Katy Beale

Creepy? Or er… seedy?

helloyoucreatives:

Seed faces from http://www.etsy.com/listing/84586371/25-seed-faces

The Biscuit Nativity “with the baby Jesus as an iced gem, and a pink wafer for Mary” says the Present&Correct blog. Other gorgeous highlights on their site include primary coloured wooden block dinner sets, how to make cut-out 70s nativity scenes and vintage graphics wrapping paper.

“Feed your kids The Arts” :: USA positioning culture as a nutritionally sound breakfast cereal.

Can a human fly? This video shows the descent at 250km. The most amazing thing is the sound the ‘stuntman’ makes as he shoots past at that speed - like a jet plane!

Codify is a platform that game designers, educators and students can use to create games or simulations. Codify allows users to build and play interactive games and simulations directly on their device. It was developed by three Australians from Adelaide - Simeon Nasilowski, John Millard and Dylan Sale. Kudos guys, love the clean simple interface.

Via Apps in Education Blog & jottingmatt

The internet weighs the same as a strawberry - about 40g of electons in motion… Facts courtesy of @lakefield83 and @zconsortium.

READ MORE:

Weight gained from e-books: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/25/science/25qna.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1&sr…

Gadsby: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1466216735/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=486…

Flash Memory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_memory

Map of the Internet: http://www.opte.org/

Size of the internet: http://www.martingover.com/2418/size-of-the-internetdata-growth-info-overload/

Weight of all electrons in motion that make up the internet: http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2006/10/weighing_the_we.html

Weight of all information on the internet: http://discovermagazine.com/2007/jun/how-much-does-the-internet-weigh/article…

Smallest sand particles: http://science.jrank.org/pages/6039/Sediment-Sedimentation-Sediment-size.html

#codingforkids debate kicked off at the Guardian offices last night with a mix of around 50 people including education professionals, ex-teachers, those working in digital and technology and a few actual kids themselves! We Storyfied (live blogged) the event, so you can catch up here (thanks @rachelcoldicutt).

A few key points that seemed to reverberate with me:

Parents can be the catalyst here. So many people said that the event has inspired them to simply go home and play with their kids more, to work with them in simple game making programmes such as Scratch and to listen to what their kids want.

Coding, programming or the understanding of technology needs to be inbuilt across the board in education, not just restricted to ICT or similar. It’s a skill that’s needed whether you are learning English, Maths, Drama, Music, Geography, etc…

It’s not necessarily about building an ‘army of coders’ but giving people the knowledge and ability to understand what’s going on behind the screen. By creating a level playing field, cross-sector and cross-organisation working in the future should be so much easier as people will be able to speak the same language.

There’s loads of interesting tools out there already. A few mentioned were Alice created by Carnegie Mellon, Scratch made by MIT, WaterBear and Hackasaurus. @regulargeek has written about the tools on 36 resources to help you teach kids programming and Emma @hubmum has also written blog posts over the last month on the topic about how to initiate kids (or anyone) into coding.

I’m very pleased that the initial ‘cup of tea and a chat’ with Emma at Rewired State has evolved into us bringing together people to talk on the topic of #codingforkids and we’re inviting people to take on the next steps of making this a reality.

The BIG thing now is to get everyone - yes, YOU - pledging what they are going to do next. Use the #codingforkids hashtag on twitter to pledge, blog it and post it on the wiki. We’ve set a deadline of November 5th to get all pledges in and then we’ll announce them, coming back to check in with everyone in January 2012.

The wiki is open to all - please don’t be shy, add to it, amend, build it into the resource it should be. This belongs to an ever-evolving community of participants. And follow @codingforkids to keep up to date!

Innocent’s new #tweetandeat campaign gets people working, or rather tweeting, together to bring the price down on one of their veg pots. If enough (how many I wonder?) people tweet, then eventually the price can reduce to zero. 

I’ve often seen this executed badly - I don’t see the point in tweeting with a hashtag just to be in the chance of winning something, but this campaign pools everyone’s individual efforts together and everyone is rewarded for participating. As they say, “Collective buying power is where its at”.

womeninaroom:

Sign up to the latest event, happening on October 19th at the Caper offices. I’m sure we’ll have lots to talk about.

This time, we’re asking a few people to talk honestly about who they are and why they do what they do. It’d be really interesting to hear about the best experiences people have…

“Inkling” » a clip-on digital tool that captures your drawing (including additions & layers) in any sketchbook or pad of paper, using a special ballpoint pen. Quite clever.

Behind the Scenes at the @royaloperahouse takes us deep into rehearsals. Dancers are put through grueling daily warm-ups with a 32nd generation monk Zhu Qiniu. I saw this piece performed live and it was even more amazing in costume - the synchronised machismo of sword sheaths clanging and the power of leaping and spinning through the air. 

The whole set of videos can be seen on the ROH blog.

The internet is being tailored for us: @elipariser TED talk. ‘There are 57 signals that Google uses to personally tailor your search results’ says Eli, talking about the way the internet serves us information. No longer when we do a search on the internet are we getting the same results, no matter who we are.

This means that in all likelihood we are not being opened up to as many options as we had previously. Only those recommended to us via our previous interests or circle of friends or acquaintances. A cynic could say that the benefit is mainly for the advertisers and marketers who can now do very detailed behavioural campaigns.

via @thekingmob

Folly For a Flyover: a building trapped under the east and westbound lanes of the A12, hosting a six week programme of waterside cinema, performance and play.

Hand-built with local, reclaimed and donated materials, inspired by the local council estates and red-brick buildings of Hackney Wick, it poses as an imaginary piece of the area’s past.

Launching on 24 June, events include bug hotel building using Olympic Park waste materials, a 30 piece East London Brass Band performance and a spectacular family party hosted by Disco Loco.

On Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights, the building’s over-sized outdoor steps will double as an auditorium to host a programme of screenings and performances, from animation classics including early Disney through to experimental films including 2001 Space Odessy and Tron (1982) with a live remixed sound track.

Folly for a Flyover is conceived, designed and constructed by Assemble CIC, and programmed with the support of The Barbican Art Gallery’s summer exhibition, Watch Me Move. Assemble CIC’s last project, The Cineroleum was a pilot project demonstrating the potential for the wider creative re-use of UK’s 4000 empty petrol stations.

2011 update video on growth + impact of social media by Socialnomics @equalman via @wearesocial

The results are in. @museumnext & @sumojim asked 500 people their thoughts on social media & museums via an independent researcher, revealing some interesting insights:

78% of all age groups, age 16-64+ years old use social media. The highest use is youngest group, 95%, dropping to 52% for oldest group.

74% visit museums and galleries, but only 18% are aware of museums and galleries using social media and only 10% follow museums and galleries.

What made you follow a museum or gallery? Top answers:

‘I wanted to promote and support the museum’ (motivation: philanthropic)
‘I enjoyed my visit to the physical space and wanted to tell me friends about it’ (motivation: badging myself)
‘It offers previews and offers’ (motivation: being in the know)
‘It reflects my tastes, opinions and views’ (motivation: confirmation of my knowledge and being part of the debate)

To engage people to follow, they state a museum must be topmost interesting and relevant, plus tell the audience that they are on social media through relevant advertising or editorial and offer up freebies and offers. Over 80% would visit an exhibition if a friend recommended it.

Around half follow brands on social sites, stating the main reason is to get offers and promotions, with secondary reasons being info on new products and interesting content

http://bit.ly/museumresearch

The Google Maps Alphabet: @londonist have just created a London one. The picture featured in this post takes aerial shots from around the UK and was created by 20-something Rachel Young as she recuperated from a road accident. She told the Daily Mail, “‘Being from Yorkshire, I knew that would be a good place for fields and hedgerows. I thought that cities such as London, Manchester and Liverpool would be a safe bet for odd-shaped buildings”. Rhett Ashwood, from Australia, has also created an Australian Googlemaps alphabet from images of the state of Victoria.

US fashion chain Target use Bronx step dance group Bad News to bring their new range to life beyond the usual catwalk.

Edelman Digital Presents Social Media Milestones

.@johannabasford of crowdsourced Twitter Picture fame, is now taking on Starbucks and will (hopefully) be designing their 2011 Christmas cup. Her cross-Atlantic story links up a great creative idea with general hounding of @starbucksukmd via Twitter and real-world perseverance from Johanna. She previously designed the cover for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe programme using the #Fringecover hashtag, asking people what they wanted to see at the festival - and then bringing these ideas to life by hand-drawing them.

Culture Hack Day #chd11 was an immense, challenging and innovative project to work on. It brought together key cultural organisations (including Crafts Council, UK Film Council, Culture Grid, National Maritime Museum, BBC Archive + more) and some wonderful developers who all gave their time for free. The challenge was to come up with new innovative ideas using open data from the culture sector. Its production was driven by Royal Opera House, with support from Wieden + Kennedy London, Google, Arts Council England & Creative Industries Knowledge Transfer Network.

Alongside the developers furiously hacking away over the weekend, we ran a series of talks, sparked off from the title “What if?” around open data. They can be viewed here - with some inspiring provocations from people such as Leila Johnston, who edits the Hackers! newspaper, Chris Thorpe from ArtFinder, Tom Armitage who works at BERG and Clare Reddington from iShed.

You can see a full list of the hacks that were developed here - a few highlights were When Should I Visit? by Dan W highlighting when the *least* busiest times for museums are; a Museum of Minecraft bringing digital archives into the online gaming world; mobile iterations of data searching making them more accesible to the general public including Stef’s Culture Grid apps; more whimsical haiku generators including Haiku Guardian & BBC Haiku Player; plus Pepys’ Shows by Matthew Somerville and Clare Lovell bringing Samuel Pepys’ pithy reviews of theatre to the masses.