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Trace Collection

BuzzMoo — Sat, 27 Aug 2011 05:55:41 +0000

There was a vacant desk behind where I set at work for a number of weeks that has now ended up occupied by a character very good with a needle and thread. She probably uses a sewing machine more, but “needle and thread” has a ring to it…anyway, fashion designer and content author Emma Chillman has won a competition and is exhibiting her works in Melbourne this weekend. I like her approach and think she’s got some impressive garments going here. When she asked about a website, it sounded like a straight forward job and it turned out to be.

Head over to tracecollection.com to see some eco-inspired dresses that can be traced to their origins!

The Convoy of No Consequence

BuzzMoo — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 07:28:05 +0000

You might have heard about it. You might not have! Some people went on a bit of a bike ride – I wasn’t able to participate as I was busy making it to work in record time thanks to all the clear roads.

People we probably know have done a video and Rafe sang the song. Sums this week’s event in Canberra pretty well!

plain language, please

BuzzMoo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 10:16:02 +0000

Here in Australia we’ve all got a say. For as long as I’ve been politically aware I’ve been hearing people say that what’s being said isn’t being heard – the finer details, at least. The first challenge in learning about democratic theory, for me, was the basic distinction between representative and direct democracy. Referenda made sense early on… but who were these people that I’d get to vote for eventually? I wasn’t actually all that opposed to the idea of deferring to someone who, at any rate, had a great deal more familiarity with all things politics than I. A lot of it was and still is boring. Voting for a representative was delegating the hard work, then. Too bad when they turned to be no good there wasn’t a huge deal of recourse. Four years is a long time and let’s face it – we’ll all be dead soon. If you don’t have the time for politics and end up disliking the guy you voted for really the only thing you can do is not vote for them next time. A vote is a sacred thing because in a some cases that’s all we’ve got. And you’re certainly told it matters (In Australia it is compulsory to vote). So when you place your vote the time, energy and emotion invested into making that decision forms a representation of who you are. And, obviously, it’s a commitment to that particular representative as a person. But there’s no particular framework that satisfies could be described as the desire for an ‘ongoing independent association with expected continuation’ with the notions committed to when the ballot is cast. Currently it’s not like that, despite #gov20. As much town-hall-meeting, stump-speech, baby-kissing while-Tweeting energy could be spent as you want without changing the essential asymmetrical dynamic of the current political structure. That’s not to say a torrent of Tweets won’t change the direction of a day in Washington, only that 130 characters doesn’t necessarily equate to more than shouting something about immigration at your least favourite candidate when you walk by them talking to locals in the only shopping centre in town. Unless the media later uses the soundbite on the 5 o’clock news – then I guess you’re reaching people. The point is you can’t sit down with the guy in power and have a real discussion.

Does Deliberative Democracy solve that? It certainly gives it a good shot. After having experienced my first “deliberative experience” (as an organiser, not a participant) I’ll say that there’s a lot of potential for this kind of system. It’s clear though that the process works better for some topics/issues. Climate change, for example, is a big topic. Our process worked well but the discourse was fairly abstract. Developing a policy position this way would work better when dealing with a problem where most factors are already known about. Land zoning, maybe.

For now it remains a fairly academic exercise. The social alchemists come down from the Ivory Tower from time to time, however!

future just around the corner…

BuzzMoo — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 03:33:02 +0000

Continue the research…!

OLPC shifts away from small deployments.

BuzzMoo — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 00:32:16 +0000

In troubling news circulating this week it appears that the One Laptop per Child project has shifted its focus soley to large scale deployments.

“A program for donors to employ between 100 or more laptops for small-scale deployments, called “Give a School,” has been removed from the participation page of the nonprofit’s Web site. The nonprofit is now offering options to directly donate laptops or to make corporate purchases.”(Source)

This could be a serious problem! While there are plenty of XOs out there (near here) to accomplish things with, being unable to buy more units is going to have a serious impact on how things proceed for a lot of the community that supports the OLPC project.

BuzzMoo and The Neon Phoenix

BuzzMoo — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 10:51:18 +0000

Just because I haven’t messed around in Photoshop for ages…

Christmas 2008

BuzzMoo — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 07:01:18 +0000

Merry Christmas from BuzzMoo.com for 2008!

is welcoming the newest, small…

BuzzMoo — Sun, 14 Dec 2008 09:17:08 +0000

is welcoming the newest, smallest member to the family. Awwww!! kittens ftw!

is LOVING wordpress 2.7!

BuzzMoo — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:15:07 +0000

is LOVING wordpress 2.7!

Wonders how he ended up on the…

BuzzMoo — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 04:37:21 +0000

Wonders how he ended up on the CDWoW mailing list…

just manged his toe again. WHY…

BuzzMoo — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 10:46:10 +0000

just manged his toe again. WHYY i just want to walk again.

just vacuumed a carpet’s worth…

BuzzMoo — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 05:53:18 +0000

just vacuumed a carpet’s worth of dust out of his G5

forgot to renew buzzmoo.com LO…

BuzzMoo — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:50:52 +0000

forgot to renew buzzmoo.com LOLLERBLADES!!!

still has a sore foot.

BuzzMoo — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:49:15 +0000

still has a sore foot.

telling a girl she’s cute when…

BuzzMoo — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 06:02:55 +0000

telling a girl she’s cute when she’s mad is akin to buying a woman kitchenware for her birthday! This has been a BuzzMoo PSA.

Give 1 Get 1 Australia

BuzzMoo — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 22:29:15 +0000

It comes as a surprise but OLPC Australia has announced an Australian Give 1 Get 1 program, similar to those currently running overseas. Details are sparse but this is most exciting news, especially for those individuals I talked to during iDEF, who were very very keen to get involved. “Early 2009″ is the penciled in date. IT Wire is carrying a story, and you can always keep an eye on OLPC Australia’s page.

Riverina Music Festival

BuzzMoo — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 22:55:20 +0000

GPC‘s first non-CMS related job in a little while… I’ve teamed up with Dinah, who’s gone ahead and done basically all the hard work. Riverina Music festival will be held in early February at Nerrandera. You can get all the details (very shortly) from www.riverinamusicfestival.com.

has pain in the back. mahhh.

BuzzMoo — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 00:03:04 +0000

has pain in the back. mahhh.

eGames – after the dust has settled

BuzzMoo — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:24:44 +0000

I’ve made it back home in one piece and after sitting around in a daze for a whole day, I’m ready to make a report.

Event management seems to be a very particular and peculiar lifestyle. You’d have to have boundless personal energy and integrity to do it on a regular basis. You’d have to be interested in what you’re putting on, and interested in the people you’re putting it on with. Although this was the first time I managed to make it down for the expo it felt like, and other people said that, we’d gelled as a team as well as we could under the circumstances.

So what went down? Thursday’s “bump-in” was probably the most draining, although that could have been due to my early start (managed to get return air tickets for $96!). The cherry pickers, forklifts and army of construction people were a clear sign there were big things to come. Saturday got busy fast, the harder core of the gamers even getting up early I dare say, to attend. Every single machine/console/screen was occupied for almost all of the day (with the exception of the evacuation due to fire alarm at around lunch time.. fortunately everyone stayed calm and we didn’t have to wait too long to go back inside..) and by the end, I’d given my OLPC XO demonstration dozens of times. Sunday was bigger, though, especially in terms of the XOs. Families and groups seemed to dominate the final day, and the attendance for the semi and grand finals taking place on the main stages was good.

I didn’t have a huge amount of time to take photos, but I did get some. Pus there’s a tape’s worth of footage that I have yet to compile. Below are some of the highlights:

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Naturally there’s some good phonecam footage of the evacuation on saturday:

At least it gave us a chance to have a look at the size of the crowd, and in the end everyone stayed around potentially thanks to the efforts of the guys from australiangamer.com, although the jury is still out on that one…

Sugar Spin

BuzzMoo — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 23:55:31 +0000

The Fedora Project has just announced a Fedora Live CD that uses Sugar as it’s GUI. Included in the functionality are a bunch of XO Activites. Before I got my hands on an XO I attempted to run the virtual version that’s been available for quite some time. Performance was the problem, though, and I wasn’t able to use it effectively. This looks like it could be a good option for those wanting to be introduced to Sugar. See the mailing list announcement for further details.

CASE’s One laptop per child open day – brief review

BuzzMoo — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 08:45:04 +0000

Just back from CASE‘s One Laptop per Child Open Day, held this afternoon in Belconnen. We had a good time with a dozen or so people showing up. Visitors were introduced to the laptop and then had the opportunity to play with them and experience the feel of one. This stimulated a good amount of discussion – as Darrel said, you could spend a whole day just talking about the ideas behind the project. Pia made it with time to spare and gave her talk which we all appreciated very much. Revealed were some details regarding Australia’s First OLPC XO Pilot, which is now in full swing. Tom Worthington blogged away during the event, and he draws a good picture of the day (live blogging takes some practice…Tom has had practice..).

As for me, I’m tired but glad things went well. There are plenty of things I learned, one important one is that you need practice to demo a large number of these things effectively. Being intimately familiar with the devices will make the difference when trying to pitch their case, and that takes time.

So what’s next? Basically wait and see what the powers-that-be decide what they’ll do next (In Australia, specifically) we’ll see something solid on the OLPC wiki (wiki.laptop.org) shortly, I believe. More to follow…

Cultural Content

BuzzMoo — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 11:32:55 +0000

Clive Longbottom at Silicon.com suggests a list of things you don’t want to assume when working on something like the One Laptop per Child project. Literacy, competency and connectivity are three things you need, that’s for sure. And, quite rightly, he suggests that content is king.

The nature of the beast is that content has to come after the device, and the OLPC project is mature enough to focus on that now, I feel. As i write this I get a ping about the Wologna Traditional Dance. Didn’t know much about it until right now, but I know that the OLPC Etheopia Cultural Content pack that has just been released is going to explain it to me. And I know that, at a time where indigenous knowledge is disappearing, this is just the kind of content we need to be creating. If we can blend learning traditional knowledge with learning technology, ancient tradition can be secured and shared, while empowering those who are recording it. Cool.

iDEF – details released

BuzzMoo — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 10:33:33 +0000

The finer details of Melbourne’s upcoming International Digital Entertainment Festival are now available online. The festival is broken into three distinct parts: Develop, The Digital LifeStyle Show and Egames.

The Digital Lifestyle Show will be showcasing products and technologies from leading manufacturers, distributors and retailers…

Portable devices such as mobile phones, MP3 players, portable media players and laptops have made Digital Entertainment easily accessible and part of our everyday lives. Visitors to the Digital Lifestyle Show can get ‘hands-on’ to fully appreciate the scope of what is available in the digital space now’ and will be in the future.

See, try and buy at the Digital Lifestyle Show – from the latest and yet to be released Plasma and LCD TVs, Blu-ray and DVD players and recorders, laptops, mobile phones, music players, sound systems, to home theatre systems, digital cameras and video recorders, TV recorders and a massive range of gizmos and gadgets. (Visit the Digital Lifestyle Show website)

The Develop Symposium and Industry Showcase will present Australia’s industry professionals, key educators and government representatives the opportunity to gain pivotal insight from the world’s leading digital entertainment organisations into the world’s fastest growing economic sector.Held over two days (Wednesday 12th and Thursday 13th of November), delegates will have a rare opportunity to interact with local and international keynote speakers from Pixar, Google, Lucas Arts, Microsoft, HyperFactory, Intel, Iloura, Infinite Interactive and Monash University. This event will provide attendees with a broad, contemporary perspective into the world’s digital entertainment industry while obtaining insight into workplace operations, current projects and how Australian organisations, institutions and government departments can continue to improve their international competiveness in these dynamic and ever-emerging industries. (Visit the Develop website)

eGames will present the newest games, latest products and all the excitement which makes this the biggest interactive event in Australia.

Showcasing the latest in the world of computer and video games. Play new and yet to be released titles on Playstation 3, Xbox 360, Wii and PC as well as handhelds such as Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

There will be plenty of great bargains to buy throughout the expo.

Featuring leading game publishers and developers, along with major brands demonstrating the latest products and technologies, eGames provides a ‘hands-on’ experience for gamers of all ages. A new feature to the show is the eGames ‘Kids Zone’ showcasing games and products for younger children. (Visit the eGames website)

Elroy, Furious, myself and god knows who else will be attending eGames all weekend. If you’re idle, you can keep an eye out for us at the EOL Booth. There you’ll be able to check out the latest happenings within the network (new Powers Cosmic is rumored), enter in for the chance to win $250 worth of DVDs, play with OLPC XOs and generally have a good time. The iDEF festival will be covered extensively from buzzmoo.com, so if you can’t be there in person, at least you can be online!

One 72 year old’s heartbeat away from being President

BuzzMoo — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 00:34:37 +0000

Cafferty gives Palin the review she deserves:

Chris Vrenna on Alice

BuzzMoo — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:30:36 +0000

I’ve been digging trough the BuzzMoo.com archives and came up with my 2003 interview with Chris Vrenna, the man responsible for soundtrack to American McGee’s Alice and a lot of Nine Inch Nail’s drumming. I got the chance to ask him about the Alice soundtrack and computer game music in general…

“…Up till now, it was all about frame rate of the visuals, and memory space was at a premium. CPU speeds are now more than adequate, and CDRoms and DVDs have plenty of storage space to add full bandwidth audio, even in surround. Now that gaming is such a huge industry, I think you will see more “name” artists doing the scores, as well as licensed music, much like movies are now…”

Oldschool! For a look into the not-so-distant-past, check out the interview here.