Book Trailers

Trailers for books? The idea both intrigues and repels me. But if there ever was a book that was fit to be "trailerized", it's this one: The Memory Palace by Mira Bartok.

And if trailers for books isn't weird, how about a trailer for a tapestry? Lovely animation of the Bayeux tapistry.


Via OpenCulture.org

Finding Someone to Follow on Twitter

Watching the #fridayreads list of what people are reading this week, this tweet catches my attention:
Back on the St. Augustine's Confessions wagon. Meanwhile, looking for something I actually want to read as well. #fridayreads

Ah! a fellow after my own heart. I think I'll look at his profile. Opening his twitter profile I see his tagline/bio:

Live twee or die.


Nice. And I'm from New Hampshire. Is it a sign? I read on:


They will have to pry the Oxford Comma from my cold, rigid, and dead hands.

A language lover. My kind of person.
The 4th of July brings this tweet:


Tonight's film: Crimes and Misdemeanors (because there's nothing more all American than Woody Allen!):http://t.co/HFqN2KY

Someone who shares movies and snarky opinions.  One more point.
Twitter also tells me anyone we both follow:
The Dalai Llama


He passes every test with flying colors. I click the Follow button.
Hello new friend @PaulMathers

(10 minutes later I get an email that he is following me, too. He recognizes a "kindred soul.")

Writers' Houses

Sometimes two good ideas add up to more than their sum. Authors and Homes are two such.


Writers’ Houses (with the apostrophe in the correct spot, of course), a website/blog that explores authors’ homes and writing places is a place for stories and pictures.  It is interested in preservation and has an attic feel to it.


The site’s beauty draws you in and its writing keeps you there. This month the featured home is Steepletop, Edna St. Vincent Millay’s home near Austerlitz, NY.


You can browse by author, state, city or international, but the archives are the best place to look for the substantial writing. Some entries are little more than a picture with a web address. The Press page is a bibliography of writings in books and journals on the writers’ homes.

Their twitter feed printed on antique mailgrams is amusing. You can follow them on twitter @writershouses. Delve in to read here or search it before a trip to see if there is an author’s home you might visit.


Thanks to @Paul_Lisicky for tweeting this site.


Google Lit Trips are virtual trips to places that authors wrote about or where they lived. A special project on author's homes includes maps in Google earth and homes you can move around in.   http://www.googlelittrips.com/GoogleLit/Special_Projects/Entries/2009/9/10_Author_Homes_by_Beryl_Reid.html
Seeing Willa Cather's home in Red Cloud Nebraska gives you a feeling for author's frame of reference. (Google Earth needed to view) 

PS. If you love books and architecture, check out this slideshow article on The World's Most Inspiring Book Stores.

Finally Getting Facebook

 Even though my job is in educational  technology, I have been slow to adopt Facebook.  Last year I finally set up a page because I was doing a workshop on social media and felt I needed to have a page to be mildly competent. I limited my “friends” to my nieces, nephews and son. I checked it once every couple weeks. I just didn’t “get it”.   My thoughts about Facebook mirror what people often say about Twitter: I don’t want to know what you had for lunch or what your “status” is. (An erroneous characterization of Twitter, by the way.  I'm an enthusiastic Twitter user and stay up to date with my work colleagues and network through Twitter all the time.)

Gradually, though, I have seen that for a lot of folks Facebook is their “home on the net”.  It’s their personal web page and it allows them not only to communicate with friends and family, but to be creative—post  pictures and videos, for example.  It is a place to share something of themselves.  I have a blog if I want to write something to the world. Others use their Facebook page for that.  I am in favor of anything that increases people’s ability to be creative, so I started seeing the value of Facebook.

I didn’t get the real power of Facebook until recently, though. My eighty-something mother-in-law asked my husband to set up a Facebook page for her so that she could communicate with her grand children and children.  In helping with the process I “friended” my mother-in-law.  Within a day or so… in some cases within minutes… I had invitations to be friends with that whole side of my family.  I made the leap and said yes, to broadening my friend-base.  Within hours of becoming friends with them, my son had reconnected, through me, to his cousins on the other side of the family.  That I count as a real benefit.  

I’m still negotiating how much I want to get into the Facebook culture. I’ll probably never run to update my status with every little life occurrence but I can check every few days for family news and stay in touch, add the odd thought or question. I find it’s not so much about faces as it is about hearts.

Assistive Technology

We are all users of Assistive Technology

As a newly appointed member of the Keene State College Accessibility Committee, I admit I have been more aware on accessibility issues around campus and around town.


I am also learning the “jargon” associated with accessibility and one phrase that leapt to my attention and made me think is “assistive technology”.  Assistive technology is used to refer to devices that allow students with disabilities to compensate in some way.

What makes assistive technology even better, as far as I can see, is that it no longer stigmatizes users. We all use “assistive technology,”  smart phones, ipads, phones that take pictures and video, phones that read foreign languages, software that creates Braille and printers that print it.

"It’s a great time to be disabled," a disabled friend said to me recently.  There are so many ways to speak, hear, act using technology that were not available even five years ago. It is truly an amazing time and I love the way it both levels the playing field and makes us all into users of Assistive Technology.

My hope and expectation is that a generation that is accustomed to relying on electronics will develop more understanding and be more accepting of people with disabilities.  

Geocaching for Fun

Geocaching is searching for a hidden object with the help of a GPS device.  You use the GPS device, plus any hints to find the approximate location. Then you search for the treasure box. 


My husband and I have friends that do it so a few months ago we asked to tag along when they went on a geocache.  We drove about 3 miles from home to a natural area which I had never noticed before.  The searching was fun. The finding , opening a box in the woods full of funny little trinkets, was even more fun.


But the best part is finding places that you would never ever go to unless “sent” by the geocache coordinates.  We have found paths in town forests, town recreation areas,  We started looking for caches around bodies of water nearby and found several ponds on which we could kayak.  It’s fun to do with friends or family.  Caches can be found at the end of a strenuous hike or easy stroll.  It satisfies the goal-oriented and the less purposeful.


When I search and find a geocache I am a kid again, taking shortcuts around town through people’s back yards.  

What Does Your Avatar Say About You?

Seems like we are constantly being asked to "personalize" applications we use by adding a picture that either is you or stands for you, your avatar. 


While you might just take the nearest image at hand,  my guess is that folks put some thought into the image they choose. They are making a statement. And what does that statement say?


Here are some things I've noticed about different types of avatars and what they say to me, at least. (These are all from Twitter, though I think you see the same types of avatars in Facebook.)

Posed portrait	Is this an artist? A model? Someone with too much time on their hands?
Digital image	I distrust this automaton. Is there a soul here?
Parts	Parts of faces once looked innovative but is now one of the older tricks in the book
Landscape	This is a shy person, possibly artistic.
I am cool	Not
Default	I’m new here... or possibly just lazy?
Way too sexy for prime time	Cheesy. Having trouble taking what you say seriously.
Couple shot	A case of confused identity? Who's speaking here?
Too much detail	This is not the place for a mural. Don't try to fit too much in. Says to me you have trouble making decisions.
Lousy pix	Would you buy a used car from this man?
cartoon	I’m simple? I work with kids?
Sepia or B/W	Sepia or black and white photos stand out in the crowd. Shows independent thinking.

How about the picture that is obviously better looking than the person? I share no examples but you know who you are.


If your picture changes a lot you look indecisive.


People who don't care for their faces use their backs. 

Sometimes you just have a great face. Use it.