WEBLOGS: REBECCA BLOOD

While reviewing my Power Point I came upon the name Rebecca Blood... a very emminent Weblogger

Here is a short biography...

Rebecca Blood is a noted authority on blogging. A respected thought-leader on the Internet's impact on business, media and society, Ms. Blood is an internationally known speaker. She is the author of The Weblog Handbook, which has been called "the Strunk & White of blogging books". It was chosen by Amazon as one of the 10 best books on digital culture in 2002, and has been translated into 5 languages. Her weblog, Rebecca's Pocket, is ranked in Technorati's Top 500, out of 20 million weblogs tracked. She has been featured in the New York Times, Newsweek, Fast Company, the BBC, and National Public Radio and profiled by Time magazine. She lives in San Francisco.

In addition to her book, Ms. Blood has written a number of critically important essays on the theory and practice of weblogs and the intersection between blogging and journalism. Her work has been used in university courses around the world. She has been invited to write for the prestigious academic journals the Nieman Reports and Communications of the ACM. An internationally recognized speaker, Ms. Blood has spoken for diverse groups, ranging from digerati and journalists to academics and Fortune 250 executives. In 2003, the UK's Web User named her one of the Web's "Hot Faces" (right between Beck and Bowie), and Sweden's Internet World ranked her as one of the world's Top Ten Bloggers.

More importantly read some of her Essays on Weblogs (I think they are really good!)

weblogs: a history and perspective [ 09/07/00 ]
ten tips for a better weblog [ 03/22/03 ]
waging peace: using our powers for good, keynote, blogtalk [ 05/24/03 ]
weblogs and journalism in an age of participatory media, nieman reports [ 07/15/03 ]
the revolution should not be eulogised, guardian online [ 12/18/03 ]
a few thoughts on journalism and what can weblogs do about it [ 04/15/04 ]
hammer, nail: how blogging software reshaped the online community, communications of the acm

[extracted from http://www.rebeccablood.net]


Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za

WHAT THE BLEEP DO WE KNOW?

I wil try and get a DVD up to you guys in PRETORIA to review.

Here is what the Internet said…

http://www.noendpress.com/adarrah/what_the_bleep.php

"But the real beauty of this film is that the brilliant minds interviewed throughout (a who's-who of quantum physicists, biologists, neurologists and modern day mystics) are willing to talk about how this incredibly scientific quantum information affects our daily lives, and, if you haven't figured it out already, our spirituality. And hey, if you're a little slow on the pickup, all you really have to do is watch Amanda (Marlee Matlin) stumble through the rabbit hole into some odd environments (like our brains, where electrical storms between synapses are the norm) to see how reality works."

http://www.christiananswers.net/spotlight/movies/2004/whatthebleepdoweknow.html

"This film, which is probably heading to a nearby art house cinema, is a low-budget docudrama which, as far as I could tell, is best described by the term "annoying," although "boring" and "pretentious psychobabble" will work as well."
"Christians know the answer the film poses. The film, on the other hand, is just plain clueless.
No sex or violence, but most teenagers and adults will be bored."

http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2005/04/what_the_bleep_.html

But the "what the bleep" meme is growing, so I decided I should see it for myself. Now I've seen it I can confirm that it does distort quantum physics to support a mystical viewpoint. But it is much more than that. Much worse. Hilariously so, in fact.

http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2004/whatthebleepdoweknow.php

"Now, people are entitled to believe whatever they want, and if they want to meditate for world peace and inner strength, that's great. But caching their spiritual beliefs behind a scientific veneer is unnecessary, and knowing there's some hidden agenda behind all their happy talk is just creepy. At a basic level, you might get something out of the film's gloss of physics and physiology, but you'd surely learn more from any episode of "Nova." You might be convinced that the power of positive thinking and the mind-body connection can help you in life, but you'd surely be better served by reading some combination of psychology, Alan Watts and halfway decent self-help literature. By comparison, this movie's unmade connections between gee-whiz science clichיs and new-age spiritual hokum will only leave you thinking, why the bleep should I care?"

Finally for the really adventurous, an independent website with the reviews


http://www.whatthebleep.com/reviews/

Cheers

Rich

Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za

SELFISH PEOPLE

Why is it that you get a selfish few people who simply "will not" or "cannot be bothered" to follow a few basic rules. I have spent all of Good Friday repairing our Weblog so that it can be read again. The guilty persons who consistently are IGNORING THE INSTRUCTIONS and submitting emails that are breaking the Weblog are....

Linnette
Elelwani
Dianah (every time!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Lufuno

For these guys....

Guys please realize if you persist in being selfish by ignoring instructions, we cannot carry on with instruction or NISL-EI2. Most people are managing fine but you guys almost every time are putting code into your emails that breaks the site and makes it un-useable. While we all make the odd mistake, this is only human and understandable but each time you submit?. Only you have actually broken the code, everyone else has a completely clean record with not a single break!

How can we all prevent breaking the site?

1. Keep the messages simple - no fancy fonts
   
2. I use the default settings for font and font size (Tahoma 8 size) in GroupWise - other fonts you can use are Verdana and Arial.
   
3. Why only these fonts? They are the easiest to read on screen and keep fairly small.
   
4. If you cut and past from Word make sure that you use the Edit and Paste Special function to past only unformatted text into the email and do the final edits for Italics in GroupWise.
   
5. Avoid Times Roman at all times - its fine printed, but on the screen it is difficult to read (postings using small Times Roman font be will be removed!). When you use the small Times Roman fonts it extends to making my menus unreadable!
   
6. Do not use extra spaces and indents or tabs these get interpreted in a different way to your Word document.
   
7. Do not use the formatting by numbers or lists
   
8. Make sure each paragraph is followed by two hard-returns
   
9. Do not change the colour of text (e.g. one person composed their message in light green and without closing this formatting made the rest of the site with light green text!)
   
10. Check there is nothing strange in your Signature Files - one person has a signature file font that appears to be 24 pt.
    
11. No Pictures CAN be sent via email.
    

From the rest of the class any suggestions?

1. Restricting these guilty people to only putting up comments and no new posts? They can still add Bold and Italic formatting
2. Have no formatting of the text (italics for species names will not appear this is done by using the text option in GroupWise)
3. Marks deduction 20% off for first time, 30% second time etc…

EVERYONE PLEASE CONFIRM THAT YOU HAVE READ THIS EMAIL BY ATTACHING A COMMENT AND YOUR THOUGHTS ARE MOST WELCOME. I WANT TO BE FAIR TO EVERYONE, BUT THIS LAST WEEK SOME 14 HOURS OF MY TIME HAVE BEEN LOST IN FIXING UP PEOPLE'S POSTS WHERE THEY HAVE BROKEN THE SITE!

Rich



Dr Richard Knight
Co-ordinator: National Information Society Learnerships - Ecological Informatics
Department of Biodiversity and Conservation Biology
University of the Western Cape
Private Bag X17
Bellville 7535

Phone 27 + 21 + 959 3940
Fax 27 + 21 + 959 1237

Email Rknight@uwc.ac.za

Web http://nisl.uwc.ac.za