Another example of language = power

Rolling Stone magazine's expose on the U.S. Army "ordering a team of soldiers specializing in 'psychological operations' to manipulate visiting American senators into providing more troops and funding for the (Afghanistan) war."

AR games blending with film

This Ogmento piece is funded by Paramount Digital Entertainment, with what appears to be a large budget, or at least a film quality trailer:

Paranormal Activity: Sanctuary from Ogmento on Vimeo.

Portland Center Stage - March 2

Portland Center Stage is the largest professional theater company in the area. Our class will meet there for "Futura," a world premiere production about typography, an experience that substitutes for the campus class that night. Attendance will be taken. Other information about this particular extension of the classroom is here. And here.

Directions to the theater are here. Basically, if you park near the downtown Portland Powell's, you easily can walk to the theater. I always park in the Whole Foods parking garage, just past Powell's, a couple of blocks into the Pearl District. You will need to provide your own transportation, or carpool, and pay for parking.

Any other questions about this experience?

Whopper freakout commercial

This web ad simulates "research," sort of ...



Domino's Pizza web ad takes the transparency theme a step further, sort of ...



The follow-up with customers:

2011 WSU Vancouver Research Showcase website

Has just been launched. The site is here.

Lots of important information there to explore, including the deadline for the abstract submissions: 5 p.m. March 2.

The showcase is 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 14.

Abstract submission link is here

There are a couple of summaries here about abstract writing, and the submission guidelines

Any questions, please let me know ...

What is a "peer-reviewed" scholarly journal? What is APA style?

For those who are confused about the "peer-reviewed" designation, here is a brief summary on the distinction from Cal-Poly's Robert E. Kennedy Library that could be helpful.

Here is a helpful chart and more description, from the University of Maryland

What is APA (American Psychological Association) style? The most common citation style in journals in the social sciences. Here is a helpful resource site from Purdue's Online Writing Lab.

Any specific questions, please let me know. ...

Futura update

Your wish has been granted, Aaron Draplin will talk after the Futura performance on March 2:

Here is the press release:

"Futura Bold - Typography's Underdog That Will Never Let You Down, with Aaron Draplin, March 2nd following the 7:30pm performance - FREE.

Join Aaron as he riffs on the ubiquity of Futura Bold, and how its time-tested legibility and pure functionality reduced it down to the font of instruction manuals and throw away items. And that's why he loves it. Futura got the job done time and time again, overlooked by flashier fonts and forms.

Bio: Located in the mighty Pacific Northwest, the Draplin Design Co. proudly rolls up its sleeves on a number of projects related to the Print, Identity, Web Development, Illustration and Gocco Muscle categories. We make stuff for Coal Headwear, Union Binding Co., Richmond Fontaine, Field Notes, Esquire, Nike, Wired, Timberline, Chunklet, Incase, Giro, Cobra Dogs, Burton Snowboards, Hughes Entertainment, MTV, Chuck Prophet and even the Obama Administration, if you can believe that. We pride ourselves on a high level of craftsmanship and quality that keeps us up late into the wet Portland night."

Examples of everyday mainstream research (and its flaws)

Smart phones foster dumb habits among pedestrians

This piece was published in a variety of places, via the Associated Press

World's most livable city is: Vancouver (B.C.)

According to Reuters and the Economic Intelligence Unit

World's least livable city is: Harare, Zimbabwe
According to Reuters and the Economic Intelligence Unit

Vancouver (WA!): One of the nation's most romantic cities?

Columbian story on romance rating of Vancouver

Washington: The most "blackest" name in America?

Associated Press article, using census data and reporting

"Best-value" colleges, according to The Princeton Review:

In a partnership with USA Today

What do college rankings really tell us?

"The Order of Things," by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker. (This is a subscription-only article in The New Yorker, so I will bring a copy of the full article to class for those who don't have a subscription).

Books of the future ... are here

This is just the beginning, I think, of what "books" can do with new technologies:

Research tools

I recommend starting your research with Google Scholar. Be sure to change your scholar preferences, and add the WSU library system, to get direct access to pdfs of the articles.

Google Scholar also allows importing citations directly into a bibliographic manager, such as EndNote, which is what I use.

A great open source option for that is Zotero, but Zotero imports citations directly in the browser, as opposed to through Google Scholar.

My research site on mobile is: mobilestorytelling.net

Hope that helps!

Super Bowl commercials worth examining

Groupon



Budweiser "Wild West"



Best Buy "Buy Back"



Chevy "Facebook car"



NFL fans



Chrysler

Merry / Happy Groundhog Day!

"No shadow, spring is near!"

Oh, wait, Punxsutawney Phil only has been right 39 percent of the time in his predictions, according to the National Climatic Data Center.

Well, at least all of this fuss isn't about a marmot.

Oh, wait, Alaska ...