I've uploaded my drawings/handnotes from the Steve Balmer talk at ITU which took place from 16.00 - 17.30, including the inevitable Microsoft Vista presentation. I ran up to my office afterwards and took photos of my notes with my mobcamera and uploaded them to my moblog immediately. This is as close as you get to "real" blogging of a blogging-banned event, I think?! Tried to make it as a kind of comics in order to be more readable. When I got home I will photograph with proper camera and upload to Flickr. (The mobcamera is only 1.3Mpixels and reduces the quality of the photos when sending photos in the highest resolution.)

Update: First I moblogged moblogged my drawings straight away, but the quality stinks. So now, as promised, you can find a much better version as a Flickr set.
# posted by Lisbeth at: 17:46 (2) comments

Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft, is visiting the IT University tomorrow (an event purely organised by Microsoft, so no, I cant get you tickets). I have now been bumped from the waiting list so I get a seat for the talk. To some in my circle of friends and colleagues, Microsoft is "the bad guy", but Im not afraid to admit that my computer pretty much runs on Microsoft products at the moment and have done for a long time. He's going to talk about IT and Globalisation and if his performance in Denmark is anything like those circulating on the net, I'm in for an once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Security will run high on the day, no mobile phones or cameras allowed, so I cant liveblog. But I plan to take notes by hand, photograph them with my mobcam, as soon as I get it back, and then post it directly to my moblog. Wouldnt that be "retro-liveblogging"?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 17:30 (0) comments

As a test, I created a Myspace profile earlier this week. When I enter the site from "outside" (via the official URL), Im now told that [my myspace profile name] is "in my extended network" (the network of Lisbeth entering the site). It's somehow oddly comforting to know that Im in a network with myself.
...It reminds me of the day when I searched for my own profile on a dating website and then were told that the person of my profile had only 34% compatability with what "I" was looking for on this dating site. People who believe that we have just one self in cyberspace, have definitely gotten it completely wrong ;).
# posted by Lisbeth at: 20:43 (0) comments

There was an article in the Danish newspaper Politiken's monday edition, I'd like to read. Politiken online allows you to read the newspaper in PDF, if you are a subscriber. If you dont subscribe to the newspaper the day in question, you can buy this day's edition via a creditcard payment and read it immediately after (so I finally figured out after reading the print in small after having wondered for a long time why I only got the friday to sunday pdfs).

So this is what I tried earlier today. I place my order for yesterdays paper (Monday), pay up, and get a login-number which is even automatically transferred to the login field. I press the enter-field and get the sunday newspaper. I think it is probably a mistake and wait for the promised mail to arrive with the login-number. The mail says I have ordered the monday newspaper and gives me the login-number I just tried. I try it again. I get the sunday newspaper. I call the subscription service. The woman I get on the phone after waiting for approx 3 min. tells me that she cant do anything about it, but she will try to talk to the right people, and get back to me, perhaps later today or tomorrow. I tell her that my intention was to read the paper today. She asks me for my phone number and promise me they will get back sometime...Something like a small hour passes. The phone calls. Another woman from Politiken tells me that she cant do anything about the mistake but they are working on it, and she hopes to get through to the tech guys soon. They will send me an email with the right login for the monday paper later. She hangs up. Another 15 min passes, and I get an kind email from a guy at Politiken, telling me that my login has now been corrected, so I can get my sunday paper. He refers to an email from the woman at Politiken I just talked to, telling him to allow me to get access to the monday paper...I log in, and obviously still get the sunday paper. I send a mail to the guy, telling him that I would REALLY like the MONDAY login. I wait a little while and dont hear anything. So I send an email to the woman cc'ed on his mail. Now, while writing this, I just got an email with the correct login. It's taken 85 minutes, a phone call and 2 e-mails to get to read the monday paper online. I surely hope it's a bug and not a feature ;)!

[I should say that the subscriper pdf-function worked fine while I was in the US. It was a great way to read a Danish SUNDAY newspaper, when you couldnt get it in print)
# posted by Lisbeth at: 13:45 (0) comments

I was just reminded about this art project by the art group übermorgen: GWEI - Google Will Eat Itself. There is still a little way to go before they own Google, 202.546.295 years to be precise, but I love the idea and the notion of autocannibalism!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 12:26 (0) comments

At ilevelu.com, they promise to powerlevel your character for the "duration of the order". So I've heard of these services, but mostly of buying high-level characters out-of-game, not about people just taking over your character in-game for a while. Hmmh, hmmh, hmmh, could I pay a research assistant to do a similar task?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 00:54 (1) comments

Dan Gillmor answers your concerns, the headline on the BBC online webpage says. It's an interesting read, especially the questions raised by professionals, and Dan Gillmor's answers.

Oh, and there's a fun little typo in the article, Gillmor writes: News addicts like me will spend all day learning about and observing what's going on in the word. I suspect he means "world", but who knows ;)?
# posted by Lisbeth at: 09:36 (0) comments

It was a great way to end the easter holidays to return home and find an email waiting for me, announcing that my first paper on the "death in online gameworlds" project has been accepted as a full paper for the ACE 2006 conference. The conference venue is Hollywood, so that's not bad either ;). Im currently polishing the paper, people who want to read it can contact me for a digital copy after the conference.

I recently updated and redesigned the www.death-stories.org website, and a programming friend (thanks, Arne!) has updated the survey database so WoW (World of Warcraft) is now an integrated part of the survey. Noctis of the Warcry-network has advertised the site on several gamesites, so now I have 20+ submissions for the survey from all kind of worlds, with some great stories and thought-provoking comments from players on death. Please go there and tell your own story if you are a MMOG gamer - or tell your friends about it!
# posted by Lisbeth at: 10:51 (0) comments

It is old news, but I've been wanting to make a note of it for a long time: atPostSecret the best secrets of the week are posted every sunday. Owner of blog receives multiple postcards with secrets on from people all over? the world. It started as a research project as far as I remember...
# posted by Lisbeth at: 21:12 (0) comments

"...and it was nearly done, this frail
Travelling coincidence; and what it held
stood ready to be loosed with all the power
That being changed can give. We slowed again,
And as the tightened brakes took hold, there swelled
A sense of falling, like an arrow-shower
Sent out of sight, somewhere becoming rain."

(Phillip Larkin, The Whitsun Weddings)
# posted by Lisbeth at: 12:10 (0) comments

M..............................................................................................................................................E
# posted by Lisbeth at: 20:16 (1) comments