So I finally got my developers sandbox account for Google Wave! …Only problem is that the sandbox accounts (username@wavesandbox.com) are apparently different than the preview accounts (username@googlewave.com), and they don’t connect yet, so it won’t let me find or chat with the only people I know who have accounts. :) Anyway, I’ve been spending last night and today trying to figure out how to embed waves into WordPress, so I can experiment with the liveblogging that I mentioned in my last post. It took awhile just to figure out how to add robots like Bloggy or WP-Bot so...

First of all, if you haven’t seen it already, go to wave.google.com and view the 80 minute demonstration video. Go ahead, I’ll wait. I’ll even let you go sign up for the service, because I know you want to! Or, if you’re impatient and don’t feel like siting through 1.3 hours of cool demonstrations, at least check out from about minute 19 to 22, which is what I’m going to be talking about. So you can see how Google Wave is going to completely change communication, right? Not just the tools that we use to communicate, or subtle changes such as character-by-character...

…on Tall Tale Radio. Tom Racine was kind enough to contact me about being interviewed for my ArtBloom project for his podcast series on art and cartooning. I won’t go into detail right now about ArtBloom and the philosophy behind it, since we get into it during the interview. But visit Tall Tale Features to hear more, or you can listen to the interview below. I hope I didn’t sound too out there. Sometimes I can get pretty thearetical. :P Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to...

I had never heard of Clay Shirky before I saw this talk on TED, but I am definitely going to pay attention now. He talks at first about the difference between one-to-many or one-to-one communication that we’ve had in the past (print, telephones, recorded media) vs. the many-to-many model we have now (with Twitter, the web, etc.). He goes on to analyze how organizations or countries that try to censor and control such citizen-powered communication end up failing miserably (i.e. China), whereas organizations that “convene but do not control” their citizens succeed spectacularly...

This talk by Elizabeth Gilbert really spoke to me. As an aspiring artist who wishes I could find and focus my inspiration, I often blame myself for not being productive enough. I wonder what’s wrong with me when I don’t feel that driving and unstoppable need to create, like so many other artists seem to feel. According to Gilbert, maybe the problem is that I haven’t found my genius yet. I have to say…the idea that there is some unknowable spirit out there that helps drive creativity is quite comforting, much like finding religion in the face of death. But at a primal level,...

I heard an interesting story on NPR today about a fan-made film called “The Hunt for Gollum.” The short HD film is a prequel to “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy, and follows Aragorn (Adrian Webster, pictured) as he goes on a hunt for the creature known as Gollum. It is the result of the efforts of 150 unpaid volunteers, all movie enthusiasts and professionals, who cast uncanny look-alikes in the crucial roles…painstakingly recreated detailed costumes…and shot on location in the rocky landscape of North Wales. Overall, it is an immensely impressive effort. The...