MEDIA ABC Blog

I'll post all of the documents from today's lab, including the powerpoint, to the Blackboard course. I am following up on the Google Maps Key issue and suspect it has something to do with the courses server so don't stress over that issue at this point in the project. If you uploaded a TimeMap_Lab.html page to your webserver folder and you don't see ANYTHING then your problem is NOT the maps key. I looked at everyone's folder's this afternoon and noticed the following problem:

The following link to the TimeMap folder you uploaded today was corrupted by Dreamweaver (Dreamweaver thinks it is really smart and tries to add information sometimes that you don't want- like the path to the folder on the desktop instead of just the folder name- that happped to a number of you) The code should look like this:

<script src="timemap/timemap_full.pack.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

and NOT:

<script src="TimeMap Lab CD/timemap/timemap_full.pack.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

Here's a timeline I think you'll be interested to see. It's from a project at the Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities. The problem being addressed is to show changes to the water systems in ancient Rome over a period of years. Link below.

---------
ATH Community,
Hello. Please, note the following announcement for a newly added, on-line, refereed article available via
The Waters of Rome project.
If you have not looked at the resources there in the last several months, I'd encourage you to see the relatively new version of the Timeline (with Typology as well as time period selection options) available via the primary URL:
, after you check out the article.
Cheers,
Worthy


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: "Rome's Uncertain Tiberscape", from The Waters of Rome
Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2009 10:45:00 -0800 (PST)
From: katherine rinne
Reply-To: kwrinne@yahoo.com
To: frischer@virginia.edu, Worthy Martin , doug ross



21 February 2009

Kay Bea Jones, "Rome's Uncertain Tiberscape: Tevereterno and the Urban Commons"

THE WATERS OF ROME, an occasional on-line publication of refereed articles that investigate the history of water and its infrastructure in the city of Rome, is pleased to announce publication of "Rome's Uncertain Tiberscape: Tevereterno and the Urban Commons", by Kay Bea Jones, Associate Professor of Architecture at the Austin E. Knowlton School of Architecture at The Ohio State University. In this article, Prof. Jones examines the potential significance of a multi-disciplary art project, "Tevereterno" on the Tiber River in Rome to expand environmental awareness in the urban context.

This article is available as a free pdf file that you can download at:

http://www.iath.virginia.edu/waters/article.html

THE WATERS OF ROME is published by ?Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome? - an interactive cartographic history of the relationship between hydrological and hydraulic systems and their impact on the urban development of Rome, Italy, from 753 BC to the present day. Aquae Urbis Romae examines the intersection between natural hydrological elements including springs, rain, streams, marshes, and the Tiber River, and hydraulic elements including aqueducts, fountains, sewers, bridges, conduits, etc., that together create a single integrated water infrastructure system for Rome. http://www.iath.virginia.edu/waters.

Scholars are invited to submit articles in English (or Italian with a publishable English translation provided by the author) on any aspect of the hydrological or hydraulic history of Rome, from the prehistoric to the present day. Articles that investigate water and water infrastructure within a social, cultural, technological, or administrative context are particularly welcome. All articles under consideration will be read by the editor and at least two outside reviewers who are experts in Roman topography, archaeology, history of technology, geography, urban or architectural history. Authors shall be responsible for obtaining copyright permissions for all maps and images included with their article, and each author retains copyright for any work published at ?Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome?.
For further information, please contact us at http://www.iath.virginia.edu/waters/comments.html.

Katherine W. Rinne
Project Director, Aquae Urbis Romae
The Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities
University of Virginia
rinne@jefferson.village.virginia.edu

The "Espresso Book Machine" prints and binds public domain books in minutes.

An analysis of its cost effectiveness vs. digital books here.

And more on this "funny looking revolution" here.

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/rosnick/Luke.html

This blog post is a short meditation on the writing systems of journalists. One (aged 77) first takes notes on "laundry board" & then transfers to a typewriter & then to a computer. Clive Thompson points out that taking notes in longhand forces him to make choices *as* he writes, while taking notes on a computer allows him to note everything, and then make those kinds of filtering choices later.

http://www.collisiondetection.net/mt/archives/2009/02/_this_morning_i.php

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/oh/Timeline.html
1988-2009

It may take some time for the events to appear.

Here's the link to my timeline:
http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/polan/Mypage.html
Some of the pictures may not be properly sized.

This is a video of a google company conference in which Noam Chomsky is a special guest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnLWSC5p1XE&feature=channel

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/gillenson/Jon's_page

The Chris Dwight Media Timeline Experience:

http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/dwight/timeline.html

Here's my timeline!

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/jacobs/timeline.html

Some of the pictures are too a little too big for the actual space given, but they are there!

Enjoy!

http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/schurman/Karelfinal.html

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/stavlas/TimsPage.HTML

Enjoy

Check this shit out?!?!?

http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/odonnell/mattwebpage2.html

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/stavlas/Stavlas_Timeline.html

Enjoy the timeline.

Here's my timeline. Enjoy!

http://courses.ats.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/altshuler/timeline.html

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/harmand/mypage.html

This is the link to my timeline, and I hope you all enjoy going through it.

I had trouble adding the links to the images in text form in the actual timeline, but here they are:

"Where the Wild Things Are"- Britannica Online. http://www.britannica.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/where-the-wild-things-are-posters.jpg

"Beethoven Lives Upstairs," Classical Kids Series- Pacific Music's website.
http://www.pacificmusic.net/images/kids_200/16.jpg

"Carmen Sandiego's Great Chase Through Time"- Children's Software Online.
http://www.childrenssoftwareonline.com/p_pics/Carmen_sandiego_great_chase_time_thumb.jpg

Also, the YouTube video of "Legends of the Hidden Temple" was posted by user ChazYocom on 12 July 2008 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZB28HCFzceY.

The YouTube video of Looney Tunes' "The Rabbit of Seville" was posted by user daffybasshunter on 5 November 2008 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UccY_0Trfbk

http://www.courses.rochester.edu/eaves/timeline/king/Kat.html
Here is the link to my timeline. I tried to color code the media into types: pink for video based media, light purple for text based media, light purple for audio and orange for internet based media.

These are some links that John Chandler, our paleography guest expert, thought we might find interesting:

Newly found Syriac manuscript leads to some disputes over its age:
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5152HR20090206

DNA testing to help identify manuscript production:
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=judging-a-book-by-its-genomes-09-01-12

Also of interest is the National Library of Scotland?s digitization project.
Here are two of their treasures:

The Auchinleck Manuscript, a wide-ranging collection of Middle English texts:
http://www.nls.uk/auchinleck/index.html

And the Murthly book of hours:
http://www.nls.uk/murthlyhours/index.html

NLS is also digitizing their early printed books, which you can find pretty
easily from their site (www.nls.uk). I?ve looked at a couple of them on the
site, and thought it was an effective way to present the texts.

Following up a bit on Alex's posting about the new Kindle. Morris

The Latest iPhone News
By Jason Snell (iphone@macworld.com)

Amazon's Kindle coming to iPhone?

Somewhat obscured in the hubbub about Google announcing a mobile version of its public-domain book library was a separate announcement that may be much bigger: an Amazon spokesman told the New York Times that the company is working on a way to make books formatted for its Kindle e-book reader available "on a range on mobile phones."
More on Google's mobile public-domain book library

Perhaps Amazon will let slip more details about this concept at the company's media event Monday in New York, in which it's expected to announce the second-generation of its Kindle hardware. It's certainly an exciting prospect for those of us who have imagined Kindle books appearing on the iPhone. Although the Kindle's e-ink screen undoubtedly makes for a more comfortable reading experience, the iPhone has some advantages of its own -- including the fact that millions of people already own one.

"Some people have room for dedicated devices like Kindles, digital cameras, and iPods," analyst and Mobile Devices Today blogger Michael Gartenberg told me Friday. "But for others, there's an absolute convenience factor just associated with carrying one device instead of a multitude."

Gartenberg's take -- and one I agree with -- is that while reading a book on an iPhone might not be the absolute best experience, it "crosses the threshold of 'Good Enough.'" And it's better than Kindle in some ways, including the ability to use it one-handed and in cramped conditions. Plus, it fits in your pocket.

This move is also a great sign that Amazon sees its Kindle hardware not as the end-all, be-all of e-books, but as part of a larger ecosystem that includes Kindle-compatible book readers on other devices. "It's a smart move on Amazon's part," Gartenberg said. "They absolutely should look at devices like the iPhone and the G1 as complimentary to the stuff they're doing with the dedicated Kindle."

As Gartenberg points out, the $359 Kindle reader may be great for heavy travelers, since you can load a huge number of books into a single, small device, but it doesn't necessarily make sense for a broad audience. Adding mobile phones to the party can broaden the appeal of the entire e-book category. (As someone who has spent this week toting around a hardcover novel that weighs nearly as much as my laptop, I can see the benefits.)

Certainly the book-reading experience on the iPhone is better than what one might expect. As Ars Technica's John Siracusa pointed out this week in his excellent e-book analysis, the App store has provided us with an excellent public-domain book reader, Classics, as well as two good, flexible e-book readers in eReader and Stanza.
Read our Classics review

But although eReader and Stanza do offer some books for purchase, they don't have the catalog or the clout of Amazon. If Amazon does a mobile version of Kindle right -- and here's hoping an iPhone app version is the first out of the gate -- it could be a huge step toward changing the way many of us read books.

NY Times article

Jeff Bezos, Amazon's chief executive, unveiled the Kindle 2 on Monday in New York.
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By BRAD STONE and MOTOKO RICH
Published: February 9, 2009
Escalating its efforts to dominate the fledgling industry for electronic books, Amazon introduced a new version of its electronic book reader today, dubbed Kindle 2.

Multimedia
Jeff Bezos on Amazon's New e-Book, the Kindle 2


Mike Segar/Reuters
Amazon said the upgraded device has seven times the memory as the original version, allows faster page-turns and has a crisper, though still black-and-white, display. The Kindle 2 also features a new design with round keys and a short, joystick-like controller ? a departure from the design aspects of the previous version, which some buyers had criticized as awkward. The new device will ship on Feb. 24. Amazon did not change the price for the device, which remains $359.

Though the improvements to the Kindle are only incremental, Jeff Bezos, Amazon?s founder and chief executive, defined some ambitious goals for the device. ?Our vision is every book, ever printed, in any language, all available in less than 60 seconds,? he said at a news conference in New York.

Amazon introduced several new features for the Kindle. A new text-to-speech function allows readers to switch between reading words on the device and having the words read to them by a computerized voice. That technology was provided by Nuance, a speech-recognition company based in Burlington, Mass.

Amazon is also allowing Kindle owners to transfer texts between their Kindle and other mobile devices. Amazon said it is working on making digital texts available for other gadgets (such as mobile phones), though it did not specify which ones.

One competitive threat Amazon is facing in its effort to dominate the world of e-books is from Google, which has scanned in some seven million books, many of them out of print. Google has also struck deals with publishers and authors to split the proceeds from the online sales of those texts.

Google recently said it would soon begin selling these books for reading on mobile devices like Apple?s iPhone and phones running Google?s Android operating system.

Implicitly addressing the threat posed by Google, Mr. Bezos said that Amazon knows better than other companies what book-buyers wants and stressed Amazon?s digital catalog of 230,000 newer books and best-sellers.

?We have tens of millions of customers who buy books from us every day and we know what they want to read,? he said. ?And we are making sure to prioritize those items.?

Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the world?s largest publisher of consumer books and a unit of Bertelsmann of Germany, said the company was working with Amazon and other e-book makers to digitize its so-called backlist of older titles. When asked in an interview after the news conference if he was concerned about the effects of Amazon?s dominance in the e-book market, Mr. Dohle paused and laughed.

?It is not up to us to talk about Amazon?s competition,? he said. ?I don?t think that any kind of defensive business strategy will succeed. We want to grow our business in all channels and one of the fastest growing customers is Amazon in all areas.?

?We see the Kindle and we see e-books as a real opportunity because we think that it will not cannibalize the physical part of the business and it will also generate and create new readers of books,? Mr. Dohle said.

Interesting article on the fragility of data.

http://pubs.acs.org/isubscribe/journals/cen/86/i49/html/8649newscripts.html

easy to read and understand- the best one I've found yet. http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/9301

Announcement from Rosemary Kegl...

Please consider applying for one of our Undergraduate Research Awards.

We review applications three times each academic year. February 15 is the next deadline to apply for an English department Undergraduate Research Award. This deadline is for funding to support travel or short-term residence from January 1 through April 30, 2009. There will be one more deadline later in the academic year for travel or short-term residence from May 1 through August 31.

The English Department's Undergraduate Research Awards support English majors and minors whose ongoing scholarly or creative work requires travel or short-term residence outside of Rochester. The awards are granted on a competitive basis and typically provide each recipient with between $500 and $1000 to help offset the cost of, for instance, traveling to scholarly conferences or film festivals, conducting research in archives or libraries, participating in writers' institutes, attending intensive language programs abroad.

Our website description of the Research Awards is here:

http://www.rochester.edu/College/ENG/undergrad/Undergraduate_Research_Awards.html

As the website explains, application forms are available at 404 Morey Hall. There are also links on the website for downloading an application form and for completing a form online.

If you find mention online of last year's deadlines, please ignore. One of several short-term glitches during the change-over to our department's new website.


Rosemary Kegl
Director of Undergraduate Studies
English Department

If you need any assistance with timelines, here are Nora's office hours:

W,TH,F from 9-11

Th and F from 2-4

She's in the Multimedia Library.