like a religious experience for artists

is this video of Robbie Dingo creating a guitar for Suzanne Vega for her upcoming performance in Second Life. Wow.

level 51 land squid voodoo princess

Good news! There’s another Ninmah. I few days ago Craig put me on to Progress Quest, which is exactly like World of Warcraft, except not quite. For one thing, the interface is much simpler, in the same way that the original Zork is much simpler than Zelda the Wind Waker.

The image here shows the whole interface. Also, you don’t actually have to pay it any attention whatsoever — it plays itself. All the other stuff is the same, though: you get some gear; you head out to kill some stuff; you pick up the random bits that drop from the stuff you kill; you head back to town to learn more spells, sell your random stuff, and get better gear; and you head out again to kill more stuff. There are quests that get checked off and levels to progress through. It’s free to download and install, and the monthly subscription is priced quite reasonably at $0.00.

Oddly enough, I’m still playing World of Warcraft. The difference is that now Progress Quest is running in the background!

David at SFMOMA

David and I have been exploring art lately — I was casting about for weekend classes to sign him up for, and thought that art lessons would be good, and then realized (duh) I’m a certified teacher in the subject and why shell out bucks so someone else can have the fun? This is why I went into teaching in the first place, lo these many years ago: to share the “aha!” moments with a child I love.

We started with Georgia O’Keeffe and Matisse. We read books about them first (I recommend the Getting to Know series by Mike Venezia), and then we talked about some of their works using my extensive library of art books. That was the point at which I realized exactly where all my money went while I was in college. It really is a nice collection. We went to the grocery store and bought large flowers that interested us — we each picked out one bunch — and then brought them home and drew them close up, like Georgia O’Keeffe. Tomorrow we will be drawing with scissors like Matisse.

This morning David, Craig and I made the trip to the city and visited the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. They have Femme au Chapeau, which is one of the images from the Venezia book, and I wanted David to see it. It could not have been a more perfect moment had it been scripted. We climbed the stairs and turned to the left on the second floor — you can almost see it right from there, but there were people in the way. We moved over toward it, and when a gap opened he saw it and pointed and squeezed my hand and gasped, “That was painted by Henri Matisse!” Why, yes, yes it was. Imagine finding that here.

We talked about how it looked, and how it was bigger than he thought it would be. I had told him the colors would look different than they did in the book. He wasn’t convinced, but that’s okay. Then we wandered through the galleries, looking at whatever interested him. Fountain stopped him for a moment, but he was perfectly ready to accept it as art. “It’s sculpture, Mom.” Yup.

We spent a few minutes in the Koret Visitor Education Center, watching part of a film that talked about Matisse and Picasso and their models.

I have a personal tradition when I visit a museum of choosing a postcard from the gift shop to remind me of one particular work that I enjoyed on that trip. David made his first postcard choice today. He picked Les Valeurs personnelles by Magritte, which is the painting he spent the most time in front of during our visit. Back in the car, he showed me Femme au Chapeau in his Matisse book. He admitted that his favorite part of the visit was the translucent walkway on the fifth floor. Fine by me: he had a favorite part.

A ticket, a postcard, a map, and a blog post — David at SFMOMA.

that talk on data visualization

The talk by Hans Rosling I mentioned in an earlier post is available online! TEDTalks is a new feature on the TED website where selected talks from the TED2006 conference, TED Global, and others are made available — the way it should be, free — so that you can view them in the page, or subscribe to them as a podcast. I love the web.

worlds collide

The BBC has an island: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4766755.stm

And the RL (that’s “real life”) conference BarCamp now has a SL analog; here’s a write-up on Laughing Squid: http://laughingsquid.com/2006/05/18/barcamp-second-life/

Granted, BarCamp’s pretty geeky to begin with. But the BBC? A delightful surprise.

data visualization

Gapminder presents an amazing way to visualize data on a graph over time. Click “go straight to the graph” for a demo. Set the axes you’re interested in; pick specific countries if you wish; and hit the “play” button to see changes over time. The demo just shows the tip of the iceberg — I was lucky enough to see a video of the presentation at this year’s TED conference, which just blew me away — but it’s still pretty incredible.

at the Faculty Academy

I’m sitting in a lovely auditorium at the University of Mary Washington, reveling in being at a conference where I am not a host (and reveling no less in the power outlet right here in the arm of my seat and the no-fuss wireless access… cool… if I had a tropical drink it would be just like a vacation!). Cyprien’s showing us stuff I had no idea Flickr could do, and explaining stuff that I knew it could do but couldn’t work out how.

I’ve also seen the neat stuff faculty here are doing with their courses. Wikis, blogs, digital storytelling, moviemaking — it’s all here. The faculty are sharing the process, the ups and downs, what worked and what didn’t, all with frankness and humor. There’s a fantastic atmosphere of support and a willingness to learn from each other that’s wonderful to see. I’m thrilled and honored to be a guest here.

Take a look at the conference blog — we’re writing it as we go!

If your phone book were a person

The phone rang the other evening. Uncharacteristically, I chose to answer it. A pleasant female voice identified herself as a staffer doing a survey for the phone book and asked for the male head of the household. “Hey,” I shouted to my husband, who was standing about 10 feet away, “do you want to take a survey about the phone book?” “No,” he yelled back. I turned back to the phone. “I’m sorry, he’s unavailable,” I said politely. The whole exchange had been completely audible to the caller, who had the humanity to laugh. “Then may I speak to the female head of the household?” she asked gamely.

I’m a big fan of usability testing, and market research is its distant cousin, so I like to help; but I think it was the fact that she laughed that convinced me to stay on the phone.

what happened last night

Last night was one of the best nights of my life.

Every night I read a book or two to my son, who is six, just before he goes to bed. Last night we read McElligot’s Pool by Dr. Seuss. We’ve read it before — he loves all the funny fishes. After we finished, he climbed up into his loft and I tucked him in and turned out the light and said “good night, sweet dreams” as I always do. That’s when it happened.

As I was about to leave, out of the goodnight-moon quiet of his just-darkened room, I heard him say, “Mom… would it be okay if I read McElligot’s Pool one more time?”

“You mean you want to hear it again?” I asked.

“No, I want to read it myself. Is that okay? I’ll tuck myself in again after.”

Is that okay? Is that OKAY? Of course it’s okay! My boy wants to READ! He wants to actually READ the WORDS in a BOOK before he goes to bed. Is that okay? That’s totally awesome. That’s one of those things that they don’t tell you about. Sure, there are nighttime feedings for 15 months and you don’t sleep through the night forever. There are epic battles over eating food, wearing clothes, and using the toilet. There are terrifying moments when he falls down and cuts or breaks or bumps some part of his body and you can’t fix it with a band-aid.

But last night I left the light on, and my son read a book to himself before bed.

I had no idea it would feel that good.

A creative side of gaming

You might not think that playing an MMO (massively multiplayer online [game]) is a creative activity. Given that the world is heavily designed, and animations are scripted, and players can’t really customize much in-game, there is a lot of truth to that. Choices for in-game creativity are limited. But many games have a vibrant fan community where creativity abounds; players write fan fiction, create fan art (drawings of their characters and equipment, or artist’s renderings of favorite in-game locations), write game-related comics, and even make movies. I ran across a particularly nice one: Big Blue Dress.

Fair warning: the rest of this post contains spoilers about the movie, so go watch it first if you prefer. (Now would be a good time. Go on, I’ll wait.) It’s worth the time it takes to download. Use headphones if you share an office.