Classic book to tv animation

I missed the lead up to this one. The BBC has made a Bottersnikes & Gumbles tv series. I read all of S.A. Wakefield’s books, and have a paperback copy of the first – “Bottersnikes and Gumbles”.

Bottersnikes and Gumbles are fictitious creatures in a series of children's books by Australian author S.A. Wakefield and illustrator Desmond Digby (who died in April this year, Wakefield died in 2009). Four books were published between 1967 and 1989. The series is a classic of Australian children's literature.

Deep in the bush live some very strange creatures ...

Bottersnikes live in rubbish heaps along dusty roadsides in the lonely Australian bush. They have green wrinkly skin, cheese grater noses and long, pointed ears that go red when they are angry. Which is most of the time.

Giggling Gumbles live in the bush, too. They are cheerful little creatures who can be squashed into all sorts of shapes, but cannot pop back into their proper shape unless helped. This makes the friendly Gumbles useful to the lazy Bottersnikes, who have some very nasty plans ...

The Bottersnikes may have some tricks up their sleeves, but so do the resourceful Gumbles.
The battle has begun!

The Bottersnike King & Gumble Tink

The animated tv series is by the BBC (yes British not Australian) and the Seven Network and has it’s own webpage with videos, the character bios, and an ‘About’ page which includes a ‘making of’ clip.

The major difference in the animated series from the books is that while the stories recounted conflicts between the lazy, destructive Bottersnikes and good-natured, hardworking Gumbles. The two species were intended to represent opposing attitudes towards the environment; those who destroy the bush, and those who clean it up, this is missing from the new stories. Inspiration for the original stories came from the emerging environmental movement in the 1970s.

Chank the sneaky 2-I-C to the King

Read the complete adventures of the Bottersnikes & Gumbles, and watch the premiere on 7Two on 22nd December at 7:30am.

The highs & lows

A little ancedote from lunchtime today,  
I was out in 30+ degrees (today 36 max, Thursday 38, Friday 40 and Saturday 43 degrees) purchasing a rain gauge, and then buying lunch.

Four people made comment on the gauge

• 2 liked the look
• 2 asked where I had bought it (was the last in stock!)
• 1 told me I was wasting my money it isn't going to rain
• 1 that I was being over optimistic

So maybe I'm optimistic as it can record up to 250mm (that's nearly ten inches - should be enough)

Identifying Adobe

I've neglected the 23 Things for a while, so to rectify things, here is Thing 15 - Adobe ID. Your Adobe ID is for using Adobe products such as Adobe Digital Editions and Photoshop.
The Discover task was to get an Adobe ID or Bluefire Reader. We need Adobe Digital Editions for Bolinda's eBooks when you are downloading it to a computer or laptop. 

The Explorer tasks were to investigate

• Project Gutenberg (where I had downloaded my classic eBooks - Sherlock Holmes, 1984, For the term of his natural life, and so on)
• The website list of options for locating free ePUB books (which was huge, and included things like the original 1892 edition of Mother Goose) 

Mother Goose's 'There was a crooked man'

 The Thinking Points wanted you to ponder

• if you provide information to guide your library clients in downloading eBooks and reader apps? We provide a link to Abobe Digital Editions, User Guides for both our eBooks and eAudios, and a Troubleshooting Guide for eBooks
• the user experience downloading eBooks in comparison to other library experiences - where I feel we are more at the whim of the vendors of eproducts than other collections, and must provide it as they require

The Adobe Digital Editions' "Alice" with Arthur Rackham's illustrations

Vintage now & thens

I've seen copies of these on a number of sites, but this is from WebUrbanist, 10 Vintage London Paintings Superimposed on Street View Images

Blending fiction and reality, art and history, this series of super-impositions takes the ‘then-and-now’ imagery all the back to the 18th Century to the streets and rivers of England’s capital city. Most of the added classics (spliced with Google Street View shots) are largely unedited, a few are strategically cropped but many show a naturally stark contrast in colours, tones, lighting, and of course: street life.

These hybrids show historical structures in their built environments like ‘St. Martin in the Fields’ painting by William Logsdail in 1888, of a little Victorian girl selling flowers in Trafalgar Square in London. There has been a church on the site for at least 800 years.

And another Logsdail ‘9th of November, 1888’ by William Logsdail of the Lord Mayor’s parade passing through Bank Junction in London. To the left is the Old Bank of England (the building was demolished 50 years after the painting was done). The 9th was also more famous for the crime on the very day of this parade – Mary Kelly’s murder, the last Jack The Ripper’s victims, took place less than a mile away in Whitechapel.

'Blackman Street London' by John Atkinson Grimshaw in 1885. The church is St. George The Martyr, this is the Church next to the notorious Marshalsea prison where Dickens' Little Dorrit is born. The Brough Street Market in Southwark is south of the River Thames and one of the oldest fruit and vegetable markets. It was an area also famous for its inns, like The George, which still survives. Today, Blackman Street is called Borough High Street and offers a view of the Shard – the biggest spire you'll see looking north-east.

'The River Thames with St. Paul's Cathedral on Lord Mayor's Day' by Canaletto.The Millenium Bridge cuts across this patch of the river now. You still get a great view of St. Pauls dome from the south side of the river but in 1746 - only 40 years since they had finished building it - it must have totally dominated London's skyline. St Paul’s was the city's tallest building for over 300 years. Giovanni Antonio Canal (known as Canaletto) was a Venetian painter remembered for his renditions of building landscapes in Venice & England.

'The Strand Looking East from Exeter Exchange' by Caleb Robert Stanley.The Strand has changed massively since this painting of St Mary Le Strand. It was half demolished and widened in 1900 removing all the alleyways and narrow residential roads. The church is a replacement for another one demolished to make way for Somerset House. In 1822 all the roads on the right would have still led right down into the Thames before the embankment was constructed. Most of those buildings are gone, but some of the roads remain and retain their slope down towards the old Thames riverbank. 

These images are a logical extension of the ‘now & then’ photo concept, and I believe have been improved by imposing the old masters over them.

Lighthouses and libraries

Hornby

Scanning the scholarly Library Journal - as you should - and was struck by the article "The history of lighthouses" by Alex Byrne in the special 50:50 by 2020 issue.
Alex uses the analogy that libraries like lighthouses have an equally long and important history, and reveals the similarities.
As lighthouses shifted from manned to automated (Maatsuyker Island was the last in 1995), so too libraries have moved from print to electronic.
Alex finishes with "Libraries & librarians will continue to respond to their communities, subtly, continually and sometimes dramatically re-imagining their services. (true enough) We continue to be beacons of knowledge, but, unlike lighthouses, we will not become silent outposts of technology blinking hopefully out to sea."

Macquarie

Barrenjoey

I take some umbrage on behalf of the silent outposts - they will come into their own when an EMP burst takes out all the satellite guidance GPSs and we welcome trusty old clockwork.
Maybe like lighthouses libraries are solidly built to withstand all that can be thrown at it, and to see us through the passage of time.
Alex included a fact I didn't know - lighthouses are covered in the Australian Constitution 'the Commonwealth has the power to make laws for the peace, order and good government with respect to lighthouses', transferring them from the states.
I've included a number photos of the classic-style Sydney lighthouses (Alex is the NSW State Librarian).

Colouring with personality

Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers teamed up in ‘The day the crayons quit’ to create a colourful solution to a crayon-based crisis in a playful, imaginative story that had both children and adults laughing and playing with their crayons in a whole new way. 

Poor Duncan just wants to colour in. But when he opens his box of crayons, he only finds letters, all saying the same thing: We quit! Beige is tired of playing second fiddle to Brown, Blue needs a break from colouring in all that water, while Pink just wants to be used. Green has no complaints, but Orange and Yellow are no longer speaking to each other. The battle lines have been drawn. What is Duncan to do?

Time passes and we ask ourselves, could these guys repeat the trick and provide us with a witty sequel?

Along came ‘The day the crayons came home’. This time the crayons are back and they're crosser than ever! One day Duncan receives a set of postcards from his crayons who have been lost, forgotten, broken - even melted in a clothes dryer and stuck to a pair of underpants! There are recurring postcards from Pea Green (aka Esteban), who dreams of traveling, and clueless directionally challenged Neon Red crayon who is trying to get home. 
So in the end, both books have a hilarious text and joyful illustrations that combine to show that crayons have feelings too.

Curating online

 This 14th Thing is looking at 'online curation', using tools like Pinterest and Tumblr. How institutions and  the public can use various websites and tools to curate collections around their chosen topics and, using mobile apps, do this anytime and anywhere.
Pinterest allows users to create virtual pinboards of images and videos according to their interests. The library's Pinterest board features local images with a history emphasis.

Tumblr allows users to post multimedia and other content to a short-form blog, littered with hashtags.Tumblr's visual appeal has made it ideal for photoblogs that often include copyrighted works from others that are re-published without payment Tumblr users can post unoriginal content by 'reblogging', a feature on Tumblr that allows users to re-post content taken from another blog onto their own blog. 

The dashboard allows the user to upload text posts, images, video, quotes, or links to their blog with a click of a button displayed at the top of the dashboard. 

One of the Tumblr 'Discover' tasks was This is What a Librarian Looks Like that has the tagline “challenging the librarian stereotype one post at a time” which appears to cover the whole gambit of expression.


Must admit that it frustrates me that with some Tumblr images, you can't track back to where some photos originate from.

Which is why I feel that Pinterest has it over Tumblr when comes to organisation and descriptive curation.

Sketching Australia

A new book was added to the collection just in time for the S.T. Gill exhibition at the State Library of Victoria.

The book is "S.T. Gill & his audiences" by Sasha Grishin, has been jointly published by the National Library and State Library.

The cover of the book is a depiction of Gill's 'Doing the Block'

The Block, on fashionable Collins Street, was a stylish shopping strip in the 1880s. It was also a famous spot for promenading and people-watching, an activity known as 'doing the Block'. He completed this lively painting three months before his death at the age of 62, when he died a pauper on the steps of the Post Office.

Samuel Thomas Gill, or STG as he was universally known, was Australia's most significant and popular artist of the mid-nineteenth century. For his contemporaries he epitomised 'Marvellous Melbourne' basking in the glow of the gold rushes. He worked in South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales and left some of the most memorable images of urban and rural life in colonial Australia. A passionate defender of Indigenous Australians and of the environment, Gill in his art celebrated the emerging quintessential Australian character. This is the first major comprehensive book to be devoted to Gill and presents a radical reassessment of one of the most important figures in Australian colonial art and reproduces, in some instances for the first time, some of the most startling images from nineteenth-century Australian art.

The exhibition "Australian sketchbook : colonial life and the art of S.T. Gill" is in the Keith Murdoch Gallery until 25th October. If you can't make it to Melbourne there is also an online version. But it doesn't quite measure up to standing in front of the originals. I had a quite moment in front of his 'The Duff children' 151 years after the event.

And while I was familiar with Gill's goldfield watercolours, I was unaware of the origin of his  'Country NW of tableland' (in fact I normally call it 'Doctor Hunger & Captain Thirst' after the cover of the book which had it as the cover).
Gill made this watercolour drawing in 1846 while on the privately funded Horrocks Expedition (of Horrock's Pass fame) to the South Australian interior. In this sweeping panorama, Gill adopted a well-known strategy from Romanticism by showing two figures, seen from behind, contemplating the vastness of nature and thus drawing the viewer into the scene depicted. The taller figure with the gun is Horrocks, the other with a sketchpad is Gill – one claiming and naming the country in front of him, the other recording it.

 A rare opportunity to see more than 200 of Gill's paintings, drawings, watercolours and prints at the exhibition or in the book.

Online ID

Online Identity, Thing 13
My first response was to do what just about everyone has done online at least once - key in your name and see what comes up.
I did, and my anonymity level soared. The real me didn't feature in the first page of results, even the LinkedIn one was someone else.
I did like that the 'I am Pegasus' film-clip got a guernsey.



Online Identity is a current topic of conservation with regards to the whole cyber safety discussions, so yes, it is important to know how to manage your online identities (professional and personal), and also to be able to advise our clients and communities on how to protect their own privacy online (the Tech Savvy program has a session 'Introduction to Cyber Safety') and working through the eSmart modules will deal with both staff and public safety.
 
It is good that Facebook's settings, including the privacy settings are more transparent now days.

The whole idea of what different organisations know and collect about you was re-enforced the other night as I watched the film version of 1984, so I'll borrow John Pilger's image from 'The war you don't see' to mask my online identity, while I manage privacy versus access.

Pics of the Day

Reminiscing with Twisted Sifter, as they post their best 50 'Pictures of the Day' for 2015.

'Water walkway in Croatia'

One day I'd love to visit the Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia - more than once, to see it in different seasons, (and without the crowds of people!).

From the everyday to the extraordinary, the 50 photos of the day cover the gambit from macro - the galaxy inside a flower, to the world encompassing - astronaut's salute to Mr Spock/Leonard Nimoy.

Then there's opportune - a pirate kite, and the what is that, oh - the Yunnan rice paddy terraces.

Games in the library

Gamification is the use of game thinking and technology in a non-game context in order to engage users and solve problems.
The Explore for Thing 12 - Mobile devices have many recreational and lifestyle uses –Culinary inspiration, Interior design, Gardening and landscaping, and sporting events- have to agree Recipes (and cooking shows) are the big thing.

Children+food+gardening+app=winner

It is a bit of a balancing act between the educational and the purely time-wasters. Need an game app which enjoyably expands your mind. I kid myself that apps like 'Words with friends', 'Flow Free', 'Doodle Find', 'Whirly Words', and 'Mind Puzzle' all fit that bill (but not '4 Pictures 1 Word' at present, it is doing my head in) and are keeping the brain active.

It has already been shown that tablet devices can aid therapy patients.

So what is the best gamification of the Dewey Decimal Classification System?

I did find the "Shelved" app, it says - 'Are you a librarian at heart? Do you have what it takes to work in a library? This game is your test! The point of the game is simple: put the books in order--but any librarian will tell you that's not as simple as it sounds.'
I haven't spent my $1.29 to find out if I have the makings of a librarian.

Related apps included "Escape3D: Library" by Bored.com, "Know the lingo : the app to help you navigate your library" and a whole load of word game.

Really - Thing 11

Thing 11 is Augmented reality. AR is the use of technology to overlay digital information on an image of something being viewed through a device.

I first encountered an AR app in 2012, with the National Trust's ' 'Lost! 100 lost buildings of Melbourne' the Trust's iPhone app. The interactive 3D app enables users to "ghost" - visually overlay buildings from the past onto the present, by augmenting the iPhone's existing camera function. A history, photos and stories of these often long-demolished buildings is also available. 

On the left is the Fire Brigade Tower at the rear of 447 Little Bourke Street, built in 1882, it was the 6-storey lookout tower of Melbourne's first fire station. 

Playing underwater with the AR screen at The Dock library in Melbourne

Then recently on a visit to the new gee-whiz Library at the Dock in Melbourne's Docklands we got to see and play with their interactive screens, including the underwater themed one in the kids section (though the little girl in the green gumboots was the best prepared), and the time-lapse of the development of Docklands (what they are calling the greening of the precinct, as it changes from industrial to shopping and residential).

And finally I came across this YouTube video at Weburbanist on augmented sandbox real-time 3D topographical landscaping.
 

Library related applications of AR, include a LibraryThing “overlay” for the mobile phone app Layar. It draws on LibraryThing Local to show you the closest bookshops and libraries. Then how about "Virtual bay-ends" using the Aurasma platform -Pointing a mobile device at a particular image overlays directional arrows to where that type of resource is located – giving users an initial idea of where to find what they are looking for.

Maybe similar to this?

 Among the Thinking Points, I liked the idea of utilising AR technology to "overlay local history film and audio clips into your local environment using an AR app".

10. Reading socially

Tools to support reading and keeping track of social media, looking at

1. tools to read social media and RSS
2. tools and apps to interact with other readers (Goodreads and LibraryThing are popular options)
3. activities like online book clubs

As I'm still getting over the loss of Google Reader, and yet to find a suitable substitute, I was very interested in this Thing.
I checked out Pulse which aggregates blogs, magazines, social networks and newspapers, but is part of LinkedIn - so no.
I've tried Bloglines (now sadly discontinued), Keeeb and a couple of others, but prompted by the 'Discover' section I'm trialling Feedly which will draws together your RSS feeds, Tumblr blogs and Youtube channels. Building it up, but so far so good.

I followed GoodReads on Twitter - they are the people who filled my timeline with innumerable tweets - now gone.I hadn't followed LibraryThing's Talk, however on checking it out the second thread was "Off Topic: Who wants to talk about their cats (or other pets)?" uurrhh online cat lady, so maybe not.
 And the 'Thinking Point' question: follow blogs etc. in a reader or rely more on Twitter for current information? I'm thinking blogs (not just 'cos this is a blog, but) they have greater scope, and more to perk your interest than a tiny-URL.

A sting in the tale

"After the crash" the first novel by Michel Bussi, has a wonderful premise -

On the night of 22 December 1980, a plane crashes on the Franco-Swiss border and is engulfed in flames. 168 out of 169 passengers are killed instantly. The miraculous sole survivor is a three-month-old baby girl. Two families, one rich, the other poor, step forward to claim her, sparking an investigation that will last for almost two decades. Is she Lyse-Rose or Emilie?
Eighteen years later, having failed to discover the truth, private detective Credule Grand-Duc plans to take his own life, but not before placing an account of his investigation in the girl's hands. But, as he sits at his desk about to pull the trigger, he uncovers a secret that changes everything - then is killed before he can breathe a word of it to anyone...

Winner

Sunrise on Heron Island

What a way to reach 200. I've just logged my 200th geocache.

It was a virtual cache on Heron Island, placed by Bundyrumandcoke. 

What I didn't realise until messaged by Bundy -
"You are a winner. You can now log the oldest unlogged unfound GCA cache in Qld. "
I was the FTF First-To-Find the cache which was the oldest unfound GeoCacheAustralia cache in Queensland, seems that not many cachers make the journey out to Heron.

Pleased to for Bundy who must have been despairing of anyone actually searching for his cache (it had been released back in February 2008).

So if you are holidaying on Heron Island take some time out to do a bit of searching and see if you can find "No, no, don't do it"

End of the day - Heron sunset

 

Eoin for grown-ups

Have loved Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl books (especially when read by Nathaniel Parker), but now comes Eoin's hard-bitten crime series with Dan McEvoy "Plugged" and "Screwed".

In the first of the series "Plugged" we're introduced to Daniel McEvoy a scarred ex-Irish Army sergeant now a bouncer at 'Slotz' - a seedy small-time casino.
Dan has a problem, his favourite hostess at Slotz and love-interest - Connie - has been murdered in the parking lot behind the club. And to complicate things Zeb - his dubious Lebonese plastic surgeon has disappeared.
In no time at all, Dan has half the New Jersey mobsters, some dirty cops and his man-crazy agoraphobic upstairs neighbour after him. 
Bullets are flying, eveyone's on the take and McEvoy still doesn't have a clue what's happening. 
 
By "Screwed", Dan is ready to say goodbye to New Jersy's lawless underground and concentrate on his new life as club owner and bona fide boyfriend...But when Dan is abducted by two bent cops and driven into the Hudson River by a vengefull crime boss, he realises that the New Jersey underworld isn't ready to say goodbye to him.
If Dan is to survive until the grand re-opening of his club, he will have to evade the bad guys on both sides of the law, and find his missing aunt.

Told with head-spinning plot twists and breakneck pacing this is a darker Eoin Colfer. I was reminded of Shane Moloney's Murray Whelan.

Art - more than tagging

I had been intending to check out the Geelong B power station site for some time, but now there is an added attraction - the street art of a number of graffiti and mural artists.

Retasking the environment

Geelong B is located in North Geelong alongside Corio Bay, and was the largest power station (outside the Latrobe Valley) in Victoria. It opened on 8th October 1954 and closed in 1970. It used brown coal initially sourced from Winchelsea, then Anglesea and finally from Yallourn. The station could generate 30,000 kilowatts from 3 boilers connected to the power house. The boilers, transformers,generators, coal-handling equipment and all the other gear has been removed, leaving the hollow shell of the power house - a blank canvas. 

Love the fusion piece by Duke (top), and check out the light-bulb moment, it is actually sunlight through an existing hole in the wall - wonderful utilisation of the surface.
 
 
'Powerhouse' is a great concept, as proof I'd usually be looking to capture the massive size of the abandonment, this time it was the painted images that monopolised the camera lens.

Entrance to Powerhouse

Plywood stand works from a January competition

But it wasn't only the large art works which grab your attention. What thought processes came up with the idea of making these engine blocks (well some type of machinery must have been mounted on these concrete plinths) into chocolate bars, and it works even the partly unwrapped Kit-Kat! (I've mirror-imaged the photo so you can read the labels).

Have a Crunchie, Kit-Kat or a Twirl

 

by Cax One

 

On the left is a beautiful piece, did you immediately think of Michelangelo's Hand of God to Adam? Also liked the Vespa image next door.

In addition to the works on the interior and exterior walls, in the grounds there are a number of vans, shipping containers, etc. which have been sprayed.

Mobile art (the ninja turtle is by Honkey)

I have looked at Rone's mural 'Unknown Girl of the Street' in Collins Street any number of times, but his 'Broken window theory' at Powerhouse is even better.

From Rone's site, taken from an elevated angle

 
The bookend to this mural is a spectacular one by Mark Meataxe Taylor. 

The spray-paint muralist who specialises in photo-realism portraiture, took 17 days from sunrise to sunset perched on a crane to complete the huge 4-storey piece.

It dominates the scene as you approach the front gates.

'Powerhouse' is a must visit site when going to Geelong, it is in Mackey Street, and only a donation at the door - well worth it.