what I did last week (12 April 2015)

12 Apr 2015

I know, I know - two weeks in and I'm already falling down on the job.

Anyway, let's get to it.

money earnin'

• I went to Georgetown University to sit down with Jilanne and Isaac from http://www.xapi.technology to talk on camera about xAPI. I realized afterwards that for someone who talks xAPI every day, I really haven't spent a lot of time working on how to talk about it with sound bites in mind. This is something that I know that I need to work on.
• xAPI Design Cohort - week 10!
  • Team xAPI Gnome kicked major butt on their mid-season presentation; looking forward to their July presentation at the xAPI Bootcamp in Alexandria, VA. (So, what are you doing this Bastille Day?)
  • xAPI Lab release 0.8 is out. Thanks to Tyler Mulligan for continuing to produce ready-to-ratchet tools for the community.
• Started (along with Jason Haag and others) the xAPI Vocabulary Working Group. The aim is to take two months and see if we can sort out the issues of linked data and verb registration. No sweat.
  • if you are into xAPI but haven't read Jason's Controlled Vocabulary Considerations for the Experience API, give it a go.

book learnin'

• I haven't been taking the bus to work as much this week, so not much more progress on David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. However, I will say that there is a lot of detail here. I can only imagine how taxing some of the passages must have been to write.
• Figured out my new whip list challenge: knot tying. Yes.
• Found this gem (below) via /r/instructionaldesign. Brenda Brathwaite. Middle Passage. Get into it.
• As you some of you may know, I've been kicking around an idea for a geolocation game with an afrofuturist bent. I think that the more I think about it, the more that my brain angles toward the subject matter. Observe last week's Pocket reading list:
  • A game that speaks of Africa (Polygon)
  • Afro-Juba: Osborne Macharia On His Kenyan Schoolyard Game-Inspired Photo Series (okayafrica)
  • We Are Wakanda
  • Modern Griots Reviews: The Summer of Gods and Panel Discussion (Futuristically Ancient)

blunt burnin'

• Trying to wrap my head around Brother Yasiin Bey's MF Doom...tribute? Check it: Beyondoom
• Trying to get back into Brazilian rap. Emicida's O Glorioso Retorno de Quem Nunca Esteve Aqui has been pretty great.
• Trying hard not to think of Up to All of Us :-/

That's about it. If all goes well, I'll be at the Thingstitute next weekend - more on that later.