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UK Canal Chart - Black & White version

YouTube - Limits to Freedom

Some may have noticed that the gatehousefilms account on Youtube has been permanently removed without notice or explanation. This also removed copies of our films and useful comments. Youtube's owners make contact tricky, in a way that brings to mind the opening scenes of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. So we are left guessing what it was amongst our handfull of films that caused so much offence? Could it be one of our clients mobile phone footage of an anti-BNP rally, which took place on our doorstep and to which many of us participated? (Incidentally, rumour has it that Lewis Hamilton, current Formula One racing champion broke off from a nearby booksigning to join the protestors.) No, it surely can't be that, although it did certainly provoke some very rabid comments from other Youtube users - although on the whole it seemed like reasonable debate. So come on Youtube - what's your problem?

Job Hunting & the Internet

"The hard truth is that potential employers will google your name during your application and interview process. Get over it - and prepare for it now!" Gretchen on JobsyntaxSource: secretsofthejobhunt

If you use a social networking site such as Facebook or Bebo, or have done in the past, make sure there is nothing on it that might undermine you in an interview. Same goes for house hunting. Embarishing things you put on the internet can come back to haunt you. Ideally don't put embarishing things on social networking sites, but if you have, start amending them now.

A page on a social networking site such as Facebook are potential help in the search for a job or place to live. Think about how you can tweak your profiles to make them work for you. How about some photos of you doing nice things in your house - like cooking a good dinner with good looking friends, or working in your beloved garden, or hoovering. These are the kind of things that might reasure a potential landlord. Whereas falling down the stairs in a drunken stupour may be a scream but wont play well with a potential employer. For help getting your profiles in order - email chris@homeless.me.uk or come along to one of my social networking classes.

I've just read a news report about the number of false profiles on facebook that are used to dupe the unsuspecting into clicking on a malign site. All the more reason to be careful about the "friends" you let in - Facebook is probably best when you there is some real common interest between you and those wanting to be your friend.

Homeless on Second Life

If you saw the BBC documentary "Virtual Adultery and Cyberspace Love" in their Wonderland series, you might be a bit nervous of Second Life. It's certainly true that all human life is here, well almost. Yes there is conflict and abuse, but there is also real learning and growth happening in this virtual world. At the moment I tend to avoid the seamier sides and concentrate on its powerful educational and/ or transformational possibilities. Even so, surviving probably requires some awareness of how to deal with the negative.

"Educate and Entertain" - Bertolt Brecht

Second Life is entertaining and absorbing. You learn a lot too. It improves hand eye cordination, your typing improves without you even realising it; and life skills, well they have to get better.

Two recent experiences highlighted that for me. The first was when a student using the "Homeless Aeon" avatar to improve their spanish ended up abusing the owner of a virtual mall and getting banned. There's probably a part of all of us that wants to let rip when given the opportunity. It's better to get it out of your system in SL.

The second was on UK Education's Virtual campus - you'd think that would be sufficiently "safe" and "boring" to avoid the so-called "griefers" . But I've learnt that you, and that includes a complete beginner, can be abused (griefed in SL (Second Life) jargon) within minutes of being "born". The photo above is taken on part of that campus. I was attacked by two would be gamers, one dressed as Robin (Batman's sidekick) armed with virtual weapons and a foul mouth.

OK in the end I could teleport out of there - and find somewhere quieter - but if it had happened in the midst of a virtual lecture or filming session, it would have been a real drag.

There are solutions, including trying to reason with them, maybe asking if they have the bottle to visit SL real combat areas such as Toxian City; reporting the abuser, freezing their "avatar" or deploying a special virtual device etc. Essentual reading is Richard Mansfield's "How to do Everything with Second Life".

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The above machinima animation was made on second life using the "HomelessAeon" Avatar and tracks made for the Oxford Nightshelter musician group "Making Tracks"




So watch this space for more developments.
Check out "UK Education" on Second Life
and also "The Ivory Tower Library of Primitives" for self paced tutorials.
"Tiki Island" is a quiet place to camp and make some linden dollars.
One day soon we will have our own virtual gatehouse Cafe.

Watch this space for news of our activities on Second Life


- avatar "Homeless Aeon".









News:
TOKYO (AFP) - A paralysed man using only his brain waves has been able to manipulate a virtual Internet character, Japanese researchers said Monday, calling it a world first.
(Advertisement)

The 41-year-old patient used his imagination to make his character take a walk and chat to another virtual person on the popular Second Life website.

The patient, who has suffered paralysis for more than 30 years, can barely bend his fingers due to a progressive muscle disease so cannot use a mouse or keyboard in the traditional way.

In the experiment, he wore headgear with three electrodes monitoring brain waves related to his hands and legs. Even though he cannot move his legs, he imagined that his character was walking.

He was then able to have a conversation with the other character using an attached microphone, said the researchers at Japan's Keio University.

It is the first time a paralysis patient has succeeded in meeting a person and having a conversation in an Internet virtual world, they added.

Researchers are now studying a system that would let patients create text messages by mentally selecting certain letters, said Junichi Ushiba, associate professor at the biosciences and informatics department of Keio Universty's Faculty of Science and Technology.

"In the near future, they would be able to stroll through Second Life shopping malls with their brain waves... and click to make a purchase," Ushiba said.

Second Life is an increasingly popular virtual world in which people -- and animals -- are represented by animated avatars and do everything from social activities to shopping.

Ushiba says Second Life could motivate patients with severe paralysis, who are often too depressed to undergo rehabilitation.














Visit our website www.homeless.me.uk

'Homeless Vehicle'

'Homeless Vehicle' (1988-93) by Krzysztof Wodiczko. Photographer: Blaise Adilon. Courtesy of Galerie Lelong, New York. From Exhibition on Sleep and Dreaming at Wellcome Building, Euston Rd, London

I was very struck by this exhibit at the recent show. Not sure if this is a serious proposal or some sort of p***take. American homeless may make greater use of shopping trolleys in which to wheel around their lives. This delux version has a telescoping chamber in which one could stretch out in a sleeping bag. The whole could be padlocked to a convenient lampost for extra security. Not sure what the Brits would make of this - although we are reknowned for our love affair with the shop trolley.

Manic & Taurus

I've been back in Oxford for nearly two years now, after just over a decade's meanderig round this island. One thing that regularly upsets me is the 'attitude' and abuse directed to the many people who, in various ways, attempt to make the lives of the homeless in this city more bearable. I find it pathetic that those with little or no knowlege of provisions for the homeless in other parts of Britain slag off the facilities here. On more than one occasion I've felt obliged to advise folks to f**k off and travel so that they can compare the (admittedly less than perfect) hostels and soup-runs in the city of dreaming spires (or screaming choirs on May morning) with those in other parts of this green and pleasant land.

Birmingham for example has only one hostel place accessable to dog owners. Manchester is the same, and has a specialist police unit who claim to help rough sleepers although this assistance usually involves entrapping and then encarcerating. Dressed in plain clothes they approach their target and make as if to reach into their pocket for change. Should the 'dosser' lift their hand (or sometimes oven their eyes) they will find themselves leant some rather uncomfortable bracelets,accomodated for the night on a wooden bench with thin blue foam mat, and delivered to court. Follow-up care involves being booted out and advised not to be seen on the streets of Manchester again.