openonline — Camp Magic MacGuffin

Archive for the ‘openonline’ Category

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

All our Magic Macguffin campers are engaged in writing weekly letters back home to mom and pop or family they may have. Hatchet Jack, as you might imagine, has no family to write to. And Hatchet Jack really ain’t much of a wordsmith. He is more of a campfire tall tale kinda fellow. So Hatchet Jack is gong to talk like he is sitting around a campfire with some fellow campers on a warm evening by the shores of Lack Macguffin.

This week our campers started on some projects related to the animated Gif. The idea is to really focus in on a moment of time in a short sequence of images that a bit of motion makes stronger, or brings out the essence of the images message, or something like that. I made one with Randle McMurphy trying to lift an impossibly heavy water feature from a psychiatric hospital. He was straining and trying and tying so hard to get that damn thing out of the ground. His effort and determination was what I tried to capture.

This week we also had out bunkhouses assigned campers and we got to know them a little better. We came up with a bunkhouse name. Our bunkhouse 4 is called, “Slaughterhouse 4.” No relation to the word “Hatchet” in my name.

We also sent out a call for bunkhouse monikers or logos. I made one. It is below.

I tried to make it like a badge because at camp you might get badges. So we will be ready to sew on this badge if it should be the selected logo for our bunkhouse.

The administrators added a wonderful feature to our campsite. They added bunkhouse pages to we can see recent activity from just those in our bunkhouse.

This week Hatchet Jack saw as he was peering into the bright white of the internet saw two things. One being that it is commenting that holds the internet together. Some camper from another bunk mentioned that a Dr. Oblivion, who was once employed at this camp, had apparently scrawled that into a tree years ago down by Lake Macguffin. The camper also noted that a Jim Groom has made similar comments, but slightly different language. He is known for saying, “Commenting is the adhesive that sucks the webs together.” Whatever. He appears to be a creepy guy.

In the white light Hatchet Jack also had a revelation similar to the one he had at Camp Counselor training day when the administrator @cogdog said, “There is no guilt in #ds106.”

The white blurted out to Hatchet Jack,

“There is no behind in #ds106, only forward.”

Jack thought that was a bright idea from the bright white light of thought.

So forward it is, and on we go campers!

Posted in bunk4, counselor, Hatchet Jack Stuff, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Hatchet Jack Writes Some Words

Camp Note Saturday 2 June

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

tihs is just a quick note of a couple of things I’ve been doing over the last day or two at camp. Apart from getting killed in the wide game. I’ve added a nice wee plugin to this blog. The google fonts plugin allows you to add a google font. The control panel lets you add some custom CSS to use the font if you do not want to apply it to say all titles or all headings. I’ve just added a class, campletter for the ‘Over the Rainbow’ font. I also added a drop shadow and a rotate to the CSS.

.campletter {font-family:'Over the Rainbow',san-serif;font-size:18px;background:#ee9; transform: rotate(10deg); -ms-transform: rotate(11deg); /* IE 9 */ -webkit-transform: rotate(10deg); /* Safari and Chrome */ -o-transform: rotate(10deg); /* Opera */ -moz-transform: rotate(10deg); /* Firefox */ -moz-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888; -webkit-box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888; box-shadow: 10px 10px 5px #888; Padding:6px; Margin:6px; }
It is pretty easy to get the CSS code for this sort of thing, just google it. The google fonts pluggin settings page has a section for custom CSS SO I didn’t even have to edit the theme.

The other thing I’ve been playing with is the iPhone friendly daily create page I made. Now shows the creations for the last 5 daily creates:TDC Today. I am finding this quite useful, this afternoon I was. Standing right beside this destroyed hut when I checked TDC. The code is now a real mess of php and JavaScript, it seems to work here. Let me know if you try it and it doesn’t do what it says on the tin.

Posted in bunk2, camp letter, Default, iphone, magicmacguffin, openonline, plugins, TDC, Wordpress | Comments Off on Camp Note Saturday 2 June

Shared Vision

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

This Spring 2012 term, I have been taking Introduction to Digital Photography here at Lane CC from Richard Lennox, who is an excellent teacher. Our capstone project was to create a “photo essay.” This was a perfect excuse to do a project I’ve long had on my mind–something to showcase my father’s photography.

My dad left behind thousands of slides, and all of them are in a closet, as you’ll see in the video. I chose a mere 125 of them to have digitized at Photo Magic. Then I chose some of his, some of mine, wrote a story, and rewrote and rewrote….well, these projects take time!

It was created in i Movie on the i Pad 3.

Posted in Battle of the Bulge, digital storytelling, ds106, father, magicmacguffin, memoir, Normandy, openonline, photography, Skagit Valley | Comments Off on Shared Vision

Appetite for destruction: tdc 146

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Today’s Daily Create prompt: take a photo that represents destruction. Exposed root systems make me feel unsettled. It’s like seeing a person’s innards on the outside. That’s just not how it’s supposed to be.

Posted in bunk5, Camp Magic MacGuffin, Daily Creates, ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, tdc146 | Comments Off on Appetite for destruction: tdc 146

The Gospel

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Gospel by shaping

This is a very basic story in the Bible. It starts with the miraculous birth of Jesus. With all the challenges (moving from place to place to avay from Herold and finally giving birth in a manger) faced by the parents, the process not a smooth one hence a curve. He stayed on earth until when He was 30 before He was persecuted by Humans to be killed(that also a very rough process). On the third day He arose, met His disciples and then ascended into heaven. His return is unknown till date.

Posted in bunk4, ds106, gospel of christ, magicmacguffin, openonline, ouwa, The Daily Create | Comments Off on The Gospel

Baitin’ and Switchin’

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Okay, it looks like all the tech is in place. There’s no reason any of you guys can’t take control of your own media transmissions. Doing it alone is good enough for proving the concept. But to build something that will make the kids say “Zoinks” a collaborative effort is indicated.

I’ve got about eight more weeks before I’m going to disconnect from broadband access for an undetermined spell. I’d love to connect with some folks who might share some sort of vision of what is possible and what is at stake here to try to make a wee bit of magic between then and now.

I think you know where I’ll be or how to reach me. If not, please leave a memo in the comments.

Posted in ds106, magicmacguffin, openonline, Second Life | Comments Off on Baitin’ and Switchin’

shaping our stories

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Kurt Vonnegut’s elements of a good story include (among other elements): time (stuff happens over time, from beginning to end), characters (whose status is determined by a number of factors), space (setting/environment), and action/plot (stuff happens, characters interact, fall in love or not, fight evil or not, prevail or not, etc). Rushmore is one of my favorite movies of all time (not including Dazed and Confused. As Wooderson says just keep L-I-V-I-N.). The hero of that movie, Max Fischer, follows the “Man in Hole” storytelling arc (as illustrated here by the awesome Maya Eilam. Max starts out in trouble because he is failing out of Rushmore. At the same time, he’s savvy and crafty and creative and energetic and can-do in every sense. He orchestrates his world, and when he can’t (cause we can’t totally control our world), he grows. I love Max because he is creative and an underdog. He is the maker of his own story. That kid embodies so much sadness and drive and goodness. Of course he has to win in the end, even if that winning end is bittersweet.

Posted in bunk2, ds106, DS106 Assignments, magicmacguffin, openonline, VonnegutStory | Comments Off on shaping our stories

Tutorial: Animated GIF to SL Texture

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

As mentioned in the recent podcast, I’m well aware that what’s being covered is probably not something many people will ever be interested in doing. So I’m grateful for anyone taking the time to watch and willing to offer feedback in terms of hos this tutorial as a tutorial.

For me this is all learning process. For a long time I’ve wanted to try my hand at producing such resources. I imagine that over time they will become easier to make and, hopefully, easier to watch.

One issue that vexes me is what size display settings I should use. By the time the video gets sent from iShowU to YouTube, the video quality seems to degrade. I wonder why the text on the screen is so washed out and blurry. I guess I’ll continue on with trial and error until I find something that works. And I will have a chance to try another video tutorial soon because we next need to see how to get the texture file in to Second Life, apply it to an object and animate it with the script.

I also want to try to make a tutorial using only written words and images. This seems to be an equally challenging proposition but for different reasons. Later this week I will try to document in such format the process of broadcasting a Second Life session with Google + Hangouts as seen on the previous blog post.

I think the same principle would apply for MineSweeper so the hope is that we’ll be able to have some sort of Camp Magic MacGuffin simulcast from the two virtual spaces before too long. If anyone is interested in trying to collaborate on this, please get in touch.

Posted in Animated Gif, magicmacguffin, openonline, Second Life, Tutorial | Comments Off on Tutorial: Animated GIF to SL Texture

Daily Create 145: Draw Bugs Bunny (like Chuck Jones). (Taken…

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Daily Create 145: Draw Bugs Bunny (like Chuck Jones). (Taken with instagram)

Posted in bunk2, magicmacguffin, openonline | Comments Off on Daily Create 145: Draw Bugs Bunny (like Chuck Jones). (Taken…

Drawing + Bugs Bunny + Wine: An Image Daily Create

Friday, June 1st, 2012

Today’s Daily Create 145. I was in a drawing mood so I decided to try more than once on this Bugs Bunny drawing. My own twist is that it is Friday night and I’m having some wine with dinner. Surprisingly, I think my last Bugs Bunny head is the best one. I’m guessing practice and the relaxation of wine just helped me along.