Virtual STA Travel

Well it looks like STA Travel have joined the virtual community of Second Life. I prefer travelling in my 'real' life personally, but I guess the company see it as a way to promote themselves to tertiary students who might be considering travel after their studies or during the breaks.

Not certain I know what the intended meaning of the image below, but I do find is quite unsettling on a number of levels - is Uncle Sam taking over Sydney?

Little Mosque on the Prairie

The other night we found episodes of this Canadian sitcom on YouTube. After watching the pilot, we ended up staying up for hours watching the entire series.

Little Mosque on the Prairie had mixed reviews after its release in January 2007, but for my money it is a smart and witty look at the social, relgious and cultural challenges for Muslims and non Muslims in the post September 11 world.

The Foreign Policy Passport blog hopes that each episode's "dose of laughs" succeeds in demystifying Muslims while Dr Blogstein argues that, if shown in the US, it could do for Islamic Americans what the Cosby Show did for African-Americans in the 80s.

Personally, I can't wait to see series two due to be aired in Canada this fall.

Piet

If you are interested in work that traverses and questions notions of art, programming and science, check out this web site. 'Piet' by David Morgan (see
http://www.dangermouse.net/esoteric/piet/samples.html) is a (functional if
limited) programming language, written in graphical blocks - so that the programme to print out 'Hello World' can look like a work by Mondrian.

Escape from Woomera

This week in the lecture we had a brief look at 'Escape from Woomera', a contraversal game, funded by the Australia Council in 2003.

The web site states: The Game is the ultimate piece of art, capable of incorporating all forms of art and expression known to humanity, expressed using all forms of technology, from the ancient to the bleeding edge, without compromising its identity as a game. - zerogame manifesto