Northern Owl

The wiki is now up and running. Not much has been started, just some basic settings were changed around. This is the site address Northern Owl. Be sure to check the wiki frequently as it will be growing daily!

Northern Owl wiki

The Northern Owl is going to be the name of the wiki I am starting for my class Project. I will be blogging here 3 times a week about the progress. I have not been given a wiki yet, that comes wednesday. The purpose of the wiki will be to provide information on how to use the University library. As I come across new information on other library wikis and websites I will post a link to that site here.

Winter,Spring then Winter again

So my earlier post about spring time might have been a little premature. More snow has fallen today than any of the other winter days I think. I want to return to the spring time coming. No more snow, ice, sleet, slush, and the other dozen words to describe what falls from the sky. The only thing falling needs to be spring showers, so I can see some summer flowers.

Landmarks

People become very confused when their landmarks are taken away. It doesn't even have to be something on the road, any familiar area in life is like a landmark. Faces change, towns are renovated, each adjustment takes time to adapt to. Even something as simple as the movement of a display item in a store can lead people to doubt their memories. "Was it here?, it was wasn't it?" "Maybe I am thinking of the other store." Once assured that their memory is correct and the change has taken place, there is small satisfation in being correct. Then the notion that everything is always changing settles in. Depending on what changed, this can be good or bad. Either way, change resonates, leaving behind a reminder that things are not always as certain as we remember.

Flowers

Another great thing about spring time is flowers. Just like people can add life to a room, so can plants. A room always has a warmer and more inviting feel when there is the scent of flowers in the air and the soft welcoming colors. Even dried flowers when arranged nicely can offer a reminder of the nature outside of the four walls of a house.

Beginning to thaw

Finally, it is beginning to warm up. The snow and ice is starting to melt in the parking lot, the air doesn't bite at me when I go outside. I feel it necessary to take some time today and mention the little things about winter moving into spring that I enjoy.

• I like the sunshine, it just feels more spring-like, somehow warmer and more inviting.
• The grass will get greener.
• Birds return.
• The air has a touch more warmth to it.
• People are friendlier.
• The daylight lasts longer
• and so much more...

Literary Predicament

Last night after reading Charles Dickens 'Great Expectations' I noticed a change in my speech. This isn't the first time this has happened either. When finding oneself in a situation where their ear is trained to understand the speech of another, they then begin to adopt said habits. Sometimes this will happen after watching a movie, but the occurance is rare. I find that books are more likely to be the instrument of my instruction in a new tongue than anything else. Perhaps this is an oddity reserved only for myself, but I have an inkling that given the opportunity I may perchance to run into another individual with such a predicament.

Diversions

Once again here are some websites that might keep you amused for at least a few minutes.
www.gamesforthebrain.com
www.rinkworks.com/brainfood
www.braingle.com
These sites were originally printed in the Star Tribune Web Search Section.

Twilight Dreams

The recent trend of weird dreams has got me thinking about how the mind creates dreams. I wish I knew more about it, especially the types of dreams which you know are dreams as you have them. The ones where everything looks and acts like it does when you are awake, but the colors are off. They are either brighter or darker, that twilight zone feeling begins to creep around the edges letting you know that you can end it whenever you choose to wake up. It would be neat to see how the different channels in the brain send around random information, some surface and some buried, that are able to come together and make sense in the dream (usually they are preposterous once I have woken up). Perhaps one day when I have time I might actually read up on the science of dreams, but for now I am content just to have them.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

After going through a box of kleenex or two this week, I wondered how many trees I killed. I kow there are cloth handkerchiefs, but those seem only approbriate for more delicate tasks. One would use them to tab away tears or get rid of the tickle under the nose. To use one while sick just seems, well, sick. The gross factor and the unhygenic factor both make it a poor alternative to the albeit wastefull throwaway. So until something better has been found, I am afraid that each cold and flu season I will be forced to use without reducing, reusing, or recycleing. I am sorry Nature.

Funny's or is it Funnies?

While flipping to my favorite section of the paper, the comics (or funny's as I call them) I find myself wondering how many people out there read the entire paper. I don't think I have ever read the entire paper. Maybe I have read every headline and each article I was interested in, but never the entire paper and certainly not the entire Sunday paper. Just like some people only watch the television news for the weather, some read the paper for the funnies, whether or not they are contained in the comics section is another story.

Ode to a cold

In my head everything is mute
my eyes are burning
I don't feel as astute
while the room is turning
chicken soup
lemon juice
I feel pooped
time to snooze.

Pleasantries

Who doesn't enjoy compliments? They can turn an ordinary day into a great day, especially when they come in unexpected places. At work I was simply doing my job and someone thanked me for my help with such sincerity and enthusiasm that the rest of the day flew by thanks to the euphoria it enduced. So I would like to say thank you to anyone and everyone who makes someone's day a little more pleasant. This Hallmark moment was brought to you by random acts of cheesy kindness.

Kayak

The Third blog I have chosen to blog on is titled:
Kayak Paddle Tales . This site appears to be by definition and self description, a blog. The entries are short and are more of a recollection of the creator (Peggy's) day. She does not go into detail about her whole day however. This blog is meant to chronicle her kayaking excursions. The genre of this blog would definitely be a journal hobby. It does not collect facts and news about kayaking, but instead gives daily recounts of her day ( Yang 118). This is not the only hobby she had started a blog for. Listed in her profile page are two other blogs. A lot of the pictures taken while kayaking or hiking are kept on her other blog Photo Bucket's homepage.

On the kayak site she makes a note of previous turtle pictures, but does not link to them, any reader who has not seen what she is talking about may feel left out or curious enough to search through the rest of the site. When she does not know the name of an animal in one of the pictures she asks the audience to correct her, so the picture can be labeled.

Each entry describes what was seen that day on the water, the conditions of the weather, animals to be seen in the area, and other details of her outing. I almost feel like I am talking to a local guide about the best place to kayak in the area and in a way I am. I wonder how effective it would be to use a blog search in order to learn insider tips on a place before visiting it, since not everyone is going to write about local places of interest and if they do they may not share the same interests that I do. What type of a Weblog, filter, or aggregator would make it possible to search for such information? Perhaps you know?

Back to the blog at hand, after searching through who left comments on the blog, they all shared similar interests with the creator of 'Kayak Paddle Tales'. These interests were one or more of the following, kayaking, camping, and photography. People remarked that they enjoyed the site, or photography. Someone even commented that they would check out a spot mentioned the next time they were in that area kayaking.

The comments were opened in a smaller separate window. I liked that this feature allowed me to still see the article I was reading and when I was done I could just 'x' out, instead of hitting the back button.

Besides the above 2 blogs she also keeps a camping tent tales blog, but that does not appear to have been updated since Nov of 2006 This site, like the kayak one gives information and pictures relating to camping trips taken. Visitors to each of her sites are also directed towards the creators web page if they wish to contact her.

The World Wide Grab Bag is a web page, or more like a filter. "I think of the old-style site organized squarely around the link" (Blood 7). This filter does not have one specific topic for its links though. The links are broken down into categories and like the title suggests, there is a while grab bag variety to choose from.

Kayak Paddle Tales has been around for a year and a half. Part of what Blood says helps to make blogging more enjoyable and a long lasting activity is ' if it is an extension of one of your existing activities' (Blood 36). Peggy has taken her three hobbies; kayaking, photography, and camping and uses blogging as a way to connect with others who share similar interests. I suspect the camping blog died out because there were no more camping tales to tell. The kayak and photo blogs will more than likely continue as long as the author of the blog has enough time for not only her hobbies, but also for blogging and sharing them with the rest of us.

Librarian

When initially beginning to peruse the blog I had earmarked for my second commentary, I came across a much more interesting choice. Amongst The Rambling Librarian's information on his 'about' page were links to other blogs and websites which he was the creator or member of. One of which is the one I will be discussing now. It is called The Memory Tree.

This site functions both as a collaborative weblog and also as a community weblog. There are two main people who are working collaboratively on a story. However, they are placing the process of their story writing online for several reasons , one of which is "To allow others to comment, as a way to refine the stories should they choose to help." The other reasons for posting online is to be able to work together on a children's story, while also archiving the process as they go. When changes are made, such as deletions, the viewer can see what was crossed out, because there is a line through the sentence. The old material was not deleted without evidence of what used to be. The genre of this blog appears to be of a personal nature. They are using this blog as a creative outlet, rather than soliciting for a publisher which might have made it a journalistic or professional blog.

The site takes note of the number of visitors. This means that they are aware that others will view their story. Who this audience is they don't specify more than 'whoever cares to read this story'. By allowing comments from others though, the authors have not only acknowledged the help an audience member(s) may provide, but are seeking it out.

The memebers of this collaborative weblog posted a notice stating that "All content in this blog, including comments from readers, remains the Intellectual Property of the blog owners," on their page. I found this an interesting decision, it is one of the things Blood comments on as being unnecessary and done more for giving the owner a feeling of legitimacy in what they are doing. She also says it doesn't hurt. Better safe than sorry I guess. The Memory tree does have pictures and drawings for the story they are creating, which blood comments 'may be stolen' (Blood 46).

Blood talks about the need to distinguish in a collaborative blog whether the property of an entry is for who posted it, or to the weblog itself. The Memory Tree has done this. As stated above, Any and all content is property of the weblogs owners and not the individual who posted them.

When reading through the comments, I noticed that outside of one anonymous quote which says "I think its good" the rest of the comments appear to just be notes that the authors write for each other. There was a mention of starting a 'bud' and working on other story ideas together in the same way.

The last posts to this site were in July of 2006. The story does not appear to be complete, which leads me to conlcude that they must have run out of time or desire to continue. But the beauty of the blog is that the work they have done so far is sitting and waiting to be resumed. No need to worry about lost papers or faded ink. Only one of the two members has a blog other than the memory tree. (The Rambling librarian last updated his own site on the 8th of February.)

It is interesting for me to take note and pick apart how people use the blog in new ways. The Memory Tree use it as not only a place to store and play around with new ideas, but as a way to gain feedback from a wider range of people. This blog has lead me to wonder whether or not the author of a book one day may not be a person's name, but the name of a collaborative weblog. I look forward to watching this new form of media expand and grow.

Henrik Ibsen

I began my search for a blog to analyze by typing in random topics of interest in the google blog search. The first topic I typed was 'Henrik Ibsen'. After reading through the general descriptions and clicking on a few sites I settled on “Terri’s West End Blog”. The article which contained Henrik Ibsen is here.

Terri Knudsen is a journalist and long time theatre critic. This blog focuses on the performances that take place at West End Theatre in London. There are her own reviews of plays, a section called '5 questions with...', and 'Word on the Street'. Word on the street contains video footage from You Tube of interviews of the audience after they left the performance and what they thought of it. Knudsen comments that "This blog - soon to be moved to its own domain under the name Centrestage Media - will from now on, where possible, get the audience’s point of view after a show.’" The above qoute illustrates Jonathan Yang’s comment about blogs from the pros “Blogs are being used by major media outlets as a supplement to their more traditional output, giving reporters room to expand on a topic in a more casual tone” (Yang 136).

Knudsen is allowing actual audience members to speak about a performance, rather than writing just her own opinion or passing on links to other critics. Knudsen mentions that the blog is ideal for doing this because, "The good thing here is, because this is not traditional media looking to shift copies and front pages, there’s no need to look for a sensational angle. Which means we can actually focus on the art."

The format of the blog is very open and orderly. The top begins with a list of ‘New this week plays’ below which are the ‘Last Chance’ ones. By clicking on these one is taken to the ticket master for each play. Below the links are the recent reviews. On the right hand column are recent posts, recent comments, archives (what did I miss?), and links. In the actual reviews Knudsen does not link to other sites, this prevents the reader from jumping around and allows them to finish the article.

If after reading they wish for more info there are ‘Tag’ words at the bottom. Clicking on these takes the reader to previous posts by Knudsen and other bloggers of WordPress. The comments to an article are also listed below it, without having them compacted.
Most of the articles have an accompanying photo, there are a couple videos, and other than the tag links, the only other links are 2 on the right hand column sending the reader to one site about a theater in West End London (Old Vic) and another writer whose focus is not only on stage, but also movies and music.

This site appears to be a notebook, it contains "longer pieces of focused content. Personal entries are sometimes in the form of a story"(Blood 6). The site calls itself a blog, but the entries are often long and focused solely on the topic of stage productions. Personal opinion is often used, which is more characteristic of a blog than a notebook. As for the genre, I would have to say it is a Journalistic notebook "giving reporters room to expand on a topic in a more casual tone" (Yang 136).

Knudsen’s background is as a reporter and each entry is formatted in small-medium paragraphs like a newspaper article would be. The audience of this site would be mostly composed of theater enthusiasts, or fans of this authors work. This blog is not written solely for the author and she is aware of that. The reviews and interviews are not done for only the author’s benefit, but to share new information with others. There is even a notice that she will do freelance work and if an actor wishes their play to be mentioned that she will be happy to oblige.

Talking to oneself in public

I have noticed the frequency to which people have seemingly personal conversations in public. These are taking place more and more without seeing the other person face to face. Cell phones abound everywhere. The thing that still catches me off guard are the handsfree sets, so you can't tell if the person is rambling to themselves, you, or just whoever will listen. Now I understand people have had private conversations in public for hundreds of years. But there are some difficulties in keeping the nature of information private which cell phones have introduced. For instance reception, if the person can't hear you, then one begins to shout without realizing that they are not the only one in the room. Mouthing the words just doesn't work over the phone either. Same goes for head nods and diverting one's eyes towards the foolish stranger. It is a lot harder to talk about someone without them knowing, when you are within earshot if one is on the phone. Perhaps code, or lingo will evolve to fill the private gossip gap, but for now people with cell phones need to be on their guard.

That's different

So it is really cold outside and I am not all too surprised, but it is definetly an oddity to see. There is ice/frost on the bottom 3 feet of the doors to the library. This might not seem strange except for the fact that it is on the inside part of the door. I really hope that groundhog didn't see his shadow.

Time Flies, so why can't I?

My sense of time has been a little wacky lately. Normally I have a hard time living in the present. Either I am anxious about something happening in the future, or reliving past events. However, lately I have been able to live more in the moment. This seems to have the odd effect of making ardous tasks seeming fly by and more enjoyable ones last longer. I must admit that this was at first an unsettling experience. Yet the more I reflect on it, the more I like this new relationship with time. I only hope it does not have unforseen complications. While thinking on what could be the cause of this new experience I have come up with a couple theories. One is that I am simply growing up and this is one of the things that changes as we move more into the realms of the adult world. My other theory is that time is a vain mistress, knowing that she is in complete control and wants to be admired for such power. When things are unpleasent one tends to pay more attention to the passing of time. Time wants to prolong the acknowledgement of it's existence as long as possible. While when time is ignored, it becomes angry and even jealous, thus speeding up the passing of the moment until it is admired again. These theories are simply that, theories, and I do not claim any hard facts or evidence other than my own experiences and musings.

Example/Assignment

So here is an example of a cyber squatter, who has actually decided to do something with his space. The name was what caught me. I don't think too many people name there kids Gawain (if that is his real name). I was a little put off when I read he maintained a blog to save space, but scrolling down I noticed pictures and other random postings. So maybe there is hope out there for the cyber squatters. I was using the 'next blog' button to skim through site until I found one which caught my eye. This is not an easy thing to do, considering that after I hit the button for the third time I get an advertisement. Usually it was something about laughs and jokes or cialis. The most frustrating point is that I can't ever find the next blog button on these sites. Now I understand they are a necessary evil so that blogger can offer free blogs, but that doesn't mean I have to get trapped on the website. You get more flies with honey, not vinegar. So if a company thinks that by trapping me on their website that I will buy there product, they are sorely mistaken. Playing tricks doesn't get anyone anywhere for long. I wish more honesty could exist in the world, just maybe not the brutal kind.

Cyber Squatters

So I was flipping through the Star Tribune today and I learned something pertaining to blogs. There are people out there who start a blog or a website with a common word in the title; they then site (squat) on that site until someone else comes along who wanted to use that URL. The squatter then offers to sell the URL for a rediculous amount of money. Maybe some of you have heard of this already and I know I have accidently come across them by typing in the wrong URL for a similar site.

I found myself turned off by the exploitation powers some people try to use. Ideally the Internet is a free medium to share one's views, information, and all sort of other things. Taking a domain name and not doing anything with it, seems to me like taking the title for a book without ever writing it. I know everyone has their own idea for how to make a buck, even cyber squatters I suppose.