Twine buttons can be personalized by uploading images from your hard drive
del.icio.us used to be my favourite place for stashing away bookmarks. It worked well for a long time, it was great to just click on the del.icio.us tab when I found a useful web page and store it away for later. The problem in the end was that I stored so many links it ceased to be useful. I tried altering my tags to create a more streamlined system but found myself stunned by the tedium of reorganization.
Then I read an article in Wired magazine (May, 2008) by Clive Thompson titled ‘Information Overlord’ addressing the problem of internet induced information overload. Thompson mentioned a web application called Twine that he had just discovered, and cautiously recommended, so I decided to investigate it for myself. At that time Twine was not publicly available but they invited people to write and ask for an account. I duly typed a polite request and they let me join in. (Nowadays you can simply send in your email address, and they will send an invitation with a little warning that the application is still in beta mode.)
Twine makes some grandiose claims about being Web 3.0 and there are some intense discussions addressing this claim percolating on the web (Twine Disappoints After Semantic Web Hype and Why I Migrated Over to Twine.) I have no clue whether it really is Web 3.0 or not, and I am not sure I even care as all I want is a decent bookmarking system. (I know I am revealing a touch of the I want the elevator to work but I don’t want to know about the little cable that holds it up syndrome.) After all, all I want is to be able to find the things I have stored away.
Public Twines
You can set up as many Twines as you like, tag information and write notes about each bookmark if you feel like it. There is a choice about making your Twine public or keeping it private, and you can join other people’s public Twines sharing bookmarks across several twines. I like Twine’s user interface and I especially like being able to select images for each Twine header, in addition each bookmarked page is saved with a thumbnail picture. The application does much more than I have described here; one of its coolest features (for me anyway) is that it sends me an email that reminds me about my own recently saved bookmarks. Emails also arrive supplying me with notifications of posts by other people on the public Twines. Seems a useful application to me so far, I encourage others to see for themselves and have a twiddle with Twine!
“He then learns that in going down into the secrets of his own mind he has descended into the secrets of all minds.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
I am not exactly sure of the translation of Templum ex Obscurum but I think it is something along the lines of ‘Sanctuary of Secrets’ or ‘Temple of the Obscure’. This shadowy island demands a lot from aging graphics cards (like mine) but the immersive moodiness is worth the laptop burn. When I arrived it took a while before my avatar eyes could adjust to the gloom of the temple’s cave like entrance.
cyberloom the female sigil knight exploring Templum ex Obscurum
In many ways Second Life is Templum ex Obscurum! It takes time for new people to adjust their minds to this enigmatic virtual world. Certainly there are many secrets hiding in the shadows, and many obscure desires (and other rather more obvious ones) being acted upon by multitudes of anonymous avatars. Ah! But humans love mysteries, and the unknown just adds suspense and gossip to the adventure.
Sigil Knight stretching her wings in the temple
This virtual world attracts artists, and artists like visual metaphors, they deliberately play with these oracular code carriers. The strange thing about Second Life is that it truly reveals so much of what is hidden away in the physical world. Ironically, highly purposeful individuals (who declare they have no time for artistic expression) often produce the most revealing metaphors of all! For in a 3D world we communicate from within the visual language of imagery i.e., speech and text lie encased within the pictures on our computer screens. As I write this I am thinking about the symbolism of a university who owns an island in Second Life, this island is divided in two by a moat; thereby, keeping classrooms and student’s to one side and well away from the university buildings! For now there is one lone bridge that crosses from one side of the island to the other but I wonder if it will become a draw bridge? My reason for writing about this, is not to explore the divisions of universities with their Shakespearean intrigues, but to illustrate the obscure constructivism of Second Life!
Sigil Knight finds a secret place...
In my photographic exploration of Templum ex Obscurum I saw other avatars exploring the shadowy places. I guessed these were Second Life photographers who were , like me, looking for photographs to take back to the bright pages of the NPIRL photo challenge on flickr. Everyone I encountered worked with quiet concentration and avoided the small talk of local chat. I was surprised when I wandered over to a nearby island and someone spoke to me. Standing amongst the crumbling walls of an old ruin I met none other than Cuwynne Deerhunter, the caretaker and hospitable owner of Templum ex Obscurum. (I had seen him walking around the temple earlier replacing old waxy stubs with newly lit candles.) What a pleasant chap he is too! He is in the midst of building on Cariwynne (the home of Templum ex Obscurum) and he even shared a secret building project with me! I am sworn to secrecy, and if you try and uncover this secret you may find yourself being devoured by piranhas!
cyberloom reviewing the secrets and metaphors of her own mind...
“You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.”
(Friedrich Nietzsche)
I have been thinking you need chaos in your soul to create an avatar, to immerse yourself in synthetic worlds, and to play like an child in cyberspace. Children who played in the mud of London’s River Thames at low tide were called ‘mudlarks’… We are today’s mudlarks, the children of MUDs (Multi User Domains) in virtual worlds.
Draconite (my dancing star avatar) posing in rainbow light on Templum ex Obscurum
Some people ‘take off’ when freed of the constraints of the conservative, physical world. They build in pixels, re-shaping the chaos of life; translating the physical world into visual metaphors through creative concentration. An avatar called Baron Grayson unleashed his imagination in Second Life to construct an island called Templum ex Obscurum. He is, according to his Second Life profile, enduring the chaos of a furniture move in the ‘real world’. While he is ‘away’ avatars with virtual cameras are running around Templum ex Obscurum snapping away like Olympic athletes at a closing ceremony.
Draconite dancing in the Templum ex Obscurum cave
There are two reasons for all this digital activity, the first being that Templum ex Obscurum is an amazing immersive experience; and the second reason is Bettina Tizzy. The empress of The Not Possible In Real Life movement in Second Life is running a flickr page featuring photographs of Grayson’s work. She has challenged photographers, and machinima makers, to capture this atmospheric world.
Draconite's sunset dance
I decided to add my own pixels to the photo party and will be posting more photographs of Templum ex Obscurum over the next few days. My avatar will get to play crazy dress up games as I explore the chaos of my own soul and the photogenic island.
‘Information overload’ has made its way into Wikipedia, this makes sense as Wikipedia’s success is largely due to its ability to focus on specific information quickly. Of course, there continues to be a debate about the quality of Wikipedia, and whether academia can accept Wikipedic references in student papers.In the meantime Wikipedia is striving to upgrade its credibility by gathering together solid sources and citations for its communally created entries.
cyberloom blogging whilst seated on Nebulosus Severine's TV sets. Nebulosus' installation 'The Culture of Television' can be seen for just a few more days at Arthole in Second Life™.
That’s enough Wikipediapology! I will now point you to the wiki’s entry on information overload , here you will find the analogy of ‘low signal-to-noise ratio’, an apt descriptor! The term addresses how it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern the useful message from the mass of information swirling all around us. If your work regularly sends you out into the Internet you can feel as though you are trudging up sand dunes all day. (Two steps forward and one step backwards.) Or perhaps you feel as though you are trying to construct a sandcastle? Trouble is building in dry sand is tricky! It is hard to create a coherent shape out of all these random, tumbling pieces of digitized text.
Closeup showing TV avatar skin by Nebulosus Severine
Blogs are another information overload solution, and like Wikipedia, blogs have popular appeal whilst being simultaneously disapproved of by serious folks! (Who are these ’serious’ folks anyway? Certain academics, some paper based journalists; plus assorted others who see modern technology causing huge changes that they consider to be generally destructive.)
Blogging helps bloggers to organize the information they are interested in. A blog can act as an information filter, a file for references and web links. Blogs can work as a focal point for personal ideas and reflections. At the same time blogs have become part of the problem by adding yet more ‘blah, blah’ matter to the information overload. Wikipedia credits Jakob Nielsen for coming up with the expression ‘information pollution’, a term that conjures up visions of felled blogs floating down clogged virtual rivers.
cyberloom adding to the blog jam from inside 'The Culture of Television' installation
Oh well… not to worry! Just think, where will all our blogs go if there is a massive, lasting power failure? Without electricity everything will just vanish away. Dinosaurs probably thought they had a pretty solid grip on existence but look what a falling meteorite did to them! What’s another blog going to matter? Just as dinosaurs altered the landscape with their big feet, bloggers en masse are influencing the ‘infosphere’ with our collective blog jamming!
I see my blog as a glorified note pad that helps me organize information and ideas. Weeks later I can retrieve my own thoughts. (Useful!) My thoughts get lost in the ‘low signal to noise ratio’ mentioned earlier. I keep a number of notebooks for catching ideas and information, I write in a horrible spidery scrawl and sometimes I can’t read my own writing. I lose my notebooks, I doodle in them, tear off corners, spill coffee on them, and my children get hold of them to draw monsters on their wrinkled pages. But, thanks to WordPress, I can find things resting here on my blog. I will just keep an eye out for falling meteors…
♥
Nebulosus Severine’s installation ‘The Culture of Television’ can be seen at Arthole in Second Life™. Head over there quickly as the exhibit ends soon. Don’t forget to collect your free TV avatar while you are there!
cyberloom’s notebook was created by Flea Bussy and can be purchased at Grendel’s Children.
I am off on my hols for a week but I thought I would leave something for people to see while I am away…I have picked out a few of my favorite You Tube videos to show over the week. (You probably have already seen these but here is a chance to watch again!)
We Think – A new book by Charles Leadbeater, ‘We Think’ explores the potential of the latest developments of the internet.
I have been exploring iTunes U ‘ and looking at the free academic podcasts. There are so many good things to listen to it is almost overwhelming! Still, I thought it worth encouraging people to visit The Digital Campus. This is a lively bi-weekly broadcast with three hosts: Dan Cohen, Mills Kelly and Tom Scheinfeldt, they are self confessed nerds and cover a broad range of topics with an academic focus. I was lucky finding The Digital Campus for my first academic podcast, the three presenters chat in an easy, natural way with each other (in England we would say they sound like ‘good blokes’).
I had half expected to hear just one voice that would drone on with that imploded nasal tone of someone who prefers to listen to themselves rather than communicating outwards to others. I once took a ITV class with a lecturer who taught from PowerPoints while beaming the class out to a number of external campus sites. We sat at a table shaped like a Christmas Tree (arranged to enable the camera to see each person) and the professor perched at the top like the Christmas fairy. The students looked like carved Egyptian tomb figures with all our heads turned fully left, or right, to look at the professor or the next PowerPoint. The professor would plug in their laptop and start to talk without seeming to pause for two hours. I remember when I finally dared to interrupt the flow to ask a question I felt like Oliver Twist asking for more. (Why do negative experiences linger so long in our minds? What is that about? Why does any educator want to have a touch of fear in their classroom?) Perhaps, if professors like this begin podcasting it would be a good thing? They might develop some self awareness and upgrade their delivery style? My thought is that lecturers interested in podcasting are probably interested in the world around them. Such individuals are willing to communicate with students, open to finding healthy ways to help their students learn. They are probably interesting teachers online or offline, podcasting or standing at a podium.
Closeup of Cloud Insoo's gray squirrel
The Digital Campus descibes itself as ‘A biweekly discussion of how digital media and technology are affecting learning, teaching, and scholarship at colleges, universities, libraries, and museums.’ and they have produced 30 podcasts so far. A good place to begin is with Episode 10 – Risky Business? Blogs on Campus, Part I and Part 2.
I was interested to hear that the hosts of The Digital Campus had ventured into Second Life briefly as squirrels and had left shortly afterwards underwhelmed by the experience. This begs the question whether dressing as a squirrel has a negative effect on your Second Life introduction? (There are new avatars available for first time visitors and the squirrel appears to have been sent into hibernation for the time being.) They also seemed to find it hard to get past the problematic sexual content of Second Life. (See earlier cyberloom post that touches on this topic: The view from inside the volcano.) I often wonder what makes some people stay in Second Life and what turns people away? Is it the squirrels? Is it the sex? Do they avoid the internet too for the same reason? (I know, there are fewer squirrels on the web, that helps.) I once gave an hour long talk about the educational aspects of Second Life (with dreaded PowerPoints) and at the end of the talk a lecturer came up to me and said ‘I wonder what you get up to in Second Life?’ I wish I had said I ran an escort agency for squirrels but I didn’t.
Gray squirrel by Cloud Insoo
Note: These photos show small animated squirrels by Cloud Insoo, they can be seen in Second Life™ at Aeryglow Wildlife.
