Making Sense of Privacy and Identity in an Age of Ubiquitous Connectivity

It Becomes Public from KS12 on Vimeo.

It becomes public is an interesting round-robin discussion hosted by British Council Berlin about the impact of the ubiquity of social media on identity, privacy and culture. Features some good quotes by Ben Hammersley, WIRED Editor at Large.

Xtranormal Musings on The Ben Bernanke

 This Xtranormal video by Omid Malekan is a such a brilliant take on the contradictions in the US economic policies and a fantastic use of Xtranormal's storytelling potential. Congratulations to Omid for spinning this into a regular gig with The New York Times. His latest, "I.P.O Blues" can be read in the Deal Book section.

New Blog Revisits One Man's Role in the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation War

Image credit: Wikipedia. 

Forty years ago, Gordon Slaven currently Director of Global Partnerships in New York City for the British Council was a young British activist volunteering to provide humanitarian aid in what was then Eastern Pakistan during what became known as the Bangladesh Liberation War.

What happened to him was traumatic and important. Slaven is spending the next few months recording what happened to him as he experienced it during the months of August through December 1971. It's a pretty engrossing read so far and and important reminder of not-so-distant history of the human race on this tiny blue planet.

[1971 Again]

An Artist's Wry Vision Statement

UK-based artist Charlotte Young offers a possibly sardonic but also quite compelling artist's statement

Leonardo At The Museum from Greg Tran on Vimeo Hypnotic and beautiful study of how augmented reality, virtual worlds and museum experiences might transform with the evolution of current technologies by artist Greg Tran.

Cynthia Von Buhler's "Speakeasy Dollhouse"

Artist Cynthia Von Buhler has posted a Kickstarter project to top all Kickstarter projects. It's a mafia murder mystery dollhouse theatrical performance all in one. Watch the video and support it. This looks to be an historic art event.

Roguelike: A Brilliant New MMO Podcast

Screengrab of "Rogue" on an IBM machine via Wikipedia.

@MarkWallace pointed us to a fascinating new podcast dedicated to reviewing games in the "roguelike" genre. In this week's episode, Darren Grey, Andrew Doull and Scott Edgar talk about the game Cardinal Quest. It's a great window into the culture of gamers. The intelligence and focus of these gamers-as-reviewers defies many assumptions about the level of complexity with which gamers approach games (i.e. as a passive experience versus an intellectually active one). Even if you're not a gamer, I think people will find this an insightful and informative episode.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Wikipedia offers this description:

The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many monsters, items, and environmental features. Computer roguelikes usually employ the majority of the keyboard to facilitate interaction with items and the environment. The name of the genre comes from the 1980 game Rogue.

[Roguelike Reviews Cardinal Quest]

Cornell Finds Out What Happens When Two Robots Interact

File this under: Early Childhood Education for robots.

via @HeatherKnight