Humanities Computing

One more website that I think some may find helpful. It is a website the highlights some menu designs. As such it offers some cool ideas for thinking about homepages, layout, and typography.

Here is the other website that I look back to frequently. I don't want to spam the message board with websites that are largely just "inspiration" sites, but if any of you are interested in others, I have a bunch and am always looking to trade.

This is a website that offers limited print, affordable art. I like to look at what is being done other places to get ideas for my own work. This website and one other one (which I will post next ... which you'll see first) are two websites that I like to look at a lot for stylistic ideas of how to do poster designs, typographic designs, website designs, and book covers.

... and another one of my favorite typography websites.

Well, they didn't have anyone nag the $1 million prize for a full compromise, but security analysts did find a few things to patch up anyways.

This article touches upon the benefits of incorporating social media into business practices and explains how anyone, even those who aren't familiar with social media, can learn to harness their power.

Nature Valley has definitely put a spin on what it means to explore the great outdoors. We've had a few conversations in class about the difference between reality and virtual reality. While I strongly argue that Watching a video or seeing pictures does not come close to first hand experience, sites like this are good for exploring places you might like to go or to remind you of favorite places you've been. It also makes me wonder if there's anything that Google doesn't dabble in.

This is a critique of comments that users make in response to news items. It speaks to some of the readings.

I'm posting this article because the author and this website are referenced in our book and I think this is also relevant to the ideas presented in O'Reilly's book. We often see discussions about knowing the audience and bringing them to certain and specific actions which brings into question the kind of rhetorical situations we react to online.

This is another satirical look at what's going on online and how sites like myspace seem to be loosing relevancy. In some ways the video is actually a little disturbing, but it does at least partially bring into question what makes a good social networking site and what causes us to favor sites like facebook over sites like myspace. For instance, was myspace too customizable to the point that it left the user with too many choices and left visitors feeling out of place every time they visited a page that blasted music at them they didn't actually enjoy?

This is a short cartoon that satirizes the experience of using twitter to communicate. It has some funny phrases including when one friend inquires about people on twitter "who are they talking to?" the other friend responds "this is how we communicate now in bite sized yippity-yap!" Once the first friend becomes extremely cynical and essentially awakens the people in the "twitter-sphere" from a zombie-like slumber, the whole reality begins to crumble. As silly as it is, it says some interesting things about social networking and the public's perception of the different forms of communication.  Also, it's worth noting that the video was made prior to some of the Iranian and Egyptian conflicts in which twitter played such an important role in empowering the masses (but is it the opiate of the masses?).

I know I talked a little in class about how facebook has had an affect on dating and people's perceptions of flirtation, so I thought I'd share this short article that discusses some of the potentially negative affects of dating through facebook. I'm not propagating that idea (my finance and I just looked through our very first facebook messages yesterday and it was heart warming) but it's interesting to see how others view the potential friendships and heartbreaks of this particular digital social sphere.

I thought parts of this article were interesting and relevant to the reading we're doing. O'Reilly discussed privacy to some extent in this first half, but, I thought it might be interesting to look at some policy about privacy protection more deeply.

What strikes me as especially interesting about this book review is that it emphasizes and leads with the buzz surrounding its predominantly digital publication instead of the controversy about the popularity of hardcore erotic literature for women.

Apparently employers will soon be using a Facebook rating scale to determine what kind of employees we'll be.

I don't have much experience with video games (I still rock out with Sonic on my Sega Genesis), but this could be a gateway game for me. I love the concept of adapting and crossing lines of genres and mediums, but it's interesting to note some of the dramatic differences and losses that must take place in translation. In this example there are some real game changers (I'm not sorry for the pun) involving plot and narrative. It's as if Dante has suddenly been inspired by Mario and must save the princess from the castle. I wonder what the equivalent of Yoshi would look like in the 7th ring of Hell...

This article touches on a lot of the topics that keep surfacing in our classroom discussions about narcissism and how we use social media to communicate with others and share our own identities. It also expresses some of the concerns that I am often torn about; how much privacy can we have if we are going to use this technology, and why aren't we more aware of it.

These are the kinds of risks today's digital users face without even realizing it. How many of us actually sit down with a site before registering for an account and read through the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy? Or if you do, how far do you get before you're bored to death or completely confused? This kind of stuff terrifies me. But why are we at fault? Does this mean I have to delete my Pinterest account?

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn how to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends.

I have messed around with this, and I think I came near graduating the free class that they offer. It was useful, but I didn't find that it got me too far into javascript. I did find that I liked the points and badges. Did you see the pay option alternative site (I think linked off Code Academy somewhere ... or it comes up when you search Google for Code Academy) where you can learn various coding languages as you play games? One of them teaches you CSS or Javascript as you fight zombies. If you didn't have to pay ... I would totally get into that. :)

Oddly enough, one of my favorite bloggers, Nathan Bransford, tackled the concept of the blog bubble bursting, which is interesting. His argument isn't as important here as the massive conversation below it.