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Ben ve lisansüstü programdan arkadaşım Fırat dalga geçerek günün gazetesini okuyoruz. Dikkat ederseniz haberler genelde çok kötü yazılıyorlar ve bu ÅŸekilde okumaya eÄŸiliminiz varsa oldukça komik oluyorlar - bir ÅŸeyleri çok ciddiye alan birisi deÄŸilseniz. Fırat’la olan konuÅŸmalarımız da genelde bu ÅŸekilde, böyle bir bilinç-akışıyla gidiyor.

Bu videoyu ofisimizde çektik, tavan oldukça yüksek olduÄŸundan ve içerisi oldukça boÅŸ olduÄŸundan ses bir miktar yankı yapmış. Bir süre geniÅŸekran/16:9 olan bu videoyu Quicktime’da encode etme problemi yaÅŸadıktan sonra sorunu hallettim ve birkaç ufak tefek montajla bu hale getirdim.

*: Videoda yanıtı var.

[FYI: The video is in Turkish] I and Firat - a friend from grad school - is reading the news on the newspaper in a mocking way. News are written very badly if you pay attention and they are quite funny if you have that tendency or unless you are someone who takes things really seriously. This is sort of how our speech goes with Firat, with this kind of stream of consciousness.

We shot this in our office; because the ceiling is quite high and the office is quite empty, there is some echo in the sound. After having some problems with widescreen/16:9 encoding, I solved the issues by playing with the settings manually, and with a couple of editing I came up with this.

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This is Zazu. He is a couple of weeks old and was found by Irem, a friend of mine from grad school. The story of Zazu is interesting: When Irem came back home, her dog Duduk was barking to an old stove (that uses coal) that has been in her house’s entrance-ish garden. She took Duduk home thinking that the cat will leave when it feels safe. But Duduk wasn’t really comfortable and kept barking late at night. So she decided to have a look, got everything in the stove out in 2 AM and found this little kitty covered with ashes - too much of them, our hands kept becoming black whenever we petted the poor kitty. She took him to a vet in the morning and brought it to her office in the university to find him a home. Zazu was either traumatized or was too tired and sleepless - he didn’t do much all day. But our instructor, Zafer Aracagok, who took him home, said Zazu even started to discover the house in his first hours there - after a long day of moving here and there.

We all loved Zazu. This is his first video recordings shot at Uptown Bistro on Bilkent University campus.

This is my first video post and my first attempt in videoblogging. The video quality isn’t really good due to my lack of knowledge of video compression and all that (edit: bitrate is increased now). Also, although I tried every guideline I’d found, I couldn’t really make it deinterlaced (fixed now). The editing isn’t superb but I think this is not bad for a first timer (yes, this is my very first video editing, so treat me fairly :) ). So, what do you think? About the cat? About the video?

Yesterday, Dr. Daniela Reimann published a post titled “8 ways your ipod can help you be a better student” written by Heather Johnson.  Dr. Reimann has comments disabled so I’m posting here.

The guide is written in a very let’s-think-oh-yes-there-is-this-too kind of way and it’s disturbingly wrong.  So, you can avoid unnecessary (!?) trips to the library by listening to a audio version study guide of The Great Gatsby, eh?  Why not read the novel on time?  Do you really think study guides can ever substitute reading the novel or the short story?

Also, how does an audiobook replace reading? I declare this person who has written this has never and ever read a book, has never made research on anything at all. Are reading and listening the same thing?

These online-this-and-that consultant people are easy with what they talk.

Quick update (longer versions will hopefully follow, depending on my postponing and procrastination mood):

I got myself a camcorder, a Canon MVX4i (Optura 600 in the US) and will hopefully post some videos very soon - once I properly learn how I should encode my videos and more importantly how to properly edit them. The reviews of the camcorder as well as those who are using it were pretty positive for this camcorder. So, after considering other models and other brands, I gave a shot for this one. And actually it doesn’t matter much as I can’t evaluate it myself, I just tried to get the best for that price. But anyway, it’s a very compact player that I can carry with myself most of the time. So expect “hahaha do that and get published on the internets!” videos. I’m a total noob when it comes to these kind of stuff (which is actually surprising for people, who think I’m a geek): the other day, when I first started playing with the camcorder, it took me like 5 minutes to figure out the place of the button that should start the recording. Then I decided to go reading the manual (as always, RTFM). Then when I opened the camcorder and saw nothing on the LCD, I was like wtf?! until I realized that the lens cap was in its place.  I will post a small review (um, not a review… More like ‘hey check it out!’ kind of post with photos and all.

If you need help getting started videoblogging and any other related thing (Wordpress and videoblogging, encoding, publishing, syndicating, etc), take a look at Show in a Box, where you can find experienced users and very well prepared tutorials.

Also, I got myself a very itsy bitsy theremin that waits to be assembled. I will hopefully post a video of this one very soon, once I got time. Actually been waiting my camcorder to assemble it - so I should do that very soon because I’m curious with what I can do with that little thing. In the meanwhile, check this and this video and other related ones on Youtube to see what theremin can do. My little one (uh, that was nasty) won’t be able to do those kind of tricks as it’s a pretty simple one, but what the heck.

Brightkite is a new social networking site that is currently under limited/private-open beta testing. It is apparently made by Twitterers for Twitterers.

I had the chance to get a beta invite to see what is going on. The idea is this: You pick/update your current location by selecting it from a map (powered by Google Maps) or you can type in a location and it will find that location on the map. What then? Well, your friends will be alerted when you are nereby, you’ll (supposedly) get to know new people that are near where you are as well. I haven’t checked the site in detail yet, but it seems like nearby companies will also be sending out stuff that might get you mad. If you are in US, you can also send out text messages from your mobile phone to update your place, alternative updating methods are email and the web. It can also auto-update your place on Twitter.

Like Twitter, the site also lets you know when your friends are nearby (through text messages or other means I don’t know yet) or you can see where your friends are on a world map.

See some screenshots here, and see the end of this post for an invitation to the private beta.

» Read the rest of the entry..

I will be straightforward: We participate and actually create the content on Web 2.0 sites. In return, they give us web services. Or rather, they give us the services and we handle the rest. Looks like a bee hive in a bee farm, where the hive is there and you create the honey for people to enjoy, eh?

Two Turkish artists Burak Arikan and Engin Erdogan announced their new project at userlabor.org and their ULML - User Labor Markup Language based on XML, yesterday on May Day.

The idea of User Labor is rooted in immaterial and affective labor concepts, where the labor produces or manipulates affects. Recently, User Labor has become particularly relevant on the Internet since user participation became a marketable product for web 2.0 services. What used to be immaterial is now very close to being material, because the affection can be measured on a per person basis.

Read the rest at userlabor.org. The following links to artist pages themselves might also be of interest:

• User Labor Markup Language - Burak Arikan
• Happy User Labor Day - Engin Erdogan
• Bugun Facebook icin ne yaptin? / What did you do for Facebook today? (In Turkish) - Dugumkume

It was a real fast weekend… ish.

I and a friend got into some quite tough job (we’re not complaining but just saying that it’s tough) and in the meanwhile we got to know the great (!) person Shirley from Institute of Network Cultures and some other MA students and other people - Minka, Mariska (or the girl with funny gestures - the description I had in my mind until I finally understood the real name in a less noisy place), Roos, Derek - I am not sure about the spelling and the pronunciation of their names but this was how I called them during the time I was with them.

As a sidenote, people REALLY should make programs of things properly, so you don’t miss things like Processing workshops.

Tell that it sucks?

To be drunk? To be in love? To have a lot of things to do the next day? And have little energy?

It’s this weather - and her - that’s killinf (excuse the alcohol for the typo) me. But she’ll never and ever and never and ever and so on know this.

If Google doesn’t return anything when you search for your name or your pseudonym (nickname, username, etc), you don’t exist.

Edit: Pf, I hate it when I write with no care.

They say it’s not called alcoholism until graduation.

My question is, is it also valid for graduate studies or is it just when you are an undergrad student?