I am Creatorist

Posted on 1st July 2017 by NomadWarMachine

My June 2017 30-Day The Daily Create Challenge Art

Phew – done. 30 daily creates in 30 days (well, nearly – I actually did yesterday’s this morning).

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Ampen, Don’t Dampen

Posted on 24th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

Ampen, don't dampen

A week of reflection. Finding that friends were hurting and we didn’t know. Knowing that I’d been hurt as well. What to do? What to think? What to say?

A slogan from Terry jingling around in my head resulted in the above poem.

A conversation yesterday to help others with their research gave further chance to pause and reflect on some of the highs and lows of some of my more recent online interactions …

[table id=1 /]

So is it worth it? Well, it’s not  a cost-benefit analysis, but I am happy to have all of the friends that I have, and I will try to ampen, not dampen – to celebrate all the wonderful things I see online, and ignore those that I think are less wonderful. Here’s the poem again as hieroglyphics for today’s Daily Create.

Ampen, Don't Dampen

 

Posted in #CLMOOC, D&G, Online learning, Peer interaction, Philosophy, postcards, Rhizomes | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Who owns a hashtag

Posted on 17th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

twitter gaolWhat are the status of hashtags? Are they things that can be owned by individuals or groups of individuals? Once I have laid claim to one, can I request, or even demand, that other users follow whichever rules I have decided apply? Can a group  (explicitly or implicitly) come up with a set of rules or conventions that apply to tweets containing a particular hashtag? I was prompted to think about these questions during a Twitter conversation that begun after a discussion about whether remixing a stranger’s words, or images, was something we’d do. A tweet by Wendy left me thinking of tweets to a hashtag as being a signal that a person might be open to a conversation. I wonder what others think.

Image stolen from @dogtrax

Posted in Misc, Online learning, Peer interaction | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Find 5 Friday songs

Posted on 16th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

It’s Friday, I am alone on the office, and it’s that time of day. Here’s five songs that I like for #F5F

The Damned Smash  It Up

The Members The Sound of the Suburbs

Jeff Beck  Hi Ho Silver Lining

Terry Jacks  Seasons In The Sun

The Monkees  Daydream Believer

What are some of your favourite songs?

Posted in #CLMOOC, Music | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Changeling cats

Posted on 15th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

I was going to do something clever for this Daily Create, but as I was working it out I looked around and saw both cats posed perfectly in my study. So I grabbed my camera and quickly took these photos – see how Cagney turns into a cushion and then into Lacey?

Posted in DailyCreate, DS106, Photos | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Who are you looking at

Posted on 14th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

A wander around our local park earlier to use my new fancy camera

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A lot of the birds seemed to be staring and asking who the heck we were to be in their space.

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Funny Fallacies

Posted on 11th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

I know clever and funny people. Today’s Daily Create asked us to illustrate our favourite fallacy.  I chose this – note my use of Wikipedia as a source:

And got the following two responses:

Which Karen elaborated on:

Both very funny responses to my original fallacy and use of Wikipedia 🙂

Posted in DailyCreate, DS106, Philosophy | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

The Lion and the Unicorn

Posted on 9th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

lion and unicorn staircaseIt’s a funny old day … in a not funny at all sort of way. A weak and wobbly bigot is teaming up with some truly awful abominations, and all we can do is sit and watch. It looks as if a second referendum is off the table, at least for now, and I’ve had a nursery rhyme knocking around in my head all day:

The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
and drummed them out of town.*

So at lunchtime I wandered over to the main building and took some pics of my old friends there.

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Lion and Unicorn Staircase

Watch out, England. This unicorn is not giving up yet.

* The Lion and the Unicorn are  the heraldic symbols of England and Scorland

Posted in Photos, Politics, Scotland | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Solidarity, comrades

Posted on 8th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

After I wrote my post yesterday I read a comment on #digciz by Stephen Downes, and this bit struck me:

We need to base society on voluntary cooperation, rather than involuntary collaboration.

Exactly. That’s what’s wrong, imo, with talking about digital citizens. I know not everybody shares my bleak view of the state and what it is to be a citizen (though some do), and I had a long chat with folk about it on Twitter, which Sheri mentions here in a very thoughtful post.

So how should we refer ourselves when we interact online? Terry provided me with food for thought in a Vialogues comment, saying:

I am thinking more lately that citizenship is just a form of solidarity and mutual aid.

So, I disagree. I still think being a citizen is about being surveilled, and taxed, and that nation states are things that we didn’t invent and we now don’t know how to get rid of because:

A picture held us captive. And we could not get outside it, for it lay in our language and language seemed to repeat it to us inexorably. Wittgenstein, PI, $115

But I agree, in some way, with Terry’s idea that how we interact online should include mutual (where wanted) aid – in the sense that we have each others’ backs. So, on the eve of what could be a very bleak day for UK politics, I offer you solidarity, as a comrade. If you want it, that is. As one member of the human race to another. Not as a citizen – digital or otherwise.

“friendship” flickr photo by CONNIE….  shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC) license

 

Posted in Online learning, Peer interaction, Politics, Wittgenstein | Tagged , , , , | 7 Comments

I am not a digital citizen

Posted on 7th June 2017 by NomadWarMachine

comic strip

I’m keeping half an eye on the #digciz hashtag at the moment and watching folk have a conversation about digital citizenship. I don’t understand why they are using the term “citizen” at all – it’s really not clear to me that my relationship with the various places online that I visit or inhabit is that of a citizen at all. Typically citizenship comes along with a bunch of rights and responsibilities that are given to me in virtue of being a citizen of a particular state. So which state is it that accords me my digital citizenship? Can I leave it if I want? What sort of contract do I have with this state? A social one? Explicit? Tacit? Hypothetical? All these questions are problematic enough in the context of nation states, and I don’t see how we’d even begin to answer them in the context of the digital realm (for want of a better word). Maybe looking at Estonian Digital Citizenship would help? (Thanks Niall for the pointer – it doesn’t help, haha.)

And what is this digital thing that I am meant to be a citizen of? Is this really meant to be referring to my online behaviour, or is it referring to everything digital that I do? Is there some set of rules that I don’t know about that apply when I sit here, in the privacy of my study, and look at my digital pics of my cats?

I’m genuinely perplexed by this, so if you understand why folk are wanting all the conceptual baggage that comes with the term citizenship, or at least willing to put up with it because of other benefits it carries along with it, please, please let me know. Until then I’ll keep on being a person, online and offline.

Comic remixed from one by @dogtrax

Posted in Online learning, Philosophy, Politics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments