Room to Think

The time has come again for another post about my brilliant sister's artistic nail talents. The other ones I had about her were some of my more popular posts, so I guess I'll give you more of what you want. You would not believe how many times Kae has painted her nails since my last post about her nail designs....pretty much every week, people.  Yeesh. Also, I think our --- her --- nail polish collection has doubled just over the summer. We even threw out a bunch of my super old colors.  On average, I'd say she buys a new color every week (that's factoring in the weeks she doesn't buy one AND the weeks she decides to splurge on multiple). It doesn't help that I'm home, either. I just give her more opportunities to spend money. You should have seen her face when I handed her two coupons for nail polish the other day. Her new thing now is the super thin brushes that you -- assuming your hand doesn't shake like an old lady -- can use to creat...

Hi everyone! My page-view counter is increasing again, thanks to you loyal readers, whoever you are. (*hint hint* there's a comment bar at the bottom!) And, in celebration, I'm actually going to post on-time for you. The TEDtalk above is given by Eli Pariser, the ex-Executive Director of MoveOn.org . I feel like I should have blogged about the content of his Talk before because I've been mulling it over my head for a long time. The observation is that "personal search" is changing the way the internet works. Those of you who took my Search Engine Optimization (SEO) workshop during Nicole Brown's class last spring know what I'm talking about. But if you aren't aware of it, it just means that Google no longer has standardized search results. It means that if you and I type the same thing into Google's search bar, we won't see the same results page. That this same phenomenon is going on on pretty much every site you visit; most notably...

Quite frankly, I feel like I'm making a miracle right now just by starting this post. Blogging has dropped out of my life in the past couple months, and I have to apologize. Just so you know, about 30% of that apology goes out to you guys, my few and faithful readers.  The other 70% is an apology to the academic, driven part of myself that has been neglected in favor of lazing around playing Skyrim, not finding a job, not updating my resume, and generally enjoying not having to go back to school.  That said, I'm not a fan of my brain turning to mush, and with all this free time, I can either start writing again, or continue doing craft projects until my graduation money runs out. I'll do another post just for the reading and crafting I've been up to. (I promise.) For now, I think it's appropriate, that since it's Tuesday, that I should reintroduce TEDtalk Tuesdays.  So...this is where my brain is at. I'm learning about my favorite animal--the ...

Hello again...finally. I apologize in advance for my text-heaviness and rambling.  Someday I'll edit my thoughts. I thought I'd come back into the blogosphere with a video to share with you all, given that I finally have time to enjoy my video games after such a hectic quarter .  --Also...I'm on a video game binge, I realize.  I do have other TEDtalks in my queue. promise. =P This TEDtalk is a long one, so I'll split it into two parts (because I'm feeling lazy tonight and actually don't feel like thinking at all). Essentially, David Perry started out life learning how to program computers. And he didn't program them to help kids with their homework--he made video games. In his talk, he essentially covers the past and future of video games...he has a cool timeline video that he updated from a previous TED conference that tracks the audio and video quality over time (only until about 2007...it's a bit outdated).   W...

Today's Florence Friday   is a simple video I came across in my "research".  That's right people, I'm posting on time this time. That's not to say that I'm not WAY behind in my homework, or my job search, or episodes of my TV shows, or hanging out with all my friends, or redoing my resume for the 71st time.  I just can't seem to focus on anything right now.  I researched Search Engine Optimization last night for a workshop I'm teaching this morning, but I'm using the data this blog has generated so it's only fair that I give you all a post.  =) The video?  It's called "Venice in a Day",  Venizia en un giorno . (I wonder how capitalization is in Italy...do they capitalize all the words in a title?) And it's beautiful. Hope all your Fridays are sunny like today!

This talk is given by Brenda Brathwaite, a woman who has been a game designer since she was fifteen. Doesn't that just make you jealous?  I totally am. She doesn't design video games anymore, but she was a lead designer at Atari from 2001-03. Right now, though, her passion lies in making board (bored?) games for social change.  She's even got a blog about it. This talk is specifically about why she began making these types of games: her 7 yr-old half-black daughter came home after learning about the Middle Passage in school, and shrugged it off as if it were "some black people going on a cruise". Brenda couldn't stand her daughter's apathy, so she made a game to relate her daughter to the events of the Middle Passage.  And by the time they were done playing, everyone was in tears. Her daughter related to the people in the game, and superimposed her own experiences and relationships onto those characters to make meaning from the game. ...

No, this isn't a new day of the week-- I just wanted to share this cute photo collage my baby sister made of our Easter egg photos!