Author Archives: paul bond

Props to propaganda

LEGO – Star Wars propaganda torn version By ArchWorks

Propaganda was a big hit this week, which is perhaps predictable given the nature of the assignments. Even so, there was some great work, and it’s all worth checking out. One I’d like to highlight comes from Cinder’s Wonderland. Note the write up. It explains how AI was used to get ideas, identifies and links to the tools used, and says how they built on the AI image. It even explains the reasoning behind color and font choices. All within one short paragraph.

Also worth noting are the characters’ reactions to PSAs and propaganda for the ways they bring the characters into each others worlds. It is unfortunate that there are only seven reaction posts though…. (sigh)

Propaganda

I really like this post, I think the slogan Liv comes up with is really strong and forces you to reflect on our country’s system.

It was a well thought out poster. The symbolism with the scale and money was done nicely

Propoganda

The design is simple but the picture says a lot

I really liked how minimal this poster was. It is gorgeous and straight to the point. I also liked the message the story behind it. Well done!

You Are What You Eat

It got me. Like it worked. Like that’s what they want with propaganda, it worked.

Not Cracking any Jokes

eggs

PROPAGANDA

This was so good and absolutely inspired. Loved it.

Daily Create

I love the view

Breaking News

I love the picture he chose makes it really feel like a news story

Propaganda

I love the poster he made, and the quote really stands out

What’s Black, White, and Read All Over?

I loved the creativity and how it looks so realistic!

Battle of the Birds

I love this! I did the same assignment for the Bills, so it was cool seeing someone else’s interpretation, as well as seeing other team’s! Go Birds!

Social Media Turns Deadly

This newsposter was awesome! It looked like The Washington Post or The New York Times. Very cool! Great job!

Favorite Movie Gif Daily Create

I love this quote and I think the gif is so relatable

Femme Fatale Propaganda

This was a beautiful poster, and I really like the look of this persons character. I love that the look is consistent throughout this persons post!

Let’s Check Out the Classes PSA’s! Sapphire Mae Edition.

Loved it and thought it was super cute.

Finn Reacting to Public Service Announcements

I love how this person quoted their character to react to posts. I totally can see this character saying these things!

Wouldn’t Want to Hear This on the Radio!

This post is so good and I am so impressed with how above and beyond Rylie went for this assignment. Great job!

TDC 2/25 – 2/28

These were my favorite Daily creates this week!

Propaganda

Well written post. I enjoyed reading it and it put a smile on my face. My favorite part actually was the first sentence.. “I have to start this by saying..”

Daily Create 2/27/25

This was so cool!

Bumper Sticker

This idea was hilarious! I love the design

“…like choosing your favorite snack”

What should ds106 do about those who don't vote for the posts of the week? Should there be consequences for failing to fulfill their democratic duties?

Hmm, that’s an interesting question. In ds106, voting for post of the week is like choosing your favorite snack. It helps showcase great work and encourages participation. While consequences might seem harsh, maybe gentle reminders could help encourage more
voting. After all, everyone’s opinions are important for a fair judgment.

It’s the sigh at the beginning that gets me. I feel the same way. Everyone should be looking over the work of the class, and everyone will definitely see things that they recognize as awesome. But apparently some people can’t be bothered. Who wants to be involved? It’s easier to sleepwalk into dystopia.

That, my friends, is not the 4life attitude. We are all in ds106 together. Get out there and vote!

Tech Noir Connections

Tech Noir Connections logo

Wouldn’t Want to Hear This on the Radio! is an excellently done PSA that hints at a larger story. How would other course characters react to the announcement? Would some of them be forces behind the issue? Or – maybe it is something other than what it seems at first.

That points to a specific event. In Propaganda, we see a theme represented. It says something about society, and something about the individual character. We’ve seen other glimpses of Malone before, and every little piece helps us understand her better. Something to consider: If people were to tag their character posts with the character’s name, they could pull the posts together under blogURL/tag/charactername.

Femme Fatale Propaganda likewise addresses a societal issue, this time in conflict with the character. That conflict, put together with the Missing Person Alert teases a story. Have the FF Haters done something to Sapphria, or has she gone into hiding, to deal with them behind the scenes?

In response to some of the above, we can see Finn Reacting to Public Service Announcements. Here we have a character positioning himself among the propaganda and announcements. We should consider how this exercise form the seeds of stories. Characters could connect directly, or their stories could tangentially touch, generating a narrative mosaic.

We had many ideas for tech-noir shows already – see how that tagging works? – but these assignments are generating more, creating a fertile environment for creative connections. Where does the class want to go with this?

Today in death race news…

Jim suggested the idea of doing a news report on an event from a tech-noir film, which sounded fun to me so I ran with it. I watched Death Race 2000 recently so I decided to work with that, even if it strays pretty far from noir. As Wikipedia describes it “Set in a dystopian American society in the year 2000, the film centers on the murderous Transcontinental Road Race, in which participants score points by striking and killing pedestrians.” There is an incident in the film where a motley group of rebels make an attack on the race, and the government and media place the blame on the French Air Force. That seemed newsworthy. For material to work with, I though I would use the crash scene and the Presidential speech about it. I fed some of the details to ChatGPT and told it to make a news article out of it. Serviceable, but not enough. I had the bright idea to ask Needs More Boom to rewrite the scene in its inimitable style, but I wasn’t quite sure what to do with the output. I had ChatGPT rewrite that as a news article, then fed the articles and the speech to Notebook LM and had it generate one of its goofy podcasts. I added a Dr. Oblivion introduction to that, along with some open source background music for news.

That gave me a bunch of stuff to work with. I made a new subdomain on my site and installed another WordPress, and looked for free news themes, settling on FreeNews. I added all my stuff as posts, then looked through the documentation for clues on how to set it up. Fortunately it wasn’t very difficult. I just had to put categories on the posts and customize the theme options for the main banner article and the sidebar categories.

It’s still pretty lame, since real news sites have much more content, and I didn’t even try to tweak the design other than the header image. But it at least looks news-ish. I should probably apologize for the creepy clown, if I may use that adjective. Needs More Boom came up with that little addition, and the Notebook LM people were quite taken with it, so I chose to appease the evil tech spirits.

Week Six ds106 top picks

We had seventeen posts picked for the best of week six, and they’re all winners. I especially like the variety of tools and approaches to video that people used. I hope everyone looks them over, because you can get a lot of ideas about what you can accomplish from reading about what other people did.

All those non-voters though…

Krissy Meets Dr. Oblivion	This post was incredible! The amount of time and work put into it to tell the story through Sims must’ve been a lot
Krissy Meets Dr. Oblivion	Using the sims is so smart and it was funny, but you could still appreciate the work they put into it.
Krissy Meets Dr. Oblivion	I thought it was very well made and it was so creative that she used the Sims in order to bring her character to life.
Lyric Snippet	I thought the logic behind the certain design choices was well conceived and the final product was very indicative of what it was set out to represent.
Lyric Snippet	I really like the song
Midnight in February	The writeup was so captivating and really allowed me to feel the same vibes from the video!
Midnight in February	Very grounding post
Zer0 Capcut Edit	I thought the edit was very well made, and it was cool they did a photoshoot with the character!
Zer0 cap cut edit
Tips for your character	The use of Ai in this post is so cool. The character made is so detailed
Tips for your characters	This AI Avatar of Finn Callaway is so cool!! I also liked learning more about the character as well.
Become a Pinterest Plant Parent	This was so cute! It makes me want to start getting some plants to take care of them!
Become a Pinterest Plant Parent	This post was very detailed and interesting to watch as someone who also owns a lot of plants!
How to cosplay tuna star	awesome
Tiktok video assignment	Cute puppers
I am Me	very cool post
Wake Up!	The idea of talking to your past self is sweet. They did a good job with this assignment.
Back to 2021	I loved this post because it felt raw, real, and vulnerable. Recording yourself and posting it for everyone to see can be scary for some but I feel like he knocked it out the park. I haven’t been brave enough yet to record myself and post it but I aspire to be brave like him one day and do this! Also – I loved hearing what he’d say to himself at 16. A lot of those things I would say to myself too.
I Love TikTok	She has a very cute dog and I like her reasons for loving tiktok. Her explanation sounded educated and it made me giggle, a double-edged sword.
See top 10 movies	feels like a warm conversation
Where Would Sapphiria Go?	Video editing skills are looking great!
Revisiting My Goals	I liked reading about their goals and how they accomplished them. Also, from reading this post it made me think about other goals that I’d maybe like to accomplish in this class that I didn’t think about originally. By reading this post I can definitely see that they’ve done a great job so far this semester
Do the Walk of Life	Fits VERY well and sounds great
Video Assignments	I just loved the creativity of the interpretation for the 16 year old me assignment! I loved the vibes as well

How I made the news

Since Jim came up with the news assignment idea, I thought I’d try to mimic a newscast. I Googled “free news background animation” and “free news background music” to find suitable content. Then I recorded myself with a green screen (blue also works in iMovie. Some other programs give more options).
For the graphics, I needed PNG files with transparent backgrounds. I used Dafont for the type and took screenshots, then opened them in Photopea and made a white copy of the text in a new layer and hid the background layer to get the transparency, then exported as PNG. I probably shroud have made a chyron for the bottom of the screen. I’m not sure if iMovie will let me do that many layers, but I could take my exported video and bring it back into iMovie for the overlay.

Hated in the nation, loved in the class

It’s not really surprising that so many video essays made the Best Of list, given the week’s assignment load. Even so, they are great efforts, demonstrating the fun that can be had through the close reading of media. You can see all the essays here. It’s worth the time.

Bees

Phenomenal job on this video essay! I aspire to do this well with an assignment like this one day! The analysis was beautifully captured in the video.

Good job Martina!

I thought that this video essay was a good example of what the other information videos and readings had gone over. She did a good job of explaining different angles and shots

Looking into Cyberpunk Edgerunners

looks super cool

Very nice, informative, and organized post

Calling Myself a Clip Champ This Week

Captivating title and a great vibe and writing style

they tried their best

Liv Kern #tdc4779

Seeing Mount Rushmore underwater, made me laugh. I think it’s such a creative and silly idea. Something about it just makes me smile.

I thought this daily create was very creative and loved the idea

Daily Creates

I think the original poem turned out really good. I have a hard time with that kind of stuff so I thought it was pretty cool to see someone be able to come up with that

I love poetry

Weekly Summary #6: Sixth Time is the Charm?

Good to see someone moving forward and learning to do new things.

Daily Create

I loved how for the Daily Create banana story she made her’s with a Kim Possible show reference!

Daily Create: January 13, 2025

I thought that this daily create was really good and it made me chuckle

Audio story

It was simple but all the sounds affects helped to easily understand the what was going on

Hated in the Nation Video Essay

I enjoyed this watching this video essay! Very well executed and great analysis.

Holding a “Black Mirror” to the World

I always look forward to this person’s post, I thin their posts are always good and this video essay was no exception!

Video Essay

I think that this was a really good start and I enjoyed watching it

Radio Bumper

This was really well made, but my favorite part was the use of radio static sounds in it

Daily Create 2/9

What a fun daily create! I will now consider this one of my latest musical discoveries! Thanks for sharing!

Daily Create: 2/13/25

I thought the idea of impractical jokes was really funny and was a good explanation for the curious bananas

Super sounds of cyberpunk

Only eight people voted. They are awesome and #4life for doing so, but really, we’re doomed. Do you want a tech noir dystopia? Because this is how you get a tech noir dystopia.

But once again we have a wide variety of selections, all great work. There’s a lotta love for bumpers and sound effect stories, as there should be. Go through the list and give them a listen.

I’m DS106 and You’re Watching Radio Bumper	It was so cool to see Coni replicate the Disney Channel jingle as it was a big part of my childhood. It sounds like you would actually hear it on the radio!
I’m DS106 and You’re Watching Radio Bumper	This was a really fun idea! Doing her radio bumper based on how Disney channel announced their shows was cool to hear
ds106 radio bumper	I thought they did a great job making this bumper. It was fun and cute. Also they were the first one to do this assignment, and I think that can be a scary thing, especially for an audio assignment.
ds106 Radio Bumer	They did a great job on their radio bumper
Another day at the office…	I thought they nailed the assignment. The sounds were so real, it felt like I was there!
Another day at the office…	I thought the idea was very original and creative. The sound effects and the context of the story made it funny!
Sound effect Story	firstly i want to start off with i love the layout and name of this blog. The organization is great! I liked this post specifically because I thought it was simple yet creative. We were told to not do something basic and I feel as though some people may take this and really think out of the box but this story was simple yet creative.
Sound Effect Story	The idea was simple but done very well. The sound effects with the coughing make it a lot more dramatic and concerning to listen to and you can easily understand the story!
mission impossible
It’s Britney, B1tch! …Or is it?	Very creative and fun. I had never heard the Dead On A Sunday – “…Baby One More Time” cover of this song. I fricken love it!!! Overall, a very awesome and engaging post.
What If “Dear Evan Hansen” Didn’t Go To Plan?	The thought process and detail behind this was incredible! I love musicals but haven’t really checked into Dear Evan Hansen, so now I think I want to check it out!
The Power of Sound	I wanted to comment specifically on the room sounds. This person did a great job in muffling the music in the room, plus is a great song. I really liked the addition of the cat purr, it took me by surprise but I instantly said “awww”. This was a really well done assignment!
Moon Graffiti	Although this wasn’t one of the assignments with audio and it was just a review, I enjoyed what they had to say and the description of how they understood the audio in this clip
whistle while you think	I like a good whistle
POV: You’re Charlie Brown – Sound Effect Story	This was one of my favorite sound effect story that i have listened to. I love the nostalgia and how it really sounds like you are in the classroom! This was absolutely great!
There’s a Huh in the What? – Guess My Favorite Song	I thought this post was fun, creative, and interactive. I had to go check out the end of her blog for the answer because I really couldn’t think of the name of that song!
Going to the Beach	It was really peaceful to listen to like ASMR. I love how she added the distant sound effect of kids playing on the beach too to help portray space
Soundtrack to Veronica’s Life	I like the idea of creating a playlist for your character. It not only helps you but helps other define their personality better. You can also tell how much detail into this, all the way down to the cover art. My only critique is that Veronica is way too cool to be using Apple Music.
Radio Show Ideas	I had some of the same similar ideas for the radio show; To do something humorous like a lifestyle talk show where we have people that call in and then the characters give them their unsolicited advice. I like the late-night talk radio show idea and the murder mystery. I had to favorite this post for this week because great minds think alike!
Sapphira mae favorites	I think I got to know the person a little better
Sound Effect Story	They also did a great job at the sound effects, its totally different from everyone elses
Daily Create	(this is about the T-Rex drawing) I wanted to do this daily create but didn’t have enough time that day to get it done so I really liked getting to see other people’s versions of it. Not for nothing but this one turned out really good
After Dinner	This was really well done. I love the vibe of the story. I also loved that this person stuck to the time limit without overwhelming the story. They talked about how they wanted to include more and wished the assignment was longer, instead of just shortening the pace of the story. The pacing is really great!
My First Radio Bumper	It really feels like its a radio bumper, I can imagine it being used for a radio show

How was that Tech-Noir?

prompt: Visualize telepathy in a noir setting with a cyborg cat as a disinterested bystander

That’s a question we could ask of Limetown. There is a mystery element to it, in the disappearance of a small town’s entire population. And there is the intrepid reporter acting as a bit of a detective and a bit of an innocent bystander swept up in forces beyond her control. These are noir tropes. Tech-noir typically has a futuristic setting though, whereas Limetown is an investigation of the past. One could also argue that tech-noir is of the past, in that Blade Runner‘s setting and The Terminator‘s Judgement Day are chronologically now in the rear view mirror. The tech element comes in with the telepathic technology that was under development in Limetown.

There is a back story to Limetown, hinted at along the way and confirmed in the finale – a story of corporate espionage. This is the part that really fascinated me – the idea of a shadowy corporation that could build Limetown and hide its purpose from everyone, then wipe out the population without a trace and just drive away. Although actually there were two shadowy corporations: one that built the experiment and one that bought off the principles and disappeared the subjects.

As the story went on, in the book and second season, it was all about the reporter. That disappointed me because I thought the back story had so many more possibilities, with moles and mercs and machinations. The implication is that there were other Limetowns, that the tech worked and continued to be developed, and presumably was in use somehow/somewhere. There is fertile ground there for fan fic. That kind of unbound corporate power is also part of tech-noir, and that’s where I see the connection.

What would the world look like if select people had an implant-enabled, brain-to-brain internet? What would people do with that kind of power? How would our noir archetypes act in such a scenario? It would be interesting to see what kind of stories we could build from these ideas, although I may be the only one interested.

A hubcap diamond star halo

Post by @phb256

View on Mastodon

The challenge for today’s Daily Create was to draw a T Rex. I considered attempting to sketch Marc Bolan, but liked the idea of a hubcap diamond star halo better. I also liked the vieo idea, so I found an image of a hubcap and one of a T Rex album cover and combined them in a PowerPoint animation with diamond and star shapes and exported it as a video. I recorded a snippet of their famous song and put that together with the video in iMovie. That was actually a bit of work to avoid actually drawing. Maybe I need to rethink my strategy.