What week is this? A review.
I had a bit of a slowdown this week, but a busy five-week term at school is over. I am looking forward to having more time to work on audio and video and dailycreates.
Starting with Sunday: tdc623: Tell the story of an interaction you had today– written in computer code. I wrote this during the relaxsuprequired(1)=DailyCreate part of the routine. That made it recursive, or something.
SundayAfterNoonRoutine
September 22, 2013
Start:SundayAfterNoonRoutine
define:
fam=
gen(1)=Bill, Liz
gen(2)=Holly, Daniel
gen(2:attachments)=Ryan, Tabatha
gen(3)=Emeline
Action:
din=grilled chicken, penne pasta, corn
dinsub(1)=grill chicken
dinsub(2)=cook pasta
dinsub(3)=cook corn
arrivalsub(1)=unlock front door
dinsub(4)=set table
subs=
dinsub(1)=open gas valve, heat grill, grill chicken time?=done
dinsub(2)=heat gallon water, insert pasta, boil time?=11minutes
dinsub(3)=open cans, dump corn in pot, heat time?=done
dinsub(4)=six each:plates, forks, knives, napkins
afterAction:
cleansub(1)=dishes: rinse, insert into dishwasher, run dishwasher
relaxsubopt(1)=tv?football
relaxsubopt(2)=nap?closeeyes
relaxsubopt(3)=play?withbaby
relaxsubopt(4)=talk?withfam
relaxsuprequired(1)=DailyCreate time?-finish
endtime?17:00:everyoneelse:gohome
Monday: no dailycreate, but here is the story. I went to work, did some review work with my class (Digital Communications), then allowed them time to work on their final report. I left midmorning to drive 240 miles to Fort Bragg Army base in North Carolina. Along the way, I wanted to listen to ScottLo’s Blue Phase transmission. I had prepared by downloading the TuneIn Radio app for my (Motorola) phone. What I didn’t do was figure out how to pair the Bluetooth into my car’s sound. I was able to listen to the broadcast, though there was some buffering and signal loss due to less than 100% 3G coverage. It was worth the effort to listen live, though I admit I was a bit distracted, needing to pay attention to traffic and the route I was taking.
Later Monday, after arriving in Spring Lake, NC (Fort Bragg area), I met up with my colleagues and we went to a local Thai restaurant. I took a picture of the menu and my beer, so I posted that tonight (Saturday) as TDC627: Make a photograph today with a central point of interest in it.
Central Point of Interest
Tuesday I was working on Fort Bragg, helping evaluate some of the Army training courses for recommended college credits. This was a consulting opportunity with ACE, the American Council on Education. Since my role wound down before we finished, I was able to complete TDC625: Create a new ds106 Challenge by Remixing a Previous One. This was interesting, since we were asked to take a randomly chosen previous dailycreate and reword it for some opposite effect. Here’s mine:
Photo mixup
September 24, 2013
Original tdc571: Place yourself into a photo that another ds106er has posted.
Suggested replacement: Place another ds106er into a photo that yet another ds106er has posted.
After our work was done, I left for the drive back home, from 4:45 to 9:15pm. Along the way, I had a flash drive with mp3 files to listen to. The one that was the longest was an old recording of Allen Ginsberg teaching a class on Basic Poetics at the Naropa Institute. It was enjoyable to listen to him reading various old and new poetry to emphasize the the Imagist (or is it Objectivist?) thought of “no ideas except in things.” I’m motivated to download more of the series from archive.org. Maybe incorporate some of this into ds106 audio work.
Wednesday was full of variety. Final exam for my digital communications class, then a job fair that I was expected to help guide students at the check-in point. But, Alan Levine was having a Google hangout that I wanted to see. So, there I was, standing in the hallway with my iPad, earbud in one ear, listening to the hangout via YouTube while interacting with students, encouraging them to get good jobs.
Thursday, I gave the final exam to a basic electricity class, then spent the rest of the workday grading. I tuned in (distractedly) to John Johnston from the Scotland education conference he was broadcasting from. I’m glad to hear he has a PirateBox working, and I hope it worked out for the conference participants.
Friday, I was home in the morning and was able to complete tdc628: Sit for a few minutes in a quiet space. Write about what you hear. This was a modification from a list of explorer’s rules from Keri Smith’s How to Be an Explorer of the World. Bryan Jackson and I had a brief Twitter conversation about this, and I put in some suggestions for dailycreates, and I think he was putting in some philosophy suggestions. Or maybe he meant for his philosophy12 students.
Here is my listening experience:
Autumn Morning at Home
September 27, 2013
As my wife practices the piano in the living room/studio, I sit on the back yard patio. The gurgling of the pool keeps me compamy, as do a couple of crows in the neighbor’s backyard, “caw caw” they repeat.
The wind rustles the leaves of the nearby trees. It is a breezy fall morning.
A jet plane miles away, who is leaving on that jet plane?
Ah, there is a lower, smaller propeller, a local flight no doubt.
Occasionally, I hear the engines and tire sounds of trucks on the highway about a mile away. And vehicles on the local streets.
My neighbor’s pool pump just kicked on. Noisy impeller, should be replaced.
A different bird, maybe a bluejay.
Just noticed the background chirping, grasshoppers, cicadas, or locusts, I have no idea but there seem to be three or four varieties going on.
Sometimes the wind chimes next door emit their dull tones. They are hanging in a gazebe, protected from the breeze, so don’t get much action.
And now my wife has the metronome on to keep the beat.
And now the patio door from the den slides open, and she comes out to join me. After twenty-five years of marriage, we still enjoy each other’s voices and our conversations.
Then, it was time for the BluePhase broadcast from ScottLo. I enjoyed hearing Christina Hendricks recorded comments, especially concerning the differing mindsets and responses to hearing audio live versus a recording. (you can see my comments to ScottLo on his blog for Blue Phase #4). Halfway through, I left off listening, to spend time communicating locally and live with my wife. However, I listened to the recording later, in the office.
Around noon on Friday, I noticed Alan Levine and Martha Burtis on ds106radio and twitter, manning a table at the Reclaim Open Learning Symposium. I was happy to interact with them across the continent. Then off to work for report presentations and final exams for my Wireless Security class. (by the way, I teach at ECPI University, and we have 5-week terms, so it’s new schedules every five weeks.)
Today, Saturday, I have not yet created a picture of palms. I may still complete it tonight or tomorrow. Most of the day was spent in garage and yard work, cleaning, trimming, etc to begin preparations for a family wedding in November, rehearsal dinner barbeque in our back yard, guests from out-of-town, etc. I had a short twitter interaction with ScottLo, concerning using Evernote to tweet audio, perhaps collaboratively. I must say, he is full of creative ideas for audio work of all sorts.
Oh, look! I went ahead and completed todays tdc629: Create a photo that compares the details in the palm of your hand with someone else’s. I picked Jerry Garcia’s hand, with the missing finger. It is a standard picture available from a variety of sources. I found it on my computer. My picture started as a color image, but I worked in GIMP to desaturate it, and adjusted the contrast and brightness. I also had to use the clone tool to remove a line in the Jerry hand image to make the background more uniformly white. If I was to spend more time, I would remove the background from my hand and see if I could make it a blacker image, to better match the two hands. However, I like the way this one turned out in a short time.
Bill and Jerry
Tomorrow, Sunday, I may work on some recording, some dailycreates, some thinking about ds106. My normal routine on Sunday mornings is to meet a friend or two at Starbucks for coffee and Bible discussion, but we are skipping tomorrow. There is more yard work to do, and we will have some of our next two generations of family over for lunch. We go to our church 5:00 – 6:30 pm. I’ll relax as much as possible, looking forward to my new relaxed teaching schedule of one class (Tuesday and Thursday nights) and an independent study student. I can sleep in every morning and relax, read, create, etc at home before going to work.
All for now.
Bill Smith ds106 experimentation 