Exciting News! Prof. Oliver has asked that I share this recently discovered video. It was found embedded in a comment from a lost blog post in ds106. It’s appears to be from Dr. Oblivion? A message from deep in the internet. We’ve spent many hours attempting to decipher it, but without success so far. Help us!
Jim Groom was interviewed by Dr. Oblivion today and Jim plead that the ds106 community forgive him after banishing so many students during the Summer of Oblivion. It seemed to be a truly touching moment of closure for everyone that had fretted over the mental health of Jim Groom. Dr. Oblivion was retaking the helm of ds106 to complete the course. But in the final moment our hopes for ds106 sanity were dashed aside as Jim Groom had a massive dissociative break and has had to enter a treatment facility for the remainder of the summer.
Rest and recover Jim Groom/Dr. Oblivion. Serenity Now!
You can visit a working version of the Oblivion Report on Bo.lt or on my Site.
I decided to rework the Drudge Report for my web-story, using Bo.lt. Bo.lt was pretty great to work with as you could switch between the visual editor and HTML. Definitely easier than using Firebug, and hosting is provided. I also archived the HTML on my own site here.
I’ll admit no particular affinity for the politics of Matt Drudge, but I like the simplicity of his site, and the fact that somehow he’s avoided updating his code forever. It’s actually a dinosaur in terms of its antiquated HTML, CSS, and general web design asthetic. More importantly though, he toyed with news aggregation by creating his own headlines to linked stories. He’d often write little narratives across a sequence of linked headlines, usually tracking a particular story topic.
For the “Oblivion Report” I re-aggregated about 30 blog posts on the ds106 site. I forced myself to not skip any and worked backwards starting with yesterday’s posts until I ran out of steam. I hope people enjoy the playfulness in a number of the headlines.
Mr. Groom -
It’s come to ds107′s attention that you are still not well. We understand we need to work together to help you.
How are we feeling today Jim?
Together we’ll find a process that brings us to a place that’s right for ds106. Your cousin’s misplaced anger isn’t your fault. It’s something we’ll talk about over the next few days.
Jim Groom a beloved member of the ds106 community appeared to lose his senses when he assumed power over ds106 and banished anyone that questioned his authority. A small group formed a rebellion against the newly despotic Groom. They called themselves ds107.
Soon a number of ds106 expats believed that the Jim Groom they had known, a believer in the open distributed internet — where no one person can be in control — would never behave this way.
They began to speculate that Groom was no longer in control of his digital identity. They assumed another player had taken over his domain and decided to take action.
This is their record.
Here’s my first tutorial for ds106 that Jim Groom mentioned he might be interested in today’s ds106tv broadcast. It shows how I created my “Have You Seen Dr. Oblivion” posters. It teaches the basics of converting a bitmapped image to vectorized one using Adobe Illustrator’s LiveTrace.
Meeting up with a few DS106ers tonight in NYC. I’m hoping we can poster the town and get some others out there to join the search for Dr. Oblivion. Here’s a PDF of all the posters if you’d like to slap them up anywhere.
Post this leaflet and help us find Dr. Oblivion.
Download a Printable PDF of this poster to put up in your neighborhood. Please help #ds106, please, please!