Academic components of peduncle

This project aims to create an interactive real-world based game or platform, visualising complex data onto a stylised, simplified digital twin earth, in order to facilitate insight into how to take action in an uncertain world, at the end of expertise, through an ethic of care and curiosity. It is aimed at grassroots, everyday people and their engagement with data and knowledge, in a visual, 3D, gamified way.

Perpetually in draft and evolving, of course.

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Connected data, connected people

In my previous post about the end of expertise, I made the point that the root concerns of conspiracy theorists are valid. The suspicion and mistrust of powerful players are valid. That, if governments and corporations are not going to make the actual shift then we need to make that shift. Everyday people must make that shift.

Here I want to add some comments about the role of structured data in making it easier to access relevant evidence, or supporting insights, and hence, maintaining accountability.

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Earth sciences and the metaverse

I don’t know why it took me as long as it did to figure out that it’s not really the geospatial layer per se I am interested in, but the multitudes of earth science layers on top of that. Doh. Geospatial is, to my mind, attempting to use technology to see what various aspects of the world looks like, but it’s a bit static. It looks at what is. I want to see what moves, and how they play together, what changes. My current thinking is maybe this is called earth sciences? This means I must revisit everything! Which is fine, I was so stuck that this will be inspiring. 🙂

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World-building the real world. Part 1: The (personal) WHY.

This post was inspired by Christoff Beddow’s post “From Map Making to World Building

The Snügl from peduncle.
Logo, and mascot.

I’ve been wracking my brain how to combat misinformation, how to get people to understand the incredibly (even to professionals) complex interplay of natural resource management, guiding people to take responsible action in the face of climate change, true sustainability, … I acknowledge, accept and embrace that it takes time. We need to complicate the narrative, give people time to play with the data in a way that is accessible, engaging, fun. But how?! I think 3D is critical, there is just too much to convey on a single plane. My short hand for what I want to create is the metaverse. Our working project name is peduncle, and Siri made a beautiful logo for it!

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Is LaTeX worth learning?

I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about learning LaTeX (or any of its brethren like Overleaf or Lyx) for ages now. I like the markup approach, but it is not user friendly. The latex jokes are tired. And ye gods I hate that font, first thing I learnt to change. For the purpose of this post I lump the ‘prettier’ helpers like Lyx, Overleaf, TeXStudio, KILE with LaTeX. From a websearch, the most promising potential alternatives are Scribus and SILE. And there is the option to fall back on LibreOffice Writer …. So, is LaTeX worth it?

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Art-Science Initiatives in Scandinavia

I’m planning a three month (give or take) residency in Scandinavia – Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark. It needs to be in winter because I’m still obsessed with the northern lights and other phenomena (check it out: http://spaceweather.com/). And yes, also, because maybe I want to leave SA. Who doesn’t, at this point? And if I go, I need to know I can survive the winter. I’m also seriously considering buying a place in Hopefield, because, animals, space… so not that serious about leaving SA. Maybe a halfies halfies thing, at best.

While there I have to make myself useful, and because I’m on this game thing at the moment, connecting with art-science initiatives like geospatial art is a great way to make networks, get inspired and maybe start a North-South collaboration that could result in something like the Eden Project in SA, or ‘Skills on a Train‘ vocational training or … in short, have fun. This page is researching what is out there – including funding to get me there.

To do: ask Thomas Niederoest and Hadley Arnold. And keep an eye on the DIYBio stuff. urban interventions – natalie jeremijenko?

While open-ended, I’m particularly interested in information design, biotechnology (in the DIYBio sense), geospatial, urban interventions and urban resource flows. Lower priority areas include animatronics, biomimicry, entertainment. I would prefer working with independent organisations rather than academic institutions, and open-source mindsets.

I guess I could just go to a well functioning hacker space with my own projects and then just see what emerges. I just realised though, that I want to be beyond the arctic circle (latitude 66.5), and the stuff seems to happen on the 60th latitude (Oslo 59.95, Helsinki 60.17, Stockholm 59.32, and Copenhagen 55.67, by the way, via Wiki). (ha! I thought, why not do a symmetrical collaboration, but Cape Town is a measly -34 degrees latitude. So not an easy marketing move)

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Refining the game idea at DebConf19

The slide presentation using reveal.js for my talk is here: https://indiebio.co.za/slides/DebConf19_Bernelle_Verster_20jul19.html#
The video recording of the talk (30 minutes) is available on the DebConf website: https://debconf19.debconf.org/talks/111-the-metaverse-gaming-and-the-metabolism-of-cities/

After the talk I thought more about the privacy issue, and remembered a slightly different version of what I planned to do, that I revisit here. I think this is more achievable to start with, and possibly more elegant.

The complete setup of the game is like a macaron.

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SAGTA presentation: The metaverse, gaming and the metabolism of cities; Building connection across boundaries

IN DRAFT

This talk was given at the South African Geography Teachers Conference (SAGTA) in Pretoria on 21 June 2019. The talk was well received and I found useful resources related to GIS. I hope to pilot a version of the game, or at least the data gathering and interpretation in a school project which would help update the geography curriculum too.

The presentation is in html and can be found here (link to follow) or downloaded in pdf here (link to follow).

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