Author: Mechanical Dolphin

Hope and Holodecks

Mechanical Dolphin

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Like anyone, I worry about the future.

Right now we’re on the cusp of Trumpocalypse. Even if Donald J. doesn’t get to power, the US – and the world – will have to face the consequences of his campaign. The US election is the second scary vote in the English-speaking world this year, after Brexit – and look at how riven that’s left British culture and society.

And yet – I feel hopeful.

I’ve just been reading Digital Identity 3.0 (PDF download), a report from the Chair of Digital Economy at Queensland University of Technology.

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Marvellous, Electrical: Future Sea Punks

Mechanical Dolphin

This week’s Marvellous, Electrical explores the Brisbane suburb of West End and its annual Kurilpa Derby, street art, social justice, censorship, and the ways communities get inside your head – for good and ill.

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Read Marvellous, Electrical: Future Sea Punks here.

Return of the Mouth on Legs

Mechanical Dolphin

Today, the State Library of Queensland released its interview with Janet Fielding, the actor who played Tegan in the BBC’s Doctor Who from 1981 to 1984.

I discovered that both Janet and Tegan were Queenslanders while researching for an instalment of my newsletter, Marvellous Electrical.

Brisbane-born Janet accompanied Peter Davison’s Doctor as they battled monsters, cyborgs, and spooky snake spirits. After her time on the show, Janet went on to a career as a theatrical agent and an advocate for women in film and television. Today, based in the UK, she is director of a community venture, Project Motorhouse.

To celebrate both Janet and Tegan as iconic Queenslanders, the State Library teamed up with Spencer Howson of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to conduct a ninety-minute interview capturing her adventures across time and space. This will now form part of the Library’s lasting oral history archive.

Read more, and listen to the interview with Janet Fielding, at the State Library website.

The Kinder Way To Enjoy Hacking

Mechanical Dolphin

This morning I gave the opening address at the annual conference of ALIA Queensland. The theme this year was “Library Hacks”.

Hacking’s such a funny term, still threatening and techy and futuristic, and yet also so familiar; the stuff of cheesy mid-90s techno-thrillers as much as today’s headlines about Wikileaks and massive DNS attacks.

The New Yorker tells us that the word originates in the house slang of MIT, way back in the 1950s:

The minutes of an April, 1955, meeting of the Tech Model Railroad Club state that “Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking on the electrical system turn the power off to avoid fuse blowing.”

Taking “hack” to mean tinkering with machines and procedures, not following the manual, I wanted to both hack the keynote and offer attendees an opportunity that wouldn’t exist at M.I.T.

So, we gave them craft materials, tinfoil and paperclips, food decorating kits, a basic electronics set…

…and Kinder Surprise Eggs.

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What are you playing at? Digital comics at the Writing Platform

Mechanical Dolphin

Why would an Aussie library get its designers to build a drag and drop comics website?

Aren’t there already plenty of free comic makers online?

What are you even playing at?

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The Writing Platform, a joint venture by Bath Spa University in the UK and QUT in Australia, has my latest piece, on the new remixable comic maker from State Library of Queensland.

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Read more about the State Library’s Comic Maker at The Writing Platform.

Marvellous, Electrical and the Black Prince

Mechanical Dolphin

Sidewalk in the Brisbane suburbs

What does a man have to do to be accepted as a true Australian?

We took a walk through the suburbs to Brisbane’s Toowong Cemetery, exploring the legacy of the 19th century champion boxer – and adopted Aussie – Peter Jackson.

Read more at Marvellous, Electrical: Sweet Science.

Revenge of the Model Railway Club

Mechanical Dolphin

I’ll be speaking at ALIA Queensland‘s mini-conference “Library Hacks” in a couple of weeks.

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American-style model railway. Photo by Graham Causer, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 Licence

My keynote’s called Revenge of the Model Railway Club and it takes the form of a hands-on workshop. It should be fun – if you’re in the area, you should come!

Library Hacks runs 9am to 5pm at Brisbane Square Library on Wednesday 26th October.

Marvellous, Electrical: Forms of Myth

Mechanical Dolphin

This week, in Marvellous, Electrical: storytelling, town planning, sculpture, and the smell of first rain on dry stone.

Read ‘Forms of Myth’ here.

International Harvester: The Ozofarm Game

Mechanical Dolphin

Today sees the official release of the Ozofarm game and game development competition for Queensland’s public libraries.

As I discovered on my visit out to the cotton fields of the Darling Downs, digital technology is changing the way we farm. Cows are milked in robotic dairies. Drones are herding and surveying cattle from the skies. Self-driving machines are steering across Queensland’s fields, tending crops and baling cotton.

I worked with Eva Ruggiero and Tammy Morley of the State Library’s Regional and Public Libraries Team to devise a game which explored robotics in agriculture.

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