First Hitchcock macguffin?

A contribution to DS106

This post is apropos of nothing, but Jim Groom’s The Shining commentary got me interested in Punch and Judy after what might have been a throw away comment at the end of his analysis. Of course, I loved that he was talking about what is probably MY favorite movie. And I must admit I love the “labor” theme that Jim talks about. I think many times about that fine line between how much work and play I do. My DTLT colleagues cut a little close to the bone sometimes as well when they make jokes about my work ethic (such as it is).

The Punch and Judy reference also reminded me of one of my favorite bands songs, Punch and Judy, an obscure one by XTC. It’s a song about a couple who are married and a baby comes along to ruin the potential dreams of the father, which leads to violent behavior. Sound familiar? Maybe that resentment is the key to Jack Torrence’s violent behavior. Don’t worry I’m not going to take this very far, but watching the build up to extreme violence in The Shining does expose Jack’s simmering hatred for his responsibilities.

Again, not related seemingly is the knowledge that all Punch and Judy shows used a device called a swazzle that changed the “Professor’s” voice. It was a “reed” that was placed deep in the throat to make Punch sound more, well, frantic and annoying. It is interesting to me that before violent video games and violent cartoons before that, Punch and Judy shows have existed for over 300 years and probably at various times they have been blamed for encouraging violence in our society.

Finally, my last disconnected thought is of my first exposure to a Punch and Judy show was from one of my favorite Marx Brother’s films Monkey Business. Harpo is a stowaway on a ship along with his brothers and hides from the authorities by playing Punch in the puppet show. The annoying, and yet funny sound of his voice was obviously changed using a swazzle of some sort. Thanks Jim for conjuring up all these thoughts and leading me to greater knowledge!

Associating Nack with the Great Lives series, and then seeing him eulogize Steinbrenner, makes Steinbrenner seem a little more special.

I was never a big fan of George Steinbrenner. I was 9 years old when he bought the Yankees from CBS in 1973. I did love the Yankees (my father and older brother were big fans), and at the time, they were not a very good baseball team. They certainly had been, but the lack of a World Series win since 1962 meant that I had never seen my beloved team win it all.

Steinbrenner died yesterday from a heart attack. He had heart troubles before. He is known for ushering in what we call “free agency” in sports with the signing of “Catfish” Hunter. After the ugliness of the Lebron James fiasco, that’s not a particularly great legacy.

The Yankees did win championships in 1977 and 1978, but then suffered some more lean years with lots of turmoil, and lots of different managers. It wasn’t until he ceded control of the day-to-day operations that the Yankees became winners again. However, this seems to be the time when Steinbrenner showed that he was the most human. I remember tears and hugs for Joe Torre when they won the Series. William Nack does not varnish over Steinbrenner’s fallibility, but his remembrance drives home that human quality.

With Apple’s iPhone 4, the cute answers have been “don’t hold it that way“, and “we’re stunned that blah blah blah” when it comes to a reception issue that many people have reported. I’ve been saying for several months now that Apple is at a crossroad. These kinds of answers won’t cut it because they’re an adult company now. What they’re telling their customers is bullshit. There is no other word for it (well there is, but this one has the best bang for the buck).

Steve jobs reportedly told people not to hold the iPhone 4 a certain way, you know, the same way that virtually all of their advertising demonstrates to hold the phone, and the way Jobs himself held it at its introductory keynote. Then there was the letter that admitted that they we’re “stunned” to find the way they measured signal strength be wrong. In other words, they were lying all along about those signal strength bars. They were making it look like they had more signal than they actually did. They just said they didn’t know, or think it was possible, that they were lying.

Well, today, none other than Consumer Reports called bullshit. They said the phone, by bridging the gap in its new antenna design, could lose -20Db in signal, and that could lead to dropping a call. Unlike what Apple has said in their letter, the other iPhones did not lose the signal like the iPhone 4. Antenna experts reached slightly different conclusions. Then they acknowledged a problem.

OK Apple Genius, your move.

“I don’t see why I should give my new music to iTunes or anyone else.

They won’t pay me an advance for it, and then they get angry when they

can’t get it.”

I don’t want to get into the cluelessness of this statement, or the fact that the career of Prince might be over, but instead I offer you a different way of viewing music on the web. It is now possible to completely publish an album on the web using only HTML (utilizing HTML5 elements) – no Flash allowed. I came across an article that touted the first embeddable HTML5 album. Presenting Francis and the Lights – It’ll Be Better . Now I would argue that HTML5 is intended to be an advancement that allows all devices and browsers to access the same content. We’re not there yet as Jerry‘s android phone won’t play the album, and neither will IE8 (or even the IE9 developer platform browser). But, we’ll be getting there sooner rather than later when people push the technology in these directions. I’ve got a future post brewing on what HTML5 is, and maybe even an anti-Flash rant, but for now you can view this in a variety of places such as any browser on the Mac, Firefox on Windows, and the iPhone (see screenshot below). The Internet is just getting started.

That said, for me the 2010 edition was quite successful. It started with the opening reception and seeing old friends while also trying to follow what turned out to be the final game of the Stanley Cup Finals (way to go Chicago!). The first official day of the conference opened with USC representative Susan Metros giving the welcome, complete with Mini Mouse ears. Mimi Ito gave a thoughtful opening talk that started to go beyond the question of whether this technology stuff is making us smarter or dumber, but rather it depends on what we do with it. She also mentioned the importance of the work of her fellow cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch.

Next up was a breakout session from the Penn State folks, Chris Millet, Ryan Wetzel, and former Penn State, now USC based, Matt Frank on their highly successful student-focused media services organizations. I’m very familiar with Penn State’s Digital Commons, as I have based much of the structure of my own New Media Center here at Mary Washington on the work of Cole Camplese and his PSU crew.

After a brief lunch with Don Henderson and Marco Torres in Downtown Disney, it was back to “work” and watching the Case Western presentation on the Future of Video in Learning. Then my friend Gardner Campbell and his crew from Baylor, Tim Logan and Addy (student whose last name I forgot) reflected on their faculty development seminar using the New Media Reader. Gardner called it his most successful faculty development effort and is beginning to recruit for the next one right now.

The evening ended with a trip to the House of Blues and after getting some food, I faded fast owing to the time zone difference, but not before seeing some serious dance moves being demonstrated by some happy NMCers.

Finally, Friday morning arrived and it was time for my session, “This Old New Media Center“. When I first proposed this session, I had a vague idea of where I was going with this. I simply was re-working the This Old House title and was going to showcase some tools that I use on a daily basis for new media. It wasn’t until later that I decided to do a full-on TV show and use the Boinx TV software to present with – complete with the theme music from This Old House (Fats Waller’s 1935 “Louisiana Fairytale”). It was very well received, and I even got a virtual high-five from Chris Clark from the Kaneb Center for Teaching & Learning at Notre Dame.

The entire “show” and the resource are online and are available at the Digital Media Cookbook site that is featured. Perfectionist that I am, I found plenty wrong or missing, or stuff I just plain forgot or didn’t have time for, but it turned out pretty much like I envisioned.

I’m sure I’m not alone, but when you present at NMC (or anywhere) there is the conference before you present, and then that more relaxed version of the conference after you have presented. More presentations followed on Friday culminating in the “Five Minutes of Fame” presentations that were exceptional this year. Awards for the Poster sessions were presented next and then it was time for dinner.

A wonderful opportunity presented itself as Gardner and I had dinner with Christina Engelbart from the Doug Engelbart Institute. Christina shared some great stories about her father, as well as some wisdom on education, schooling, and child rearing. She has indeed taken her father’s work to a new level, and Gardner and I were soaking up every thought she had about technology and learning in this modern era.

The next morning I was up to catch an early flight home, but happy in reflecting on the energetic 2010 NMC Summer Conference. I missed John Seeley Brown’s keynote, but look forward to watching the video of it as soon as it’s up. I’m ready for next year.

Now that the iPad is released and the frenzy of what it IS is now over. Now it’s the question of “did it live up to your expectations?” Really? You want my answer now? It wasn’t a movie I just watched, it was a product demo. A device that hasn’t even shipped yet. No one but the earliest testers and Apple Event-goers have even got their hands on it, and the Internet is all “like, well, like what do you like think of the iPad. Dumb name huh?” Fill in your feminine hygiene product joke here. Seriously? When Microsoft released its text editor “NotePad” were people this silly about the name? This silliness will die down.

So now the Internet is rife with comments like “big disappointment”, “where’s this” “where’s that”, right along with “OMG, I gotta have it!”

Wait! Step away from your keyboard and slow the hell down! It will be in Apple Stores in 59 days. Then, go there, pick it up, play with it, and see if you like it, or don’t like it. Here’s some more advice. Make up your mind when you are better informed. Make a decision about whether it is worth it or not, WHEN IT SHIPS! Take your time. Read reviews. Ask yourself if it’s a device that does what you want. This doesn’t look like it’s a new computing device that’s good for creation of stuff. It’s a consumption device. If you want one of these already, sight unseen, you are definitely the type of consumer Apple is aiming this toward. This device is about gobbling up content. Video, music, images, books, podcasts, games, newspapers, magazines, and more stuff we don’t know about yet. Om nom nom. It IS a notepad. You’ll take notes, do some word processing, surf the web, read books, but it’s not meant to replace your computer. Having said that, the computer is not a good consumption device. They’re awkward on your lap (especially desktop computers ) They heat up to high temperatures and get uncomfortable. They have relatively poor battery life.

This device is a different kind of computer. It’s a giant iPod Touch. And that’s not a bad thing. As good as the iPhone/Touch is, I have wished for a bigger screen to interact with the content in more meaningful ways. The touch capabilities remain the most intriguing feature. I predict people will love using it. Just like I love using my iPhone. Apple made this exactly the way they wanted to make it. They’re not sitting back thinking “oh we forgot Flash”. Apple wants Flash dead. They want to kill it. It hasn’t hurt the iPhone. It would have been nice to have this or that (I wanted a webcam), but Apple did something un-Apple and came in at half of the price that people were predicting, and $100 lower than the lowest prediction I saw.

It’s also another closed system, very much Apple-like. Do it our way. We know best. You want open? Go see the other guys. No? You still want one? Well, go get in line.

July 2004 – First blog set up – awrush.com (now a legal search consultant website) at bloghosts.com (no longer hosting blogs).

August 2, 2004 – First official post. I mention that our new hosting service is like being a kid in the candy room at Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory. The rest of August I’m learning new terms like wiki and RSS and getting addicted to learning it all.

October 2004 – The name is official And He Blogs.

December 2004 – Goodbye Bloghosts. Hello Bluehost.

March 2005 – Very much in the Windows world, I rig up a podcast-catching machine by using a Dell Axim X5 Pocket PC combined with the Doppler software and inspired by this article. (Now, in July of 2009, I discover that Doppler is an RSS reader for the iPhone and it might well be my go-to program).

Late March 2005 – The MediaBlog begins its experiment.

Memorial Day 2005 – My first MoBlog (mobile blog) post, and then my first post about my first MoBlog post.

June 21, 2005 – The And He Blogs WordPress era begins.

January 29, 2006 – ELI Conference in San Diego. Lots of Web 2.0′wy stuff there.

April 2006 – Easy, Free, Videoblogging.

December 2006 – Udell. Microsoft. Bwah???

February 2007 was a good month, including YouTube in MediaWiki. Also, discovered one of the most important thinkers of web 2.0 academia – Michael Wesch.

April 2007 – The Bliki – AKA Play Misty For Me.

May 2007 – Somewhere around here I entered the Twitter era.

September 2007 – Microsoft Live Writer makes blogging easy, but ultimately just creates ugly code for blogs – think Microsoft Word web pages.

June 2008 – Edupunk? Seriously???

July 2008 – TweetDeck. Yeah, it was important!

December 2008 – What’s better than YouTube? YouTube in HD!

March 2009 – Mobile Computing. Demonstrating educational uses of the iPhone.

June 2009 – The New Media presentation of my lifetime, and instant mobile podcasting.

July 2009 – Is technology so ubiquitous that we’re bored with it?

This tale is brought to you by Bluehost, or rather the lack thereof. My account was down yesterday for about 12 hours. I have no illusions that anybody even noticed, but for me it was frustrating because I had a post brewing and I couldn’t write it. Now why couldn’t I write it and post it later? I’m using Windows Live Writer right? Well no because I’m using the Mac side of my MacBook Pro much more lately and there’s no WLW on this side of the grass. I’ll have a post about the Mac vs. PC thing soon I’m sure. (Yes, I know there is a thing called a text editor, but I’m spoiled you know).

Now it may have been a good thing I didn’t post yesterday because it was going to be a rant about how some people are essentially blaming the less well off for the current economic crisis. I’m talking about, among others, that horse’s ass Rick Santelli and Phil “nation of whiners” Gramm. Again, maybe it’s just as well because I can move on now and still get to call Rick Santelli a horse’s ass. Twice!

So just to prove John Lennon’s posit that life is what’s happening when you’re making other plans, I was off doing something completely different than writing a political rant. I was seeing what people were saying about web hosting companies. I was able to listen in on other conversations (and rants) about their web host. Wondering whether the grass was greener, I was seeing that it wasn’t necessarily. How was I listening in on all this? With TweetDeck. If you don’t know what TweetDeck is, it is an Adobe Air application that gives a different view of the Twitter conversation. As I’ve mentioned before, TweetDeck allows you to track multiple conversation with its built in search feature and view it in a separate column that you can track, just like you track what your friends are saying.

As the screenshot above illustrates, I am able to see anyone on Twitter talk about either Bluehost, or another company I am considering, MediaTemple. I have seen both kinds of comments from “I love Bluehost” and “I love MediaTemple” to the more likely “Bluehost/MediaTemple is teh suck” – knowing full well that negative comments will more likely appear on Twitter. Mine did.

What did I learn from the TweetDeck comparison? Ok, so go figure, the grass isn’t always greener. Mentioned also in these conversations was a service called Mosso, that had largely positive reviews. Also, it comes as no surprise that Mosso is more expensive than either Bluehost or MediaTemple. So here’s a summary of what I learned:

• Inexpensive web hosting companies have down-time
• You (for the most part) get what you pay for
• People like to vent/complain/rant
• It’s good to know other people (even those I don’t know) are having similar issues

Thanks TweetDeck, I sure do love you. I think I’ll go tweet that. There.