Cultural WoW

I noticed that Jill Walker has a chapter (perhaps several?) on WoW in a new book on role-playing and games. I should get my hands on that publication although I'm quite text stressed now. Too much interesting to read in too little time. (I'm struck by another fatigue as well, the "No! Not another season-fatigue! I want my favorite TV-series to tell their story in only a few seasons. It's naive, I know, and I foolishly believed that the enigma of Life on Mars would be solved in 8 episodes. Stupid me! I was not thrilled when I found out I "had to" follow another season of it.)

She also blogs on the multitude of references to culture, music and other media in WoW. For example, you can buy a Hanzo sword for your character and if you're familiar with the Kill Bill movies, you'll recognize the item. It's a great surprise when accepting a quest with references to Bob Dylan for instance. It's an Easter Egg, making you smile. Speaking of items, I did the Deadmines with my Draenei character last Sunday and there, I got myself a truly dreadful weapon... a rolling pin! Watch out!

Accepted papers and conference site launch

Lots of academia in the pipeline now. I got my papers accepted for two conferences, the CMID07 in Hemavan, Sweden, concerning crossmedia interaction design and EuroITV in Amsterdam in May. Hurray! I'm so looking forward to indulging myself in passionate, scientific discourse and chilly, snowy slopes!

At the same time, the preparations for our own conference Eyes on iTV has taken off big time now, as it's due to take place in late May here in Vasa. I started drawing on the logo for it last week and finally, today, the new, improved site launched. During the conference, we're putting together an academic ensemble, where researchers can present and discuss iTV related issues. There'll be no publications, pre-submissions of paper propositions or the like. Instead, the outcome will be a meeting between media scholars and media practitioners. I'm fond of this form of encounters, where experts share their insights and case studies with an audience for say 20-30 minutes followed by an open discussion with the audience. The ones I've attended have provided with loads of knowledge and few yawns, I hope ours will do the same. The submission tool for abstracts for proposed presentations will be up in a few days.

exEnteractivity's got a new look

My other blog, or perhaps rather a resource site for my PhD thesis, has been pimped up. I added the recent findings on how the viewing experience of iTV differs depending on the interactivity tool, i.e. the mobile phone or the set-top box. My near future agenda with conferences to attend and papers to have camera-ready soon is updated as well.

Stojetari

Pretty fascinating. The tale of Stojetari, or why people from Malax has a reputation of being gluttons for food, is often brought up as I'm born and raised in Malax. But the roots of the tale have been a bit ambiguous and now, I found an explanation to the story that differs from the "modern" one. This is an assumption regarding the background of the tale made by the municipal doctor Hampus Granfelt, in early 20th century, and the quote is from the book Malax 1914 – En undersökning av kommunalläkaren Hampus Granfelt om Malaxborna och deras levnadsförhållanden i tidigt 1900-tal, published by Malax museiförening.

"Man hör ofta isynnerhet i Österbotten uttrycket “äta som en Malaks storätare”, dock tror jag ej att malaksbon äter mera än hans grannar i norr och söder, öknamnet torde tilldelats honom af hans granne i norr såsom jag hört uppgifvas, emedan malaksbon förut vid sina stadsresor ofta medförde ”matsäck”. Födan är mycket enkel och saknar omväxling, de förnämsta födoämnena utgöras af bröd, potäter, mjölk, gröt eller välling, smör, som dock i allmänhet ej förekommer vid hvarje måltid, salt fisk och salt kött, det sistnämnda torde dock vara en ganska sällsynt gäst på matbordet." (pages 32-33)

Blogs and me in the news

The daily newspaper Vasabladet, at which I worked a couple of summers both as a writing and layout reporter, has a feature story today on blogs. I contribute with the explanation part, as to why people blog. I once blogged on the underlying reasons and in the feature story, I repeat that I believe two human needs are met by blogging, that is the need to express oneself and to belong to a community (or as the sociologist love to call it: Gemeinschaft) or a peer-group. The story is not on-line, curiously enough, but if I find the time, I'll see if I can upload a screen shot of the story.

Mobile testing

Desperate housewives ain't all too exciting so I'm testing mobile blogging.

Individual or collective net action?

In the Davos07 aftermath, Jeff Jarvis ponders the elements and power of the net in a blog post. He concludes that a "Society 2.1", where people come together online, is at the horizon rather than a "Web 3.0" which is all about individual action online and nicely handing over UGC material to others.

Mobile cloak

Earlier this week, I got myself a new Nokia N80ie. Since the display is rather big, it's kind of vulnerable lying around naked amongst pens, books, keys and other stuff in my bag. Naturally, I had to eliminate this threat to the usability of an otherwise pretty good mobile by crocheting a warm, protective and comfy mobile phone cloak. Turned out pretty nice.