#7 The Revolution Will Be No Re-Run, Brother…

I have so far enjoyed this course and found the use of these new information tools straightforward and fun. My impression though is that unless a blogger is a very good writer, with strong opinions, discussing interesting subjects, then recurrent viewers would be minimal and blogging becomes simply a vanity exercise. Perhaps the most famous blogger to transcend the triviality of the net was Salam Pax who gave first hand accounts of the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 from an Iraqi perspective.

A blog to me seems to fall halfway between web pages and web forums. Blogs have greater design flexibility than forums and authors have sole control over content rather than being contrained by moderators. They are on the other hand easier to set up than web pages and it is easier to include interactive features. However the possibilities for features and designs of web pages are endless if you have the technological savvy. Forums seem more democratic in design and invite dialogue rather than simple reacting to a blog post.

My only other comment about web 2 is I hope it comes to our library soon. The core information tool for a library is its online catalogue, which contains vast amounts of intellectual capital and, in most library services, attracts at least three quarters of their web based hits. Software for library catalogues do not seem to have developed greatly over the last ten years, and to the end user function like little more than hyperlinked card catalogues. In contrast look at the features that appear directly on the Amazon database – lists of similar items purchased by users, user defined tags, ratings of books, customer reviews, links to related forums, and user constructed lists for all patrons to see. Why is it that the most effective reader-centred information provider is an online bookshop?

#6 and Out

Finally some one who'll do evening shifts cheaply. Designed using Badge Maker. I probably should have used different colours.

# 6 Submitted For Your Perusal

This image (on the right) was created using Trading Card Maker. It may look better on a larger screen, but cetainly not on my dinky 15 incher. I had to go back to edit this a couple of times. A nice toy!

#5 My Friend Flickr

For a character who is supposed to be at the cutting edge of technology I feel remiss with not owning a digital camera. So instead I have uploaded this public domain image (see below) from an anarchist website to Flickr then uploaded to my blog (the right hand mouse click is the easiest way to copy the address to the blog).

The original artwork for this was designed as a poster to promote the Wobbly newspaper Industrial Worker. The Wobblies were the nickname of The Industrial Workers of World, a political organisation started in Chicago in 1905. The Wobblies were influenced by European syndicalism and believed in 'The One Big Union" as a way or assuming political power by the working class. The IWW however developed in the new world under particular conditions and it was these characteristics which allowed it to establish strong roots in Australia before and just after the First World War. One thing which distinguished the wobblies from other left wing groups was thier striking use of graphics arts, witty sloganeering and numerous songs which became part of the popular music. The Ballad of Joe Hill for instance is staple of early 20th century folk music

The Man of Bronze

The adventures of Clark “Doc” Savage appeared in his own self-titled pulp magazine from 1933 for over 16 years and 181 issues. His main chronicler was Lester Dent (pictured left). Doc Savage, as developed by Dent, was a giant of a man, with skin tanned by the tropical sun, hence the epithet “The Man of Bronze”. Doc Savage’s father had trained him, with the help of various experts, from birth, so that he had abnormal physical strength and endurance, became brilliantly adept at all sciences especially as a surgeon (hence the “Doc” title), as well as being an extraordinarily talented inventor, musician and master of disguise.

Lester Dent was an imposing man himself, six foot two and 200 pounds with boundless energy. He was able to churn out a 50,000 word plus Doc Savage story monthly as well as throwing himself into travelling the globe as a treasure hunter, mountain climber and adventurer as well as experimenting with new technology such as radio and television. His love of new gadgets saw him predict such things as telephone answering machines, night goggles and automatic car transmissions.

Dents writing style although formulaic, was arresting for its pace and ability to make the unbelievable believable. He was also writing in a time of great optimism about the benefits of science and his ability to effectively communicate Doc’s high tech gadgetry was infectious.

Dent himself was at times derisory of his accomplishments with Doc Savage. After all, his stories did appear in the medium of pulp magazines, publications so named because they were printed on cheap wood pulp paper. The pulps had their golden age in the 1920s and 1930s and included such authors as Ray Bradbury, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammet and Philip K Dick but were generally looked down upon by opinion makers of the day. The pulps however existed for a public unable to afford middle class literature and at a time before free public libraries, low cost paperbacks and alternative forms of entertainment such as television. Doc Savage’s stories were a publication phenomenon, making the publication firm Street and Smith immensely profitable and bankrolling Lester Dent’s adventurous lifestyle. Doc Savage's popularity also illustrated Dent’s unique gifts as a writer and how Doc’s fantastic stories alleviated the gloom from a world-wide depression and war.

As a cultural touchstone, Doc Savage has had a longer lasting effect. Siegal and Shuster used the Man of Bronze as direct inspiration when they created their comic book Superman, and Doc Savage has been used as a model for other comic book characters. He has also been used as a model for Indiana Jones, James Bond and right down to a feminised version in Buffy the Vampyre Slayer. Indeed Doc Savage even had his own ‘Scooby Gang’ named the ‘Fabulous Five’.

Doc Savage gave pleasure to millions and opportunities for Lester Dent to satisfy his curiosities and live out his fantasies. Doc was superhuman but Lester was not and he died of a massive heart attack aged 54.