Alexander Graham Bell established a summer home near Baddeck in Nova Scotia called Beinn Bhreagh (seen in the distance in the picture – View large image.) While Beinn Bhreagh is still a private residence, there is a Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site of Canada in Baddeck that documents his experiments once he was wealthy. (I took the picture from the museum grounds.) They have an enourmous hydrofoil experiment that looks like a plane.
For a history of the telephone in Canada see BCE :: History of Innovation or an interactive Flash timeline. Hamilton, by the way, was where the first public telephone was installed and the first “long distance” line was from Hamilton to Toronto.
Continue reading Canadian Early Information Technology: Bell in Nova Scotia
AHDS Methods Network
The aim of the ICT Methods Network will be to promote and disseminate the use of ICT in UK Arts and Humanities research in order to enhance, develop and make more effective the process of research, and to communicate research outcomes more widely and efficiently. It will focus on new developments and advanced methodologies, on research processes, questions, and methods, and on uses of data, rather than on data creation and preservation or access to resources.
The English Arts and Humanities Research Board is developing a ICT Methods Network which will disseminate information about digital methodologies in the arts and humanities. I’m not sure what this will mean, but it could be a welcome turn to looking at the interpretation (quesitons and intepretative practices) of digital matter.
Digital Image/Sound and Computer Science
Digital Image / Sound & the Fine Arts [DFAR] integrates two domains, that of Computer Science and the Fine Arts, to address the issues of interdisciplinary cultural education and technological innovation for information societies and networked environments.
The ” href=”http://digital.concordia.ca/site/menu.htm”>Digital Image/Sound &the Fine Arts program at Concordia is an interesting hybrid arts computing program. It can either be taken as a double major with Computer Applications from the Department of Computer Science or it can be taken as a “specialization” in the BFA. The program sounds like it has a strong theory component. For an overview see Section 71.80 – Digital Image/Sound and Computer Science.
Continue reading Digital Image/Sound and Computer Science
Computing Programs
I was at the Ontario Universities’ Fair where all the universities have booths and thousands of high-school kids come through with their parents to shop for programs. After I had done my turn at the McMaster booth I took my son around to find a program that combines computing with arts or game design. Here is what we found.
The University of Ontario Institute of Technology is an innovative and market-oriented institution, pursuing inquiry, discovery and application through excellence in teaching and learning, value-added research and vibrant student life.
(UOIT Vision)
A visual history of spam
A visual history of spam (and virus) email charts spam (and virus laden e-mail) since 1997 when the author started collecting all spam (now that takes dedication!) As his/her graph shows spam took off in 2002 – I wonder what happened then?
gMunk: The FINN movie
The FINN Movie by Gmunk is a video short with a Flash style. Interesting bits of text that aren’t meant to be read or clicked – just after effects of the mind. Gmunks other stuff is also worth looking at, though he pushes the pimp style in his current design beyond kinky into tacky.
Continue reading gMunk: The FINN movie
Eyetracking
Eyetrack III – What You Most Need to Know is a summary article about where and how people look at websites based on eyetracking research. The site includes a number of short articles on eyetracking tests.
Quicktime Flickr Photo Viewer
David Wolf’s Quicktime Flickr photo viewer is an interesting applet that will go to the Flickr photo sharing site searches for images tagged with your search word and then shows you the most recent ones. What is impressive is that this is apparently programmed into Quicktime (didn’t know you could do that sort of stuff) and uses RSS. David is going to post a technical note that explains how he did it.
Continue reading Quicktime Flickr Photo Viewer
</BUSH>
XML Protest Politics. I found this on a fascinating blog by dpwolf (David Wolf).
Google Cartography
Google Cartography is an applet Richard Jones which produces a visualization of streets and links from the Google API. It starts from a seed street and finds streets connected to the seed through Google.
Continue reading Google Cartography