For all the Danes - a nice little alphabetised link page with nifty links to a lot of tools and toys for those interested in playing with the Danish Language:TDC Online: Ord og Sprog fra A-Å.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 14:37 (0) comments

Kind of an interesting development in the coverage of the horrible disaster in Indonesia. Danish Newspaper Politiken has asked Danes in the area to write to the newspaper with their "live-report" of their experiences. They then put their stories online on this newspaper subpage. You could see it as a form of group-blog, edited by an invisble hand who is not present hirself. Though it defies the usual definition of weblog because the posts are not dated (yet) and the site not identified with the personal viewpoint of one or a few people.

Well, even if not really a weblog, it is a good example of readers, not reporters, producing live content - sharing emotions and experiences, rather than facts and background information. I'd really like to ask some of these writers: what makes them do it? What makes them spend time in a netcafe writing these stories, in the middle of apparent chaos? Why isn't it enough to share their stories with family or friends? Do they want to reach out to as many as possible to tell they're safe? Do they feel a form of "moral obligation" to share their experiences with more people? Do they feel an urge to tell the world, what it was/is really like - also as a way of trying to purge some undoubtably excruciating moments? Do they, at the bottom of their hearts, find just a little bit of personal pleasure in getting a tiny little spot of the spotlight?

If newsreporting continues like this (supplemented by reader-stories), what will happen to our (the non-writing readers) perception of events? Will we see them in a more nuanced way? Will we care more? Will we spending more time reading "news"? Or will we grow so wary of all these stories that we stop reading all together?

BBC also collect readers' stories and so does CNN.com.

Update 29.12: Svenska Dagbladet links to a number of blogs (some Swedish) dealing with the disaster. One of them is a Swedish Backpacker site where people can post that they are safe.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 15:05 (0) comments

Im off on holiday until sometime next week - and haven't got a lot to say apart from
Merry Christmas to all of you out there. Enjoy the holidays, and the peace and quiet which descends on even academic life at this time of year...

(Picture courtesy of a photographer at the Other Players Conference, but I forgot to write down his name when I got it off the net. Thanks for a nice photo, whomever you are!)
# posted by Lisbeth at: 01:34 (1) comments

Shortly, I'll be moving down into the atrium of the ITU to taste the beer that Danish art group Superflex has been producing as part of their Artist in Residence Project here at ITU. Superflex is a situationist art group who has done great work, such as superchannel.org and Karlskrona II - and while with us they have worked on a theme focusing on copying and copyright. So - as their finishing project - they decided to do an "Open Source Beer" called "Our beer" (taking a nickname for a beer made by one of our largest breweries), which have been brewed with guarana, bottled and labelled here at ITU. Several group of ITU students have been involved with the project, not the least with the branding and marketing of the project and are also behind the beer's website: www.voresoel.dk (Our Beer.dk). From the website you can download and reproduce the beer recipe - in fact the entire website is licensed under Creative Commons. Check it out, just for the cool soundtrack.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 17:55 (0) comments

You can use the digital videos made by tourists around the world for a lot of different things. The video linked to in this story (follow the link "Video: Reddet af rejseleder") I find is a hilarious example of Japanese culture meeting Danish culture.

Here is the story: Japanese tourists are visiting the little mermaid. Japanese tourists see that the little mermaid is clad in a burka and wearing a sign saying "Turkey in the EU" (someone beat them to this, the most visited of Copenhagen Tourist Attractions). Head of the Japanese tourists decides to undress the little mermaid as to improve the photo-op. Head undresses the little mermaid with a long aluminium stick. Everybody is thrilled. Japanese tourist films all this. Japanese tourist's video makes it to Danish Newspaper Ekstrabladet who runs a semi-sensational story about the heroic salvation of the little mermaid. And so, as you can see, both the Danes and the Japanese care a lot about the little mermaid!

(Also note the cute "Hello Kitty" earwarmers the pretty Japanese woman is wearing in the last seconds of the video - Danish women have a lot to learn when it comes to the kawaii dressing culture...).
# posted by Lisbeth at: 22:51 (0) comments

There is a small article in Politiken about a booming sale of books in Denmark before christmas. Which is good (to know that people actually still read ;)) - but the most interesting part, however, is the short summary towards the end of the article, quoting a survey of the Dane's book reading habits. According to that one of the most important parts of book buying is the "knock-test" (as the journalist puts it). To 1/3 of the buyers it is important that the book makes a noise when you knock on it (i.e. is NOT a paperback). Whether the book is published this year or not is less important, only every 8th buyer mentions this as a ground for purchasing books. Thought-provoking that the concrete materiality of the book still matters so much!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 07:30 (1) comments

Students claim they cant find good articles on the net about it, but here at least is a: Visual rhetoric bibliography
# posted by Lisbeth at: 07:35 (0) comments

Catching up, here are some links I'd like to look closer at soon:

The Edublog Awards, hosted by the Insub Association is completed. Best paper about weblogs was Bridging the Gap: A Genre Analysis of Weblogs. Looks worth a read. Jill was on the list too!

One of the things, I missed out on while ill, was a guest lecture given at ITU by Steve Outing of the Poynter Institutem, talking about their Eyetrack III study , looking at how people read on the web. Always useful for when teaching students communication on the net - and those of my students who went to the lecture really liked it. However, some of them were even more exited by Information Architect Christina Wodtke who spoke immediately after Steve Outing, apparently she put on quite a show. At least, I can read her Elegant Weblog to keep up to date.

Student Thomas, who is one of three very dedicated students from the SMMOG project, currently writing up their thesis about the process of creating a massive multiplayer game world, send me this link: A review of the MMOG "Real Life". He also drew my attention to a new book by Raph Koster, MMOG Designer, out very soon: A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Thanks, Thomas!

And something completely different. Via Tinka, who has now moved her weblog to a "secret" site (hence, no link): an interesting example of an ironic, Mary Sue inspired Harry Potter Fan Fiction Comic.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 23:01 (1) comments

Jonas, Miguel and Tasha have done a great job of organising the Other Players Conference which is now running on its third day - currently Melanie Swalwell are talking about LAN groups. The theme of the conference is very interesting - and I think a lot of good comes from having a conference on games with a specific focus - so what I have heard so far have mostly been talks which have encouraged me to go ahead and read the full papers, always a good sign.

However, I havent been as present at OP as I could have wished for, actually not because I have had to do head things, but because I havent been well, not to say completely exhausted since I couldnt sleep several nights because of constant coughing. So took an afternoon out yesterday and went to the doctor, who diagnosed me with acute bronchitis and gave me some wonderful drugs (anti-biotics) which have already worked wonders. So I expect to be awake and alert for the closing conference dinner tonight, though I am afraid, that Im seriously building a reputation as the woman who "is always ill at conferences" as Julian Kücklich put it. And a real blog whimper, but so it goes ;).
# posted by Lisbeth at: 11:24 (0) comments

This is how life works, isn't it? I've been down all week with a cold/throat infection (the probable outcome of the stress I let my body go through, with all this travelling), but went to work today (ie Friday) feeling okayish and wanting to talk to the students whose 4-week projects I'm currently supervising. The projects are due in two weeks, so it makes a difference whether I'm out of contact for a longer time or not. And I like talking to students, especially when my talking can make them think more - or feel better about what they're doing. So I talked to them. And, starved for compagny after spending most of the previous days in the compagny of books and tv, I talked to my colleagues. And by the end of the day I had lost my voice. A friend stopped by tonight to say hi and borrow some stuff. We sat in the sofa, and whispered to each other, all other sounds turned off. A pleasant change, actually, but not something I'd wanna do every friday night...

It's funny - all week I have enjoyed being silent here. But now that I can't really use my voice, I really feel like writing, as a form of compensation, obviously.

So whispering, in comfortably non-strained words: goodnight, ladies and gentlemen. And cross your fingers that my voice miraculously recovers for this event.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 01:09 (0) comments