“A Dunkin’ Donuts worker stopped a thief in his tracks so he would look good on YouTube.” (Foucault’s panopticon anyone?)

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Series on Digital Media and Learning is now out in the world, freely available as a series of PDFs!

“”w00t,” an expression of joy coined by online gamers, was crowned word of the year on Tuesday by the publisher of a leading US dictionary. Massachusetts-based Merriam-Webster said “w00t”, typically spelled with two zeros…”

Customised version of Google specifically searching open-licensed music and sound samples.

Some useful tips for all undergraduates (and lots of other people) on how to write a solid, convincing university-level essay or paper.

Predicts that the WGA strike in the US will lead US downloaders to download a lot more European TV, broadening the use of BitTorrent overall!

Detailed bibliography of research on web 2.0 and education.

Composing and Compositing: Integrated Digital Writing and Academic Pedagogy – Jamie ‘Skye’ Bianco; Reinventing the Possibilities: Academic Literacy and New Media – Cheryl Ball & Ryan Moeller; The Digital, the Virtual and the Naming of Knowledge…

“Facebook has just updated their statuses so that “is” can be removed. The word “is” has finally become a throwback. Not much to announce except that it has been removed.”

Apparently Australia is second only to North America for internet penetration and use.

THE Chaser is off TV. The controversial troupe will instead do live stage shows around Australia. The boys have apparently ruled out a television show in the first half of next year, opting instead to take a live version of their antics across the nation.

You can now edit Flickr photos with one click of the ‘Edit Photo’ button. Flickr has partnered with Picnik, and now provides a host of online editing and manipulation tools for photos. (Although some need a premium paid Picnik account to work.)

Very useful set of tools!

“Talking about digital natives and digital immigrants tends to exagerate the gaps between adults, seen as fumbling and hopelessly out of touch, and youth, seen as masterful. It invites us to see contemporary youth as feral, cut off from all adult influenc

“Australians now have so many online identities that we risk a kind of multiple virtual personality disorder, a leading clinical psychologist says. The average Australian has up to 10 virtual identities – and more than 40 per cent of us lie about …”

“… a new world where we make “friends” with people we barely know, scrawl messages on each other’s walls and project our identities using totem-like visual symbols. We’re making up the rules as we go. But is this world as new as it seems?”

boyd’s law: “Adding more users to a social network [site] increases the probability that it will put you in an awkward social circumstance.”

“Symantec’s Identity Survey, conducted by Woolcott Research, found Australians typically had more than 10 virtual identities. They included profiles on sites like MySpace and YouTube, email accounts, game avatars and characters in virtual worlds.”

“A survey of almost 30,000 young Australians has found body image is the biggest concern for males and females. About a third of the respondents listed it as a worry, ahead of family conflict and stress.”

Cory Doctorow describes how Facebook and other social networks have built-in self-destructs: They make it easy for you to be found by the people you’re looking to avoid.

“We made this 3 minute video for people who wonder why blogs are such a big deal. If you’re a blogger who wants people to understand why you have a blog and how it works, this video is for you.”

The terrible story of how Lori Drew cyberstalked her neighbour’s daughter, messed with her mind, and caused the young girl’s suicide.

“From MySpace to YouTube, Flickr and Last.FM, an online participatory culture is transforming value systems and creating new pathways for autonomous innovation. In this so-called Web 2.0 phenomenon, social networks continue to …”

“The video-sharing website YouTube has suspended the account of a prominent Egyptian anti-torture activist who posted videos of what he said was brutal behaviour by some Egyptian policemen, the activist said.”

“… researchers organised by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, show a 50 per cent increase in the number of kids aged 10 to 17 who said they were harassed online – from 6 per cent in 2000 to 9 per cent in 2005.”

Instructions for Mac.

And Handbrake itself (Windows/Linux/Mac DVD to MP4 OS programme) is here.

“These two videos show Peter Krapp explaining some of his “Top Ten Reasons I Don’t Blog Anymore.” Although Krapp was at first reluctant to discuss his role in breaking the story about the Derrida-UCI archive scandal…”

“The great breast-feeding debate raged on Tuesday, after YouTube’s removal of a breast-feeding video sparked yet another nursing controversy, according to a mothers’ group.” [Via]

Alex Halavais gives some useful advice on applying for academic jobs.

“What would happen if the Oscar winning writer-director of feel good dramas like As Good As It Gets, Terms of Endearment and Spanglish had directed Fight Club instead of David Fincher?” Nifty little trailer mashup! 🙂

“A new [US] study by the Pew Research Study shows that viewers of the Daily Show and the Colbert Report have the highest knowledge of national and international affairs, while Fox News viewers rank nearly dead last”

“The [Australian] free-to-air television industry has declared war on ad-skipping personal video recorders as it prepares to release a free electronic program guide for the first time. Despite releasing the guide, the industry is pressuring PVR makers…”