Free "classic" pc games on the net. The ever vigilant game journalists on Politiken has digged out aa list of old classic pc games in an article about the phenomena taking place - game compagnies putting "old" games outthere as a way of advertising new ones.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 23:26 (0) comments

There is an 'ologist for every trade, so of course, there are people around who deal in mixing. From the homepage for "scholars, writers, bartenders and mixologists", one of the toughest ones:Pousse Cafe .

[if you think there is quiet here, there is lot of action going on in my Walgblog]
# posted by Lisbeth at: 21:47 (1) comments

Christy Dena has started a blog Cross-Media Storytelling and so far she is working her way through some of the relevant ph.d. works on the subject out there, including yours truly's. She is doing a "Masters of Creative Arts by Research" at the University of Melbourne, who - from what I have seen so far - seems to be a brilliant place to be if you want to do combined research and art.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 17:14 (1) comments

IGDA has now announced that their SIG's white paper on Persistent Worlds 2004 is now online. Can be found on their online games white papers page, where papers from previous years can also be found. Good to get an overview of the market!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 20:02 (0) comments

I've decided to continue my updates and commentaries on the use of weblogs in the Danish election campaign in Danish. So have started a new weblog in Danish for the occasion: Walgblog - look there for updates.

Was interviewed briefly by Politiken journalist, so will be in the electronic version of the paper sometime today. Link to follow.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 11:55 (0) comments

There is a nice section with different takes om weblogs, including a feature on moblogs at the website of the Danish School of Journalism.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 08:42 (0) comments

[being updated as new blogs come along - I'm currently collecting input from the many people involved in the Danish Online News Association (DONA) mailinglist, Broadcast]

It has just been officially announced that the election for our next parlament will take place on February 8th. I'm very interested in following the use of the web and not the least weblogs in the election campaign this time. So far, very few Danish Politicians have ventured into blogging, but perhaps it might change this time, at least that is my intuition. I'm sure the use of weblogs in the US election campagin must have made some impact.

- Weblogs about the election and media in general
There is already a blog about the Danish Media coverage of the election up and running - they have been "hanging around" waiting for the election to be announced: Valgkamp.
Spinkontrol.dk is out to find examples of spin methods in the pre-election campaigns and media use.

- Weblogs on political party websites/by more than one person
Venstre (The Liberal Party) has just opened their election website and it contains a group weblog, where several politicians can post. It's part of the menu item called "Holdning" (Positions). With comment-function.

Mogens Lykketoft, the prime minister candidate of the Socialdemocrats is going to have an "election tour diary" ("Dagbog fra kampagnen") written by him and other campaign members. So far it is just a testbed. Without comment-function.

Holger K. Nielsen, head of SF (Socialistisk Folkeparti/The Socialist People's Party) has also just started his own weblog. Holger K's blog. It's hosted on SF's website. With comment-function.

- Personal political weblogs about the election
Tomas Bech Madsen has a weblog, which has been up and running since october 2004 (thanks, Albrechtslund). He is also running for election. With comment-function.

Morten Helveg Petersen hasn't got a literal blog, but a page called "Comments" (Kommentarer), which consists of dated (in reverse order) links to small posts. No comment-function.

Rachid el Mousti, who is running for the Danish parlament for this first time, has started a weblog on his website (and in it has just promised that he will be posting during the election period). With comment-function.

- Articles on the use of weblogs in elections/politics
The critical voice on the use of weblogs in an election: Techno utopians' Net Candidate falters

The academic voice: The use of blogs ín the 2004 presidental election campaign

There is an interesting article in the Guardian from last year on British MPs' use of weblogs: Can weblogs revitalise British politics?

If you know of any Danish politicans using weblogs for the election, please let me know!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:30 (3) comments

Lots of interesting stuff to be found in the archive of the journal Interactions. If your university subscribes to it, you can download the pdfs of the articles directly from ACM's digital library.

In the latest volume, there is an interesting article on the future of storytelling: "Exocog and the future of storytelling" by Jim Miller.
And issue 5, 2004 was a themed issue on "Funology" (primarily from an interface perspective, but it includes articles on both games and webdesign)

# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:29 (0) comments

I finally got around to having my ph.d.thesis proofread by a native speaker and to make a few corrections, as suggested by the committee. So Im happy to announce that it is now available on the page that I made for the occasion.

Download my Ph.D. thesis from this page.

The thesis will be available until February 14th, after which I will withdraw it.
However, it will be available on request for researchers and scholars.

The committee wrote:
...provides a very good history of virtual worlds to date
...substantial and independant contribution...to the understanding of virtual worlds
# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:06 (3) comments

Being back after christmas has been pretty hectic. For instance, I've been challenged with finding out how you make a contract for an international artist-in-residence which, on one hand can be accepted by the personel department, and the other hand can persuade the Danish authorities to give the person to rights to stay and work in Denmark (fyi, it takes a long time before you are able to get someone on the phone at the Danish Immigration office). Not an easy task - but my formal, law-abiding lingo is approving by the day! Also Im involved in the current start-up of a co-operation between 2 universities, 1 Design school, The Danish Broadcast Corporation and the biggest player on the Danish telecommunications market, TDC. More to follow. There is the ongoing work with hiring and defining the positions of people within the National Game Academy Initiative. Then there is the matter of helping a new teacher put content into the Communication on the Internet course. And finding assistant teachers for this and another course. Defining goals for 2005 for the department. Discussing how to develop the games curriculum. And somewhere in between I have been forced to finish the corrected version of my ph.d.thesis, which will be available on this website VERY soon - it has just gone into print if you want one such copy.

But what I really wanted to say was that from today and one week on, Im on holiday. I'l really really try to stay away computers, my arm, body and mind could use a serious break from all work-related.

BRB.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 18:06 (0) comments

It's time for the Bloggies - Fifth Annual Weblog Awards, starting with nominations from readers from this coming monday. I positively note that you can nominate both weblogs in various categories AND best essay about weblogs. So the competition might reveal some interesting new writings about weblogs as well :)

[in fact I should be writing about weblogs myself, for a Danish journal for higher education teachers, but have been too busy with all the usual and quite a bit unusal head, admin, teaching and Lisbeth stuff this week. Thank God for weekends]
# posted by Lisbeth at: 23:27 (0) comments