Category Archives: This Week in ds106

Our Cast of Characters

We have quite the Cast of Characters for TechNoir106. The lineup includes:

  • anti-hero
  • corporate samurai
  • femme fatale
  • gangster
  • hacker
  • hard-boiled detective
  • innocent bystander
  • powerful millionaire or politician

from across time and space. Many people enjoyed the assignment, although there was some frustration with not being able to save the responses locally. I wonder if there is a way to do this with Google Forms. I also wonder if there is a less tedious way to reformat spreadsheet information into a document. I’m sure there must be, but it may not be within the limits of my spreadsheet jockeying skills.
Nevertheless, we have a great group and it will be fascinating to see how they interact.

Always Be Commenting

Jim and I had a discussion on the wonders of blog commenting earlier, and the recording is above. Commenting really is the glue of ds106, what makes a collection of bloggers into a community of creativity. It’s how we inspire each other and learn from each other and how we connect.

For comments to appear, they need to be moderated and approved, so we take a quick look at one way to do that. You can also approve comments, or not, in your WordPress dashboard. Akismet may be a useful plugin to add. It may ask for payment, but for personal use you can pay $0.

There is also some discussion of our friend, Dr. Oblivion, if he can be trusted and if his directives have been altered. This may need to be investigated further.

Show us the Tech Noir

The point of the film review assignment was to get people thinking about the Tech Noir concept, how it has been portrayed in media, and what it means to us. It’s not meant to be a generic or conventional film review as much as a way for you to think about the theme and connect some dots.

It’s also an opportunity to practice some blogging skills like linking and embedding images and other media. If we’re going to discuss video, incorporating clips or screenshots of the points we’re discussing is a good idea. In some cases you can find usable clips on Youtube, which can be easily embedded in a post. You may be able to find images of scenes through Google. My Mac is giving me a hard time about taking screenshots of Netflix and some other services, but it appears that the Windows Print Screen function works. In order to get the shots I used in my post, I found the video on an alternate site and recorded a portion with Quicktime. Then I imported the screen recording into iMovie and saved relevant images. I really need to find a better process.

As evidence of the power of tagging, you can see our group’s film reviews at https://ds106.ai/category/film-review/. Tags are a great way of organizing posts, and allow us to bring them together. We can see how we as a group see the idea of tech noir in various media.

One review found a Black Mirror episode dealing with transhumanism ideas, which may be utopian or dystopian depending on one’s point of view. This review also adds images and links, exercising the power of digital media. The post from My blog (not my blog) discusses a Black Mirror episode  which touches on issues of surveillance, identity rights and terms of service, and the dystopian possibilities of a corporation claiming ownership over one’s life story. Another person looked at a 90s classic, The Matrix, noting its twisted reality and impressive effects. I wonder, if a term made up for the movie makes its way into the dictionary, is that an indication of living in the matrix? These posts show a good start to blogging, but we can push it further – more links, more media, more connections. Keep the reviews rolling!