Who’s that lurking?

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Have you heard of a lurker?  Do you know one? Are you one?

In brief:”In Internet culture, a lurker is typically a member of an online community who observes, but does not actively participate.”

Or, like me, are you an occasional lurker?

I lurk when I don’t have anything to contribute or when a forum is highly technical and I am just seeking information.  Sometimes, more often than not, I’m only lurking to get the feel of a place before I post.

A couple of months ago I read an article encouraging people to stand up and be counted.  To get those quiet lurkers out of the cupboard.  But why?  If they want to be there, shouldn’t they stay?

The answer is, I think, yes and no.  If people are lurking in a strong community and are just looking for a ‘free ride’ it seems a shame that they might not contribute. Occasionally though, it just isn’t appropriate.

For some, being involved online is like stepping out for the world to view you, thoughts and all.  Once it is done, it can’t be undone.  The delete key in an online environment is never really what it seems.  And even where it is, there’s always the Wayback Machine.

There can be any amount of reasons for someone to lurk.  To sign up, to stay tuned in, but to stay silent. ‘Real’ life might just have gotten to a place where a little silence is golden.

Sometimes, in our eagerness to make people feel included that same enthusiasm could be making a private, shy, or just plain exhausted person feel like leaving.

There’s no simple answer to this.  It isn’t really a question.  Not everything we say needs to be either a question or an answer.  Perhaps it is just one more reminder that we are, as ever, a lot more complicated than it first appears.

One online glove does not fit all.

Memrise: the learning addiction

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Memories, like the corners of my mind

This post is part one of a series on Memrise.

Last year, a supposedly good friend got me hooked on a new drug: learning. Or, more precisely: memorising.

To be fair, I’m already fairly hooked on learning new things. I’m constantly reading, learning and trying new things out. Although that last point might be more truthfully stated as ‘…trying to break things’. Cut to the chase: memrise.com
an online social learning tool that uses brain science and mnemonics to help you learn and memorise.

However, this is learning through the science of memory training. Otherwise known to its learning community as Memrise.

Memrise feels like an addiction, because I get the cold sweats if I have to go too long without it.

So, be warned. If you don’t wish to become addicted to learning and memorising, read no further.

So, what is Memrise?

Memrise is, in its simplest terms, an online tool to assist you with memorising things. The main things available to learn are languages, but there are many others. If you have a list of anything you need to memorise, this is your place to be.

You will find some courses that are quite quirky and small, and some that are hugely popular and well-crafted. Because Memrise is a social tool, people create their own content and share it with you. You learn together and you share your best tricks to help you remember.

The ‘tricks’ are flashcards – or memes – that you or other learners create to help build an intricate and complex memory.

Making it more complicated to help you memorise something might sound strange, but it works. The details behind what makes Memrise tick are incredibly complex, but as they say:

…the more your brain has to work to recall a memory, the more it will strengthen that memory while recalling it.

Pod go … what now?

Here’s an example meme. This example is one I use to try and remember the capital of Montenegro.

The name Podgorica means “under the Gorica” in Montenegrin. And Gorica means “little hill”.

Thinking about Montenegro, I imagine a mountain eagle called Pod sitting under a little hill (Gorica), staring down at his town below.

I call it the scene of Pod-Gorica.

Does this all sound like far too much to remember?  Surely it would be easier to just remember that the capital of Montenegro is Podgroica?  Bear in mind that I’m trying to remember around 200 capitals.  These memes help me remember all of the capitals.  The more quirky and visual they are, the better.

Learning socially

Of course, that scene works for me, for that city. It might not for you, or for the next person, but as everyone is creating and sharing memes, you can try out different ones to see what works for you.

Is that it?

There’s a lot more to Memrise than this. There is the course creation, the more visual ways of meme creation, the competition …

… but lets save some of that for another day.

The disconnected e-reader

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or… ‘Why my Kindle is never getting connected to Amazon’

Last year, I was delighted to win myself a Kindle, thanks to a little competition the RiAus was running.

It was a grand thing to win, as I’d long wanted to buy myself an e-reader anyway. I would have preferred a non-vendor specific e-reader, but a free book is a free book, electronic or not.
Once I had my Kindle, I loaded it up with books from the lush and wonderful Project Gutenberg.

Interlude: If you’ve not heard of Project Gutenberg and you love books, you’re about to be made very happy. One day I’ll set aside some time to write more about the splendid Project. But that’s for another day, so I’ll pop that thought in the ideas box for now.

I also have a number of purchased e-books and PDFs that I loaded onto the Kindle as well.  I’ve several hundred books on it now and, while you can’t read several hundred books at once, you may – at any given time – be in the mood for any one of them.  It’s rather delightful to have all that choice with me wherever I go.

Of course, my local bookstore should not despair.  I will always buy real, papery, beautiful books.  I love the way they look, feel and and make me feel.  I’ll save my pennies for the hardcovers, the special editions and the illustrated beauties.  And I’ll have no need to sully these treasures by lumping them around in my backpack for the day.  That’s the job of an e-reader.

And, so, with such an ardent love of books, why not connect to Amazon?

I value my privacy, but there’s nothing to hide.  There’s not a single book I’m ashamed to have read.  Not even the ones I regret reading (because I could have spent the time reading something better).  A book’s a book.  It’s full of words and has things to say.

I have long been troubled by what Amazon – and others – might do with my information.  It’s clear they have your information, it’s how they inform you of ‘what else you might like to read’.  That, for some, seems harmless enough in itself and very helpful.  But it’s the other end of the book process that troubles me.  It’s how, in the long term, it might affect the publishing, if not the writing, of your next book.

Is your e-reader trying to ‘read’ you?

As Mike Rekai points out, your e-reader is watching you.  It watches how you read, what you skip and what you appear to find boring.

One question that publishers want to know is do readers ‘skip certain chapters?’ In my case, that’s a big yes.  But it’s often because I’m reading the book in more than one way.  In the case of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for example, I read that on the Kindle when commuting or in a cafe and then, once home again, I brought out the beautiful hardcover version and read it without fear of ruin or loss.  Back to the Kindle: skip a few chapters ahead. Repeat.

While not every book reader does this, it illustrates my point. Just because the publishers think they know how you read, doesn’t mean they know why you do what you do. Skipping ahead doesn’t necessarily mean you were bored.

And even if I were bored, I might come back to it later, when my mood suited that particular book. Or maybe I was searching for a particular reference. There are all sorts of reasons that we do what do when we read. The publishers first need to stay out of our heads and, second, not use this information to influence authors.

What these possibly false presumptions might mean for books in the future is quite worrying.  Imagine future aspiring authors. For them, there is no ‘room of their own’, but a crowded auditorium with suggestions from every corner.

When I’m writing, I don’t like to feel like I have the reader over my shoulder.
– Kelly Armstrong, MacLeans.ca article

And, while it’s great for me that my Kindle has not connected up, that’s no comfort to the rest of the readers out there.  Books should be the one place you can feel adventurous and free, lost in both the words and world of another.

Morguefile – perhaps not quite what you think it is

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This is the first brief article in the ‘pint-size’ post series, where I’ll be trying to keep it snappy.

Have you heard of the term ‘morgue file’ before?  If you have you’ve probably worked at a newspaper Cut to the chase: morguefile.com
an image resource, free for use in creative projects. or in an archives department.  Or possibly even a morgue.  Don’t laugh. I’ve done that, so who is to say that you haven’t?

Originally, a morgue file meant a folder that held all the old notes, articles and other paraphernalia that criminal investigators and reporters kept.

In this case, however, I’m talking about all the source files of a creative project, digital or otherwise.  Let me introduce: morguefile.com

The morguefile contains photographs freely contributed by many artists to be used in creative projects …

What a wonderful notion – and resource.  And a quite different idea to the creative commons images available on Flickr.  Not heard of that?  Ah, well that’s one for the ideas box and a story for another day.  As is the reason I find morguefile.com so very, very useful.

The point is that if you are not wanting to maintain the original image, but radically – or slightly – alter it for your own design or educational needs, then this is the place for you.  On all of the images I’ve made use of so far, the license has been:

You are allowed to copy, distribute, transmit the work and to adapt the work. Attribution is not required. You are prohibited from using this work in a stand alone manner.

screenshot of the morgue file website

Morguefile: where photo reference lives, original by Alivmann

How can you not love that?  Not only are you encouraged to modify the image, but you are prohibited from using it stand alone.  Attribution is a nicety – and one I have done in this article, as I have only slightly modified the original.  When I’ve used an image and hugely distorted it from the original, I’ve left it unattributed. I’m sure the original author is grateful to me for that.

Go on.  What are you waiting for?  Open up the morgue file and get a little creative.

Bibelots in the wild: postcards

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This is the first post in an ongoing series on bibelots in the wild.

A quick happy snap of postcards pinned to a menu boardI have a story to tell. It starts here.

Or, perhaps, it starts over there. You know the place. Sure you do. It’s one of your favourite hangouts. They know you by name and know what you like, but they also know you like to surprise them occasionally.

Ringing any bells?

Of course, this place, mine or yours, could be many places. But not any place.  Any place might be a nameless multinational.  No, that’s not this place. This place has quirks.  It has some things not quite right and some things unexpected, but delightful.

This particular place is in a marketplace.  They have a wall covered with bibelots, or curios if you prefer.

They reside, unconsidered, in one corner of the cafe.  They aren’t important and it’s nothing to write home about, but, and here’s the thing, they include things that you can write home on.

A bibelot can be just about anything, but I feel sure that a postcard is almost always, once written, a bibelot for life.