The experience of storms, TEDxPerth and Wordnik and Ada Lovelace Day!
So yesterday's storm was an interesting experience for me, as in... it didn't stand out. Being that I've spent several years in both Darwin and in Noosa, north of Brisbane... storms like the one yesterday weren't unusual. (With the possible exception of the hail.) It took me quite a while to realise that storms like that aren't common to this area of WA... and the buildings and drainage aren't equipped to deal with it by any means. In Darwin rainfall like yesterdays is almost a daily experience - though the wind factor only kicks in to that degree around the advent of a cyclone.
As far as damage and such goes, we escaped unscathed at home and K reported only minor flooding at Rebal Empire HQ, alas many others are not so fortunate, of which I am sorry to hear. However, given that I'm unemployed at present and thus have time aside from studying, if you'd like some help cleaning etc let me know and we'll organise something.
Last night being all stormy didn't put me off heading out to SciTech for the March TEDxPerth event. If you haven't lost a few hours to TED.com go and have a look. TEDx is a project launched by the organisation where groups of people in different locations can get together and watch the talks, discuss them and enjoy being inspired and networking with others who are also interested in what people are doing in the world to make a difference... somewhere, somehow in small, large and significant ways. I love TED. Lots.
It was my first foray to the Perth TEDx event, and I *loved* it. It was really well organised and facilitated, the talks selected for viewing were interesting to the group and prompted some great discussions. I even facilitated a discussion in the second half of the night! That particular discussion session was prompted by an empty whiteboard divided up into sections. People in the group were invited to nominate a topic they'd like to facilitate a discussion on... and so I did. My discussion was looking at what it *really* means to engage with people, to communicate and connect with people outside of our usual comfort zones. Those those who participated seemed to get stuff out of it - I know I did and the range of opinions and experiences was fantastic. I truly cannot wait till next time! :)
This next section is hereby marked for the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day! Yay!
So tonight (instead of listening to a lecture), I was revisiting one of my favourite TED talks given by Erin McKean who is an awesome lexicographer. In 2007 she delivered a talk about 'redefining the dictionary'. She explained that as a lexicographer she was less interested in policing good words vs bad words, and much more interested in fishing for new words. You can see the talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/erin_mckean_redefines_the_dictionary.html
Last year she launched a new organisation called Wordnik. Wordnik is an online, real time and evolving dictionary. It's mission is simply "all the words". Without the constraint of 'good' and 'bad' words, the opportunity for exploring language and how it's used is infinite. It's linked into Twitter and Flickr, you can add comments, and tags and create lists and in various other ways contribute to the overall body of knowledge about the English language and words. Truly my delight for this knows no bounds. I seem to have slipped and fell on new social media :P Check it out here: http://www.wordnik.com
End of Ada Lovelace section :)
In other news, today was a great day at Uni. The lecture covered researching and research skills which I found *really* useful and timely. In the tutorial we actually discussed as a group a few of our project ideas in order to get feedback and suggestions on approach. I have a fairly solid idea of what I'd like to explore, though I'm being lured in by the shiny that is lexicography, web 2.0, and the ethnography of language and words... (Yes, Wordnik really is that shiny.) My original idea was to consider sexuality and the notion of consent, in particular looking at the difference between implicit and explicit consent in negotiating sexual boundaries. Both are interesting, both are totally doable inside of the brief which requires us to explore and research 'the everyday' and produce a research project. I've already got a whole lot of reference material for my original idea, which makes it very attractive to stick to. But I may hang onto the words and language and social media idea for something else later.
I really am revelling in uni, though given I haven't yet found a new contract I may yet have to revert to completely external - thereby freeing me up to do full time work. However, this is exactly the situation I wanted so desperately to avoid, full time study and work. Not sure how I'll solve this but I am trusting in my ruthless determination in *making* things work. Somehow. Job hunting has at least been more promising this week.
ETA: link, grammar correction and mark out Ada Lovelace section.
As far as damage and such goes, we escaped unscathed at home and K reported only minor flooding at Rebal Empire HQ, alas many others are not so fortunate, of which I am sorry to hear. However, given that I'm unemployed at present and thus have time aside from studying, if you'd like some help cleaning etc let me know and we'll organise something.
Last night being all stormy didn't put me off heading out to SciTech for the March TEDxPerth event. If you haven't lost a few hours to TED.com go and have a look. TEDx is a project launched by the organisation where groups of people in different locations can get together and watch the talks, discuss them and enjoy being inspired and networking with others who are also interested in what people are doing in the world to make a difference... somewhere, somehow in small, large and significant ways. I love TED. Lots.
It was my first foray to the Perth TEDx event, and I *loved* it. It was really well organised and facilitated, the talks selected for viewing were interesting to the group and prompted some great discussions. I even facilitated a discussion in the second half of the night! That particular discussion session was prompted by an empty whiteboard divided up into sections. People in the group were invited to nominate a topic they'd like to facilitate a discussion on... and so I did. My discussion was looking at what it *really* means to engage with people, to communicate and connect with people outside of our usual comfort zones. Those those who participated seemed to get stuff out of it - I know I did and the range of opinions and experiences was fantastic. I truly cannot wait till next time! :)
This next section is hereby marked for the celebration of Ada Lovelace Day! Yay!
So tonight (instead of listening to a lecture), I was revisiting one of my favourite TED talks given by Erin McKean who is an awesome lexicographer. In 2007 she delivered a talk about 'redefining the dictionary'. She explained that as a lexicographer she was less interested in policing good words vs bad words, and much more interested in fishing for new words. You can see the talk here: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/erin_mckean_redefines_the_dictionary.html
Last year she launched a new organisation called Wordnik. Wordnik is an online, real time and evolving dictionary. It's mission is simply "all the words". Without the constraint of 'good' and 'bad' words, the opportunity for exploring language and how it's used is infinite. It's linked into Twitter and Flickr, you can add comments, and tags and create lists and in various other ways contribute to the overall body of knowledge about the English language and words. Truly my delight for this knows no bounds. I seem to have slipped and fell on new social media :P Check it out here: http://www.wordnik.com
End of Ada Lovelace section :)
In other news, today was a great day at Uni. The lecture covered researching and research skills which I found *really* useful and timely. In the tutorial we actually discussed as a group a few of our project ideas in order to get feedback and suggestions on approach. I have a fairly solid idea of what I'd like to explore, though I'm being lured in by the shiny that is lexicography, web 2.0, and the ethnography of language and words... (Yes, Wordnik really is that shiny.) My original idea was to consider sexuality and the notion of consent, in particular looking at the difference between implicit and explicit consent in negotiating sexual boundaries. Both are interesting, both are totally doable inside of the brief which requires us to explore and research 'the everyday' and produce a research project. I've already got a whole lot of reference material for my original idea, which makes it very attractive to stick to. But I may hang onto the words and language and social media idea for something else later.
I really am revelling in uni, though given I haven't yet found a new contract I may yet have to revert to completely external - thereby freeing me up to do full time work. However, this is exactly the situation I wanted so desperately to avoid, full time study and work. Not sure how I'll solve this but I am trusting in my ruthless determination in *making* things work. Somehow. Job hunting has at least been more promising this week.
ETA: link, grammar correction and mark out Ada Lovelace section.