All those topics that i wish i had time to pursue more earnestly.

Learning and Research in Second Life Brisbane

Call for Participation

1-5pm, Friday 24th July, QUT Gardens Point, QUT – Rm S405A

RSVP deadline July 15th 2009

Second Life(R) is a 3d virtual environment created by Linden Lab which has captured the attentions of researchers and teachers from around the world from a variety of disciplines.

This 1/2 day workshop aims to improve the understanding of Second Life as a Learning and Research environment. It will bring 20-30 researchers together to collaborate, discuss and workshop diverse topics related to research and learning in Second Life. We will pursue a schedule in which participants will discuss their work and interests on three different topics: learning in Second Life, research practices in virtual worlds, and ethical research methods. In the end we will try to come to terms with how can we better integrate our research learning practices in this sphere?

This workshop is targeted at people who have experience in virtual worlds and wish to work with others to improve their research and their learning experiences in world.

The workshop encourages researchers to share papers by submitting them before hand and to send a short biography to jeremy.hunsinger at gmail.com. The papers and bios will be distributed amongst participants before the workshop. These papers and bios have the purpose of providing a common platform for understanding our research together during the workshop.

We welcome professionals, faculty and graduate students to participate.

This workshop is organized by Jeremy Hunsinger and Ross Brown

Sponsored by QUT, Faculty of Creative Industries.

Contact Dr Ross Brown – r.brown at qut.edu.au for any further details.

QUT Location – http://tinyurl.com/l3hd97
Campus Map -
http://www.qut.edu.au/about/location/pdf/gardenspoint_map_colour.pdf

[From Putumayo World Music Blog | Official Blog Launch & Kickoff Post: DJ Spooky, Lila Downs and Herbie Treehead Discuss Kids Music!]

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an interesting if short conversation the world music blog.

http://www.amazon.com/International-Handbook-Internet-Research-Hunsinger/dp/1402097883/

512 pages, less than 1 dollar per page.

JURN directory
Links to selected arts & humanities ejournals. Journals listed are either free, or offer significant free content.

[From JURN : directory of scholarly ejournals in the arts & humanities]

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this looks like a good resource, though the javascript is a bit irritating.

EMI has told Danger Mouse that his latest CD won’t see the light of day due to “legal issues,” so he’s responding by releasing the disc as a blank CD-R in a jewel case with art and liner notes. Fans can just download the music off a P2P site and burn it to the CD-R. [From Danger Mouse's EMI-killed CD will be released as a blank CD-R, just add download]

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this is brilliant

[From SocProf Supports William I. Robinson | The Global Sociology Blog]

As do I.

It amazes me that this sort of thing goes on. It is quite worrisome in terms of academic freedom, not that we necessarily have any more freedom than others as academics, but that we are supposed to be able to speak and share knowledge… make comparisons that may make people uncomfortable. Knowedge does that…. makes people uncomfortable.

Digital Archives That Disappear
April 22, 2009
As digital archives have become more important and more popular, there are varying schools of thought among scholars about how best to guarantee that they will be around for good. Some think that the best possibility is for the creators of the archives — people generally with some passion for the topic — to keep control. Others favor acquisition, thinking that larger entities provide more security and resources for the long run.

[From News: Digital Archives That Disappear - Inside Higher Ed ]

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I remember when people were horrified that google bought dejanews and when dejanews started archiving and keeping usenet, which was before fairly ephemeral. Those were horrific days for many people because something would be preserved and controlled by someone else that was never intended to be that way.

We’ve been facing problems with digital archives for ages and private digital archives are a huge problem for researchers, costs aside… The question of copyright, etc. is key and often misplaced, in the new form of the digital material. In any case, the discussion above points to some of the new problems of digital archives.

Cult author JG Ballard dies at 78

[From BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Cult author JG Ballard dies at 78]
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he was one of my favorite authors. he always had interesting critiques. i used to have his books in my office and home and generally spread about. I’ve read most of his fiction, though not all of his autobiographical fiction.

Tragedy Remembered – and Forgotten: The Politics of Memory and Technology

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brent’s keynote, its related to a few paper’s we’ve been working on.