door open for them. Strulovitch handed him Shylock’s Glyndebourne stool. “In the boot, Brendan,” he said.

To Shylock he said, “Surprised by what? That I have a driver?”

“That you have a German car.”

“I thought you believe we have to draw a line.”

“That’s another sort of line.”

“A line’s a line. We must let bygones be bygones.”

“I’m surprised you believe that.”

“I don’t.”

It may be far in the future, but there’s some kind of logical way to get from where we are to where the science fiction is. -Elizabeth Moon

— these futures (@thesefutures)

March 19, 2016

Our capacity to recall stories and paths in the world are linked in the hippocampus:

Recently, Maguire and colleagues proposed a new unified theory of the hippocampus, imagining it not as a repository for disparate memories and directions but as a constructor of scenes that incorporate both. (Try to recall a moment from your past or picture a future one without visualizing yourself in the physical space where that moment happens.) Edvard and May-Britt Moser have similarly hypothesized that our ability to time-travel mentally evolved directly from our ability to travel in the physical world, and that the mental processes that make navigation possible are also the ones that allow us to tell a story. ‘‘In the same way that an infinite number of paths can connect the origin and endpoint of a journey,’’ Edvard Moser and another co-author wrote in a 2013 paper, ‘‘a recalled story can be told in many ways, connecting the beginning and the end through innumerable variations.’’

Disorientation is always stressful, and before modern civilization, it was often a death sentence. Sometimes it still is. But recent studies have shown that people who use GPS, when given a pen and paper, draw less-precise maps of the areas they travel through and remember fewer details about the landmarks they pass; paradoxically, this seems to be because they make fewer mistakes getting to where they’re going. Being lost — assuming, of course, that you are eventually found — has one obvious benefit: the chance to learn about the wider world and reframe your perspective. From that standpoint, the greatest threat posed by GPS might be that we never do not know exactly where we are.

I like the challenge to ‘try to recall a moment from your past or picture a future one without visualizing yourself in the physical space where that moment happens’. We can only see what the lens presents.

Great insight: failing to find our way is how we learn to find our way, and GPS unties that linkage because we never fall off the edge of our mental maps in to nowhereland.

I’ve been wearing a bright yellow Gore Brand cycling jacket over the past few seasons, and I’ve been very happy with it. It replaced another bright yellow jacket since I’ve always been partial to high visibility clothing. However, sometime late last fall, someone rode by me on College St with a ridiculously reflective jacket; I yelled out “nice jacket” and the rider yelled back “reflect 360”.  A little searching on the internet turned up the Proviz line of bike jackets, and according to reviews, it seemed that the Reflect 360+ was even a bit better. Unfortunately, they sold out prior to Xmas, but I did manage to get one about a month ago for a late Xmas present.

Under normal lighting, it looks like a grey jacket with small shiny black dots all over it.

However, it is very retroreflective: i.e. when you shine a light directly at it, it will reflect back in the same direction. Here is a side by side comparison with a regular bike jacket, with a bike headlight shining on it and held close to the camera position.  If I did a flash picture, the effect is even more pronounced, but it is perhaps a little exaggerated.

(photos: K. Nogami)

You can see that the entire jacket looks as bright as the small pieces of reflective trim on the yellow jacket.

You can also see an interesting optical effect when the jacket is partially wet. (warning: Physics). The droplets look bright in this picture since the water drops redirect light more isotropically than the dry, retrofreflective areas.

Here is the front of the jacket. You can see two small chest pockets (with water resistant zippers) and pitzips as well.

Here is the jacket turned inside out. It is fully lined with mesh and there is one internal pocket.

Looking at the back of the jacket, there is a vent across the upper back, and a zippered pocket on the tail, approximately where typical bike jersey pockets are.

A closeup of the pit zips. I wish they had bidirectional opening, and perhaps some zipper pulls as well.

The detailing at the cuffs.

How do I like it?  Well I get lots of comments about it when I’m riding at night, and I can even imagine that drivers give me a bit more space on the road. The only downsides that I see are that it is a bit bulkier than my Gore Tex jacket (being fully lined) and it might not be quite as breathable.  Also, water or wet snow doesn’t brush off as easily as a regular waterproof/breathable jacket.

Nevertheless, since I am a big believer in conspicuity, I’m very happy. We’ll see how it holds up, and how hot it will be on those warm, rainy riders when I’ve forgotten my raincape.

Hi SUMO Nation!

You may have heard news about changes in the SUMO Developer team. We would like to answer the most frequently asked questions and make sure to answer all other questions you may have.

• What is happening with current SUMO Developers?

They are moving on to other Mozilla projects, but they will stay as the owners until the new Developer team takes over and is comfortable with the platform. We do not have a date for this happening, yet.

• Can I still contribute fixes and new features to Kitsune?

Yes, the Developer team will review pull requests the same way they did before. Nothing is changing in this respect.

• What is the process for submitting fixes and new features to Kitsune?

Again, nothing is changing for volunteer contributors with regard to submitting pull requests and getting them reviewed.

• What happens if SUMO / Kitsune breaks?

The Developer team are still the owners of the platform. If anything breaks, they will fix it.

• What does it mean for the backlog of Kitsune bugs in Bugzilla?

We won’t be working on any new features for a while, at least until the new developer team has taken the platform over.

• Who do I contact if I have questions about developing Kitsune?

Michael Cooper aka mythmon.

Let us know if you have any other questions in this forum thread.

Twitter’s 140 character limit is staying put.

In an interview with The Today Show, CEO Jack Dorsey told host Matt Lauer the company will not expand Twitter’s character limit.

“It’s a good constraint for us. It allows for of-the-moment brevity,” said Dorsey.

In January, there were rumours Twitter planned to expand the character limit of tweets to 10,000 characters. At the time, Dorsey noted, “we’re not going to be shy about building more utility into Twitter for people. As long as it’s consistent with what people want to do, we’re going to explore it.”

Dorsey also addressed the platform’s ongoing harassment issue.

“Twitter’s always been about controls. People can follow whoever they want. And it’s our job to make sure they see the most important things and the things that matter to them,” he said. “There are tweets that promote violence, which is against our terms of service, so people have controls to block and people have controls to mute.”

Twitter turns 10 on March 21. The platform currently has over 320-million users.

I’ve enjoyed guest-editing this week, and all (okay, most) of the comments. This is Friday, called POETS day in Australia (Piss Off Early Tomorrow’s Saturday), so I’ll sign off now.

My next contribution to speculation about Vancouver’s future will be a graphic novel..

… published late this year or early next. It might be as accurate as most of the predictions we’ve been talking about this week.

Watch for it! I’ll continue to contribute from time to time.

From the beginning of his entrance into the race, we’ve been clamoring to categorize Trump, to understand where he fits into the political and cultural landscape. First, he was a flash in the pan, an inevitable “also ran” with whom voters would quickly lose interest. He’s an “outsider,” despite his bragging about pulling the strings of politics through political donations for decades. He’s a fascist, hell-bent on whipping up national fervor to undermine democratic institutions and further bolster white supremacist power. And, of course, he’s a troll just trying to get voters riled up.

It’s a bit comforting to call Trump a troll. Last summer, Nathan Jurgenson made the compelling argument that we call Trump a troll to convince ourselves that the rest of the presidential horserace is good-faith politics. He concluded that we are being trolled, but not by Trump; we’re being trolled by a corporate news media that is desperate to convince us that the spectacle is real, that Trump is different from other presidential candidates. Jurgenson argues that, in fact, Trump is playing the same game as the rest of the presidential field—he’s just better at it.

Jurgenson’s essay is delightfully cynical. The first time I read it, I couldn’t help but think of Jean Baudrillard’s description of hyperreality, a symbolic representation with no basis in reality. Baudrillard proffers Disneyland as an example of the hyperreal, a sign without a referent. Disneyland presents us with an imaginary world, an idealized version of our own, with a small-town America Main Street and animatronic crocodiles. For Baudrillard, Disneyland tries to sell you the idea that you are escaping reality when, in fact, Disneyland is more real than the LA urban landscape that surrounds it. In the same way that Disney is there to convince you that the rest of the world is real, Trump’s role is to convince voters that the rest of the horserace is in good faith. He’s not a troll, he’s a sign without a referent. He’s a convenient lie, persuading us that when we leave the amusement park, the real candidates will be waiting for us.

But a lot has changed since last summer. Trump isn’t a sideshow anymore. He is the main event. And yet, the troll title has stuck. Part of the reason for the persistence of this misnomer is, as Jurgenson points out, the haphazard application of the term “troll” to anyone who is bigoted or mean spirited. But it’s worth trying to understand what a troll actually is, assuming we want to treat it as a meaningful cultural trope with clear boundaries and sociological utility.

Fortunately, scholars have written a great deal about trolls. I rely on Whitney Phillips’ excellent book This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things to try to get us back on track in our use of the term, and to understand why it’s so important that we don’t think of Trump as a troll. Phillips lays out some basic characteristics of trolling. First, trolls are devoted to disrupting what they consider worthless conversations. They attempt to upset as many people as possible. They want to elicit feelings that are disproportionate or unreasonable. They are incredibly media savvy, and know exactly how to manipulate the news cycle and the affordances of social media to achieve their goals. They target easily-exploited populations, such as people already fiercely invested in a specific topic, or those already prone to sensationalism and outrage.

At this point you’re thinking “check, check, check…” and you’re absolutely right. Trump shares many of the characteristics of trolls, and that’s why the label sticks to well. But the linchpin of why Trump is not a troll is the most important troll characteristic of all: lulz. Trolls, according to Phillips’ research, troll for one reason—to elicit emotional reactions for their own enjoyment. Trolls take glee in embarrassing others, in making them reveal their own hypocrisies and “irrational” emotional attachments. It’s schadenfreude on steroids. Trolls, by any definition that takes into account the rich history of the term and the way self-identified trolls employ it, do not typically troll because they want to make meaningful change or convince anyone of their beliefs (though this may, on occasion, happen). They troll for lulz. They troll because it’s fun.

By this definition—and I think it’s the only definition that can make troll a useful analytic term—we have to ask ourselves about the difference between Trump’s tactics and his intentions. Trump riles people up. He knows which populations to exploit and how to do so. He is as media savvy as they come. But is he in it for the lulz? After a rally, does he walk off stage thinking, “wow, I really revealed the hypocrisy of my supporters. I really riled them up over nothing, which was terrific by the way. Tremendous.” I don’t think so. In fact, I think he’s absolutely sincere.

This might be the point where I lose some of you. And that’s fair. Sincerity is a sticky wicket. There is no way to definitively know that someone is being sincere, and that’s doubly true for politicians, and triply quadruply true for Trump. I don’t know how I could possibly present any empirical evidence to support my belief that Trump is sincere when he says he wants to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it, or when he threatens to put all American Muslims in a database, or when he says the only foreign policy advisor he needs is his big, beautiful brain. Call it a gut instinct.

And obviously, I’m not the only one who thinks Trump is sincere. That’s a huge part of his political appeal—supporters love his off-the-cuff speaking style, and his willingness to say things that, by every measure of political strategy, should tank his political campaign. It’s also why so many are terrified of him. But regardless of whether or not you believe he is sincere, it is incredibly dangerous to assume he isn’t. History proves that. In 1922, many believed that Hitler’s anti-Semitism was mere blunder and propaganda—that when he came into power he would tone down the violent rhetoric. This underestimation of Hitler’s sincerity had consequences the likes of which the world had never seen.

And that is the danger of calling him a troll. Lulz, while often achieved with violent, hurtful rhetoric, is a key element of troll intentionality. They don’t seek fame or fortune, they don’t seek political power. They want to piss you off. But Trump wants to be the commander in chief. He wants to have his finger on the most powerful nuclear arsenal in the world. He wants to mock foreign leaders and allies from the presidential pulpit, he wants to viciously beat protestors and round up Muslims, and he wants to tear apart millions of families through deportation. Calling Trump a troll undermines his potential to profoundly alter the international political landscape. It’s no lulzing matter.

Britney is on Twitter.

My wife and I have been looking at apartments in London.

We’ve noticed there are two types of estate agents.

The first type will explain the size of the rooms, the facilities in the building, the distance to the nearest metro station, council tax bands, appliances, and highlight the key features of the property.

They stress how the features of this property are better than others.

The second type will wait and see what catches our eye. Then they tell stories based upon our passion. If we express interest in the modern kitchen, they will explain the quality of the furnishings, the rare design used, and how it will be different to other kitchens.

If we’re passionate about the view, they will talk about how far you can see on a (rare) sunny day, how it feels to have a coffee in the morning and they explain the history of the area below – pointing out where landmarks used to be.

Which do you think is most persuasive?

We don’t make decisions by facts, we make decisions by emotions. Find out what interests your audience and tell stories to move them to action.

Another example. Many times we’ve been helping clients find platforms for their clients. Some platforms (the ones we don’t pick) repeat the generic fact-driven presentation they give to every potential client.

Other platforms (the ones we pick) ask what they need and then tell stories about how their platform has helped similar organisations do something similar.

If you want to be better at persuading your audience to do what you need them to do, find out what most interests them and tell evocative stories about that specific object.

We got a great apartment, it overlooks the port from where English colonists set sail for America…

Sara Wachter-Boettcher:

We started our research when Facebook’s Year In Review feature first juxtaposed his daughter’s face — his daughter Rebecca, who died of aggressive brain cancer on her sixth birthday — with balloons and partiers.

What we’ve found, over and over, is an industry willing to invest endless resources chasing «delight» — but when put up to the pressure of real life, the results are shallow at best, and horrifying at worst.

Via William Van Hecke.

If you require a short url to link to this article, please use http://ignco.de/746

Lightroom on the web makes it possible for you to access all of your Lightroom images from nearly any computer around the world, and today we’re announcing the addition of Technology Previews, a series of features that will let you test drive new functionality before it’s officially available. The first Technology Preview we’re making available is Search, which coupled with our new image analysis technology, lets you search through any image you have synchronized online, either with Lightroom for mobile, Lightroom on the web, or with Lightroom desktop through a synchronized collection. We’ll be releasing new Technology Previews as they’re ready, which you’ll be able to use and even provide feedback on the functionality, helping to shape the feature.

To access search, launch Lightroom on the web, and log in. Then, click on the Lr menu in the top left to open the menu and select Technology Preview. Toggling Search on will start indexing your photos, which makes it possible for you to search through your photos. Don’t worry, at no time will anyone else be able to search through or find your photos. Searching is only available in English for now, but will be available in other languages once we launch the final feature. The functionality will also grow and improve before we release it, adding in the ability to search through an image’s metadata and more, making the search even more powerful and able to find a specific image precisely. Try searching your library for things like food, temples, flowers, animals, and more.

Using Lightroom on the web, you can organize your images, flag and add star ratings, perform basic edits using the same quality found in Lightroom desktop and Lightroom for mobile, and share your photos and collections with your friends, family, and clients.

We’re eager to hear what you think about search and look forward to sharing more Technology Previews with you in the near future.

—Josh and the Lightroom on the web, Creative Cloud, and Adobe Technology Labs teams

Every once in awhile I come across something that just stops me in my tracks. Today, I saw that a guy named Mitch Anthony started following me on Twitter (in the guise of twitter.com/underpaidgenius, where I haven’t tweeted since 2012).

His Twitter bio tantalized: 

Idea wrangler. Systems thinker using design & branding processes to help organizations thrive. Principal at strategy firm Clarity

I clicked through to his website and discovered this:

The Clarity Manifesto

1. Mission and messaging are inextricable—two strands of the same thread. When you work on a company’s message, you are working on its mission.
   
2. A clear message that is clearly understood by everyone in the company has the catalytic effect of aligning everyone’s intentions and energies toward the same goal. It’s simple cultural physics.
   
3. Most companies separate strategy and storytelling functions. This is a huge waste. The branding and design process is a uniquely powerful strategic development tool.
   
4. The best way to discover a company’s best opportunities is to listen—to each other, to stakeholders, to the marketplace, and to customers. Not coincidentally, listening is the beginning of good design.
   
5. Every element of the design and delivery of a service or product is part of an integrated whole. It’s a system whose parts want to work together. Systems thinking is a tool for making sure they do.
   
6. “The best way to predict the future is to design it.” —Architect, systems theorist, and futurist Buckminster Fuller
   
7. Conventional change management is obsolete. What works is open, honest, and transparent communication between team players, collaborators, and customers.
   
8. Systems thinking can create change very quickly, but it’s a practice, not an event. The system is alive; nothing stands still.
   
9. People are social first. What motivates us best is an understanding of our collective goals, our role in achieving those goals, and how we’re doing.
   
10. It’s not advertising that makes a product or service successful. It’s great design or great service. Take the iPad: marketing is just fuel for the fire.
    

This guy is now on my ‘people I’d really like to have to dinner’ list.

bk1bennett | Flickr

From “Obama Privately Tells Donors That Time Is Coming to Unite Behind Hillary Clinton,” by Maggie Haberman and Michael Shear in the New York Times (3/18/16):

Mr. Obama acknowledged that Mrs. Clinton was perceived to have weaknesses as a candidate, and that some Democrats did not view her as authentic.

But he played down the importance of authenticity, noting that President George W. Bush — whose record he ran aggressively against in 2008 — was once praised for his authenticity….

Mr. Obama said that he understood the appeal to voters of a candidate who is authentic, the official said. But he also reminded the Texas donors in the room that Mr. Bush was considered authentic when he was running for president, suggesting that being authentic did not necessarily translate into being a good president, in his view.

Mr. Trumpâ€s admirers have often praised him for his authenticity and blunt style, contrasting it with Mrs. Clintonâ€s more cautious approach.

It looks like Netflix has no plans to reverse its controversial decision to begin blocking region-switching proxy services that specialize in allowing subscribers to access content from different Netflix regions.

During a recent roundtable discussion MobileSyrup attended at Netflix’s head office in Los Gatos, California, Netflix CEO Reed Hastings finally commented on the company’s controversial move to begin blocking the use of proxy VPN/DNS services.

“We have the obligation to respect the content rights that we buy; it’s just a simple fairness thing. Someone else has paid for the rights in Germany, so we should respect that, just as we would expect the same in return,” said Hastings.

Since Netflix’s 2011 release in Canada, Canadians, as well as people from other regions of the world, have been using proxy DNS/VPN services to access additional Netflix libraries, most notably the wealth of content available in the U.S. It’s worth noting, however, that this is a direct violation of Netflix’s terms of service.

“The basic thing is if we license a movie here [the U.S.], and then another network licenses it in Germany, then we don’t don’t have the rights to display it in Germany. That’s why we have to enforce those VPN rules, just like Amazon Prime Instant Video and others do as well,” said Hastings. “Think of it as the maturation of Internet TV”

As the tools to region-switch have become easier to use, increasing numbers of people around the world are bypassing Netflix’s region-based content management system, accessing television shows and movies they otherwise wouldn’t be able to. Interested in watching Netflix U.K.-only content like Peaky Blinders? Simply sign up for a service like Unblock-Us and proxy your way to Netflix’s U.K. library.

When asked about the specific technology Netflix is using to detect VPN/DNS use, Hasting’s remained uncharacteristically cryptic.

“It’s third-party stuff that other people have developed as far as I understand, it’s like recognizing IP addresses,” said Hastings. It’s believed that completely blocking the use of VPN/DNS services is impossible for Netflix, since service providers only need to switch to a new IP address or DNS range to bypass the lock.

With Netflix’s global expansion to 130 new regions in early January, the streaming platform began cracking down on the region-switching proxy services it seemed to once willfully ignore. After all, if proxy users are paying Netflix’s $9.99 monthly subscription fee, as long as rights holders aren’t pressuring Netflix to stop their use, it makes sense the company hasn’t done anything until now. Netflix’s recent global expansion likely woke many international rights holders to the growing issue, forcing the company’s hand in the matter.

“This is the internet age, where content blends through boundaries,” said Hastings while talking about Netflix’s recent efforts to simultaneously launch its original content in various regions around the world. “What we hope to do in time, is be as popular in Thailand, Germany and Poland, as we are in the U.S., and to be producing content in every nation of the world, and to be sharing that content around the world,”

Hastings says that he envisions a Netflix without geographic content restrictions, but that achieving this goal will take time and a significant amount of work. He cites the streaming platform’s original content, which includes the recent launch of Daredevil 2, as an example how he hopes digital rights agreements will be formed with third-parties moving forward.

“If it’s a third party like Sony selling content, we’ll win in one nation, and get outbid in another, sort of like sports [broadcasting] rights. So what we’re doing to get around that is both increasing our bids – for example, How to Get Away With Murder we get globally from ABC – and also we’re focused on producing global series like Narcos, The Crown, and the Get Down,” said Hastings, discussing Netflix’s recent efforts to launch more content globally.

“It’s a temporary issue. We know what everybody wants, which is the same catalogue around the world. We’re frustrated that we’re not there, but we will get there, and before everybody else.”

Mozilla has shipped Firefox 45 Beta and 46 Developer Edition today. Check out our site compatibility documents for each version, and let us know if you find any other changes or regressions.

• Firefox 45 Site Compatibility
• Firefox 46 Site Compatibility

Firefox 45 will be the next Extended Support Release (ESR). If your organization deploys Firefox 38 ESR and you’re in charge of maintaining internal business applications as a system administrator, you can read through our documents from Firefox 39 to 45 to understand the changes from the last ESR, then start testing the apps for Firefox 45 ESR using the Beta version. Note that ESRs are usually not supported by cloud services like Google Apps, Office 365 or Dropbox, because those apps are rather optimized for the latest Release version.

As of this week, our Twitter account has more than 500 followers. Thanks everyone for all your support for this community-driven initiative! We are always happy to work with you to make the Web better for everyone, as much as time allows. We’ll soon blog about what you should do in 2016 to keep your site fresh. Need a forecast right now? Check out Future Planned Changes.

Last night, I officially accepted an offer to enter a PhD program at the University of Calgary. So, it’s a thing, now. Starting in Fall 2016, I will be a PhD student in the Computational Media Design program. CMD is an absolutely amazing interdisciplinary program. From the About blurb:

At the University of Calgary, we formed the Computational Media Design Program to enable students to conduct research at the intersection of art, music, dance, drama, design and computer science.
The Computational Media Design (CMD) graduate program is composed of the Faculty of Science: Department of Computer Science, the Faculty of Environmental Design and the Faculty of Arts: School of Creative and Performing Arts and Department of Art. Students can earn graduate degrees, both Master of Science and PhD. The research-based graduate degrees explore the relationships between and among art, design, science and technology.

Basically, put a bunch of people from radically different fields together in one program and let them play. Computer scientists. Hardware designers. Artists. Performers. And let them explore issues in an intentionally inter- and cross-disciplinary way. Things like the Giant Walkthrough Brain came out of this program. And they do things like designing and building robots to explore telepresence – but not just in a Silicon Valley “I bet we could sell this crap” way – this is “what does this stuff really mean? what does it change about how we think/work/play/communicate/etc.?” There are a few of their major projects listed on the program website, but many others under development that aren’t listed yet.

I’m extremely fortunate to be working with 2 amazing supervisors – Dr. Ehud Sharlin and Dr. Patrick Finn.

Dr. Sharlin works on human-computer interaction through the utouch research group. Robots. Tangible computer interfaces. Virtual and mixed reality.

Dr. Finn works on technology and artistic performance – “creative and collaborative exploration and the use of performance studies in everyday life” through the School of Creative and Performing Arts.

Many people have asked me questions at various stages of the application process (I’ve been extremely fortunate to have the support of amazing people, both personally and professionally). In no particular order:

Are you INSANE? Why would you DO this to yourself?

Maybe? I don’t think I’m necessarily insane to be doing this. I know it’s a huge commitment, and I’m already in way over my head, but that’s the point. I need to push myself so I don’t just hunker down and become complacent.

Why do this? Not sure there’s a simple answer to that. Basically:

1. When I finished my MSc, I didn’t feel like I was done. I still wanted to keep going. I’m fortunate to be in a position where that could have easily meant just doing my job and exploring with others through that role, but I felt like I needed to be doing my own research. So, I’ll get to do both – working with researchers on campus through The Day Job, and working on my own research as well. Hopefully, I’ll make a tiny dent somewhere.
2. Through the Day Job, we’ll be working closely on research projects from many disciplines. While I could learn much through just paying attention as we work on those projects, I think I need to have a firmer grounding in research – designing, implementing, analyzing and disseminating findings. The best way to do that is to jump in and be a researcher.
3. I don’t want to be a faculty member. I don’t think the prof thing is for me. But, I want to make sure doors aren’t closed to me because I don’t have a piece of paper. I’m not looking for career advancement or anything like that – I have the best job I’ve ever had – but who knows what opportunities might pop up a decade or 2 down the road. I wouldn’t have my current job if I hadn’t finished my MSc (which happened literally months before I needed it to apply for this job).

I know that I’m going to have to work extremely hard to maintain a sense of balance between my family/work/research lives. Normally, a PhD student is working on their program full time. I won’t be quitting my day job to do this, which means it will take me a little longer to complete, but also means that I will have access to some pretty incredible resources through the Taylor Institute. Kind of an ideal scenario.

What is your PhD going to be on?

Hey. Slow down. I just got into the program. I don’t actually start until Fall 2016. Waaaay too early to be locking down what I’ll be researching. I have some ideas, but want to stay open because that’s the whole point (to me). I have a few broad areas that interest me. Maybe some way to connect them?

1. Making sense of an individual’s context in (learning) communities. Much of the data about a person’s connections, and the things their friends/colleagues/neighbours are doing, is already out there. But only Big Companies get access to it. What if individuals could access and make use of their own data? What would that look like? What could they do with it?
2. Exploring physical learning spaces. How does the design of a space change the learning (or teaching) experience? What kinds of activities are possible in a flexible/adaptive/technology-rich learning space? (This is where the Day Job kicks in, since we’re now less than 2 weeks away from moving into a pretty amazing technology-rich facility with incredible learning spaces designed to explore this…)
3. Exploring how physical and digital learning spaces blend and overlap. How does the design and implementation of technology (from physical architecture to online environments) allow people to stretch and distort space and time? And what does that mean for the learning (and teaching) experience? And, how do individuals (students and instructors) maintain a sense of self and autonomy in such an environment?
4. Lots of other ideas bouncing around. So, maybe something tangentially related. Or completely separate.

Do you realize how much work a PhD will be?

I think so. Maybe not. I know it’s going to suck up basically every second of free time for the next few years. I already feel like I’m in way over my head – being accepted into a program with people 10-20 years younger than myself, who are literally the best in their fields. I haven’t written actual code in many years (aside from hacking some PHP for WordPress plugins and themes – not exactly Computer Science). I have so much to learn before even getting started. And, because I’m doing this at the UofC, there is some pretty spectacular pressure (from myself) to do well. This is home turf. This is where my professional life is. Failure at this PhD thing would kind of suck, so that’s basically not an option. I can’t just withdraw and pretend it never happened. Colleagues have vouched for me, and I need to nail this. No pressure.

So, there it is. I’ll be easing into the program this summer, meeting with my supervisors to design the course portion of my program, and meeting the other students and researchers in the CMD program.

In this presentation I begin with the assertion that learning is personal, distinguish 'personal' from 'personalized' as being based in personal practice, describe practice in a learning network, and show how progress and evaluation through practice is based on performance in authentic communities.

Conrad Stoll (via Dave Verwer):

The best Apple Watch apps in my mind are the ones that include the most useful and frequently relevant complications. The watch face itself is the best piece of real estate on the watch. That's park avenue. It's what people will see all the time. The complications that inhabit it are the fastest way for users to launch your app. Having a great complication puts you in a prime position to have users interact frequently with your app while inherently giving them quick, timely updates at a glance. It’s an amazing feature for users, and the most rewarding should you get it right.

I don't think that's where Apple would like the Watch app ecosystem to be today, and it's hard to argue against the greatness of complications when "full" apps are slow and barely usable. I also feel like I'm not too enthusiastic about Watch apps right now because (in addition to slowness) my most used iPhone apps don't offer complications yet.

I also agree with Stoll's last line – "when a user chooses to place your complication on their watch face that's when you know you've built a great watch app".