I Will

To my family I leave all my passwords…

It was one aspect of my life or death - that I had not considered - that family would need to access different password accounts at a time I was unable to tell them or tell them where to look.

Without being morbid, there are any number of accounts from your banking to social media that are password protected.

Have a look at what you have created, that your family will want admission to 

• where are your digital photos? on your flickr or Instagram account?
• how have you recorded your family tree? is it stored on a program like 'Ancestry'?
• is your pc/portable hard drive/cloud storage/memory stick passworded?
• who knows the combination to your bicycle lock?

There's still time for a codicil, must work on a list today!

The end of Things

Finally Mobile Thing 23 - 'Digital storytelling'
And it involves a couple of Discoveries, that I discovered some time ago, so it is good to re-discover them again.
The first is ABC Open, we did quite a bit of work with ABC Open when we had a local producer, but since Larissa left the district, not a lot has happened. But here are a few of projects we did.
A post titled 'The island of No. 2577', 'Coming to a town near you' and 'Treasure hunt for the 21st century'.

The other discovery was the Slideshare site, set up to "share what you know and love through presentations, infographics, documents and more". For this I compiled a couple of slide-shows.

Staff blogging from SlipSliding

A Heritage Of Bridges from SlipSliding

Scary to think that was 7 years ago. And even scarier is how long ago it was that I created my Animoto videos - one was 9 years ago.

Water music

Then of course there are the millions of 'stories' on YouTube, that cover the whole gambit of themes and stories (one of the best would of course be the one on 'Wimmera in photos')

Following the 'Thinking Points', is the question - when considering archiving local history stories digitally, what is more important? to select your storyteller based on the interesting, informative stories they have to tell, or to utilise people with backgrounds and experience in film and digital technologies?
Really it is discovering what is of greater importance to get the story across with an authentic, but maybe untutored voice, or professionally produced that people will actually watch/listen to. I've seen some hopelessly amateur 'cringe-worthy' videos that would have benefited from some assistance. And some 'commercial' videos that were so full of gimmicky art techniques that you missed the message. In the end it is whatever gets the story told accurately with pathos.
So end'th the 23 Mobile Things story.

The books of the Bush

'Tis August, so must be time for another post.
This one is definitely bibliophilic -
It is a list of what Cal Flyn from the Guardian bookshop considered to be 'The Top 10 books about the Australian Bush'.

Heading the list is the quinessential book of the bush - Henry Lawson's "Drovers wife and other stories". 
Often included in the collections of his short stories, like "While the billy boils", "The Drover's wife" is his best known, originally published in 'The Bulletin' on 23rd July 1892. 
The drover is away with the stock, leaving his wife and children alone in a 2-room slab hut. While out at the wood pile she sees a snake go under the house, and knows that to protect her children she must stay awake to kill it when it appears, so she sits all night with just the dog for company, compemplating her lot in life.
The ...and other stories often include classics like "The Bush Undertaker", "The loaded dog", and "In a dry season".

The other essential element is to have "Down on his luck" (painted by Frederick McCubbin) as the cover image for the book.
Both speak of a time of swagmen, selectors, and dirt-poor farmers.

The second book on the list is the novel "My brilliant career" by Miles Franklin, which now elicits as much memories of Judy Davis in the film version, as it does Stella 'Miles' Franklin's depiction of her free-spirited heroine's coming-of-age. It was perceived by many to be largely autobiographical, and set in the area of New South Wales around Goulburn and Canberra.



The third book is definitely non-fiction - "The Bush : travels into the heart of Australia" by Don Watson. It is a journey through Australia's landscape, history and culture looking at our mythology and romantic views of the Bush. 

Number 4 was a mystery to me "All the birds, singing" by  Evie Wyld. Its Western Australian bush aspects are told in retrospect by an Australian sheep farmer now on an un-named British island.

At Number 5 is the book we chose to represent Australia in the 3 Horshams reading challenge (Horsham in Australia, West Sussex and Pennsylvania) - "The Secret River" by Kate Grenville. The historical novel of the conflict between William Thornhill & the first settlers who wished to tame the bush, and its indigenous inhabitants.

And the sixth book follows on the Aboriginal theme, it's Bill Gammage's "The biggest estate on earth : how the Aborigines made Australia". It describes the 'fire-stick' method of land management, that changed the landscape to a fire-resistant plant dominance.

The 7th book is "Letters from Victorian pioneers" selected by Thomas Bride. This was one of the first non-fiction books I had to purchase, as it relates to the Western District. It is a series of papers on the early occupation of the colony to Charles LaTrobe when he was Governor of Victoria. Written mainly by squatters it provides first-hand accounts of their view of the Bush.

Back to novels, at 8 is "Carpentaria" by Alexis Wright. It spans the gulf between the Dreamtime, the present and looks at the future. Set in the coastal town of Desperance where the Phantoms seek sovereignty against traditional owership of the land.

At number 9 is a perennial favourite, "Tracks" by Robyn Davidson. The tale of her camel trek through the deserts of Central Australia. Published in 1980, it was then made into a film in 2013.

And rounding out the Top 10 is  "The songlines" by Bruce Chatwin. Bruce took off to Robyn Davidson territory - Central Australia to search for songlines - the ancient labyrinth of invisible pathways sung by mythical totems in the creation of the country.

There are links between these books, but they are also very different in how they see or describe the bush. Would they be your 10 of the best?