Archive for Personal

New home :)

So, here is me coming out about my new (professional) home… just this week I joined the Communications and New Media Programme at the National University of Singapore. Those who care to read this blog will know that I came to Singapore about 2 years ago, with a visiting appointment at the School of Information Systems of Singapore Management University. The time at SMU was great, intensive and very productive. It helped me launch the CC-Monitor project and make a few contributions to the research and practice of commons-based peer production.

Given that I quite liked Singapore and needed to find a more long-term home for my work with a good fit with my research interests I came in touch with the folks at CNM, then one thing led to another, and now I’m sitting at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, my new home away from home. It’s quite a change, to be sure, and my roots are still in CS/IS, but as the Internet becomes increasingly “social”, getting more involved with the social sciences feels like a natural progression. CNM in particular is a unique place that blends computer science and the social sciences in its mission to promote the study and development of communications and new media. 

I could go on and on about all the interesting new possibilities that this move is opening up, but I will leave it at that for now and move on to more news… this blog hasn’t seen updates in a while and there’s a lot to share…

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Taste of Asia

It’s been quite a while that I haven’t posted anything on this blog and many things have happened since. Starting from the lighter side of life, here’s two pictures I thought I should share, a small sample of the beauty of this part of the world:

Borobudur, Java, Indonesia

And for more glitz and glam:

Temple of the Emerald Buddha, Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand

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Weirdness extraordinaire

Today I saw The Piano Tuner of Earthquakes, by the Quay brothers. What an odd film that was, but some of the images were haunting and will probably stay with me for a while… most people who will watch this movie will hate it, no doubt, but I didn’t. I just find that it got too full of itself and became tiring, though it was refreshing to see something other than your bread and butter and ultimately forgettable Hollywood films.

Those who know and love the work of the Quay brothers will want to watch this film anyhow, but to those not familiar with the unique visual style of this work I would suggest one of their shorts instead: The Street of Crocodiles is considered to be their masterpiece, but my favorite is probably The Comb. If you’re a fan of art and what some would call an ‘adventurous’ movie-goer, do yourself a favor and find these two shorts (there is a DVD collection of Quay shorts). You may hate them all, but you may discover an entirely new world of poetry on celluloid.

The Comb

I’m not that good with words, so I won’t try to explain just what a Quay film is like. If you do get to watch one though, you’ll know why I hesitate. And if you have read and enjoyed surrealist poetry, I’m pretty sure you’ll find something in the Quay universe that will speak to you, even if it is in a language you do not fully understand.

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Yours truly

I just found out recently that Dominik Chen took a picture of me presenting at the iSummit and posted it on Flickr. Thanks Dominik! It’s nice to have this memory from an awesome event neatly captured in bits and bytes. I’m shamelessly reposting here because I think it’s actually a pretty good picture, don’t you think so? :)

iSummit presentation

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