Sunday, November 25, 2012

Post Diigo Bookmarks and annotations! (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, November 18, 2012

Post Diigo Bookmarks and annotations! (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Post Diigo Bookmarks and annotations! (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

Cake pops: attempt #1

I am determined to make really cool and cute cake pops. So far, I am not succeeding...In this batch, I tried mixing cake and frosting to create the little Angry Birds. I used candy corn for the beaks and chocolate for the eyes. I used food coloring and chocolate powder for the one that was supposed to be the black bomb bird. However, I really felt that they turned out too sweet. But here's the attempt for the record. I think this project could be a great teen/tween program. Teens could be challenged to create all kinds of characters or shapes. The mix can be prepared ahead of time and it's not expensive to work with.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Feather and water

White pigeon feather, water droplets and a cool app on my cell phone helped make this picture. The app is called PicsArt and is pretty easy to use. You take a picture, apply filters and other effects and the result is pretty nice. Check out the site to see pictures created by other people. PicsArt.com


Wednesday, November 7, 2012

I voted! A tradition I learned from my mom

When I was a little girl, I remember going with my mom and watching her vote. The place we voted at was inside the city motor pool or fire station--I'm not sure which because I only remember a few things distinctly. It was a large building that had booths with fabric curtains set up inside. Outside the building, people shouted, held signs and gave out slips of paper that encouraged us to vote for a particular candidate. The booths were large and the election helpers would give my mom a card that she put into the machine. I remember the metal on metal sound the curtain made when you closed it. It surrounded you. The voting was very private.

I went to early voting this year. Apparently, El Paso, TX had the lowest early voter turn-out in a decade! I can believe it. It seemed empty where I went to vote, though the lighting was cheerful and everyone was glad to see me to use the touch-screens of democracy.

I vote because I want my children to vote. I vote because I want politicians to know I exist and that I'm watching. I know that as individuals, our voices are often limited or seem limited. But if everyone showed that they were paying attention, by casting a vote... one way or another... "they" will know and take notice in the government.

I miss my mother. I hope that carrying on in her footsteps in small ways, ways that I can remember her and cherish those memories, too, that she lives on. I always think of her when I vote.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Augmented Reality Shelf Reader: A dream come true

Yesterday, while doing some research about mobile technologies, I stumbled across this video. It describes an augmented reality (AR) technology that is being developed in Oxford, Ohio. As a person who has always disliked shelf reading (though I do like to shelve), I am in love with this. Automatically, the device shows you if a book is out of place! Check out the coolness below:


This technology app is being developed by Matt Hodges and Dr. Bo Brinkman who demonstrates the technology.

Monday, November 5, 2012

Two weeks ago in Chopped (I mean My) Kitchen...

I like to pretend I'm on the TV show Chopped when I cook. There are 2 reasons for that. One, I have a need to try new things and two, I love to be gameful. Acting like I'm on a show where I can only what's provided (plus the pantry) makes things fun. I look through the kitchen, grab ingredients that need to be cooked and see what I can make. Two weeks ago, I made something that my son has decided is his second-favorite meal. It's a vegetarian potato pancake with green onions, zucchini and garlic.

As I remember, I used:

5 potatoes, shredded
2 zucchini, shredded
2 bunches of green onions, chopped
5 garlic cloves, shredded
2 eggs
Some flour
Some pepper
Some salt

I mixed it together and deep fried it (but since it's vegetarian, it's still healthy, right?)

It tasted a lot like those onion pancakes you can get at some Chinese restaurants. Not bad.

Here's a pic:


Sunday, November 4, 2012

Post Diigo Bookmarks and annotations! (weekly)

Saved links and annotations from Diigo from the past week. This week I've been thinking a lot about Social Media, Teen Hangout Spaces like YOUmedia and Copyright.
Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Exploratorium's Explo.tv

Explo.tv is a very interesting web project by the Exploratorium museum, which is located in San Francisco. Founded by Frank Oppenheimer (yes, he was on the Manhattan project), the museum has an emphasis on "hands-on" science. Explo.tv contains podcasts, webcasts, videos and slides--all about cool science. The site looks slick, is easy to use and fun to learn from. There's even a webcast where Thomas Dolby performs "She Blinded Me with Science" live. Awesome!!!!

See it here:


Friday, November 2, 2012

Tweets from the week

Archiving tweets and retweets from the week... I know the Library of Congress is going to archive all the tweets in the world....but I'd like to keep a record of what I'm thinking about and saying, too for myself. Read more about the LoC project here!


And that's the news!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Messages in a bottle

Social media is a like a message in a bottle. It's posted, written, created and then shared out into a sea of networked sites. Some messages get picked up and read, but I wonder how many are just out there bobbing around in the Internet? How many people have sent out a message that no one's read?

Is it useful to write something down that no one might read? Journals and diaries have been used by individuals for years to write about what is going on and how they feel about life and what they see around them. Journals and diaries weren't meant to be read by others, but they are written down by individuals anyway. The usefulness comes for the writer of the diary: it helps solidify ideas, make thoughts concrete and physically malleable.

When diaries are shared, it's an insight into something that is often very personal, but was never meant to be shared.

A message in a bottle is meant to be read. It's written with hopes that someone, somewhere will see it, find it and a connection is made. But the writer doesn't know who, where or when it will be read or if it's ever read.

Our social media messages in a bottle are meant to be shared. Many of them are as personal as a diary, but really, we tweet, blog, share status updates and locations because we want people to find us, know us and connect--even if the connection is asynchronous. We want to be "heard." To read a thought is to keep it alive.

Oh... and happy NaBloPoMo!