Eric Martindale

SXG+: The Road Trip
I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.

It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.

We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one--but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.

Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.

There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.

Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.

We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted--the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]

I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.

Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.

+Aaron Kasten +Al Ebnereza +Amanda Blain +Anna Lowry +Brett Bjornsen +Calvin Christopher +Carter Gibson +Daniel Armendariz +Daniel Enloe +Daria Musk +Erika Stahoski +Gisel Ocañas +John Fanavans +Johnny Roquemore +Joltrast . +Justin Myers +Ken Pham +Keyan Mobli +Laurie DesAutels +Liza Sperling (how did we miss each other?!) +Megan Noel Rhea +Michael O'Reilly +Michele Predmore (even though we didn't get to meet!) +Moritz Tolxdorff +Rory Swan +Sheighla Friel +Summer Fulcher +Superdave Houdini +Trey Ratcliff +Yifat Cohen.

(Did I miss anyone? Recording them here for posterity and more!)

Photo credit +Al Ebnereza, who is the man.

[1]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/DFPv5HMVDzj
[2]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/PVHXLcXReuW
[3]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/Fah5dZVjPpg
[4]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/GXLjio86ua4
[5]: https://plus.google.com/111562638514922412630/posts/97Fh6BTo7gT
[6]: https://plus.google.com/107345301833335315063/posts/WaprzVgZky5

SXG+: The Road Trip
I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.

It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.

We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one-but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.

Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.

There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.

Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.

We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted-the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]

I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.

Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.

+Aaron Kasten +Al Ebnereza +Amanda Blain +Anna Lowry +Brett Bjornsen +Calvin Christopher +Carter Gibson +Daniel Armendariz +Daniel Enloe +Daria Musk +Erika Stahoski +Gisel Ocañas +John Fanavans +Johnny Roquemore +Joltrast . +Justin Myers +Ken Pham +Keyan Mobli +Laurie DesAutels +Liza Sperling (how did we miss each other?!) +Megan Noel Rhea +Michael O'Reilly +Michele Predmore (even though we didn't get to meet!) +Moritz Tolxdorff +Rory Swan +Sheighla Friel +Summer Fulcher +Superdave Houdini +Trey Ratcliff +Yifat Cohen.

(Did I miss anyone? Recording them here for posterity and more!)

Photo credit +Al Ebnereza, who is the man.

[1]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/DFPv5HMVDzj
[2]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/PVHXLcXReuW
[3]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/Fah5dZVjPpg
[4]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/GXLjio86ua4
[5]: https://plus.google.com/111562638514922412630/posts/97Fh6BTo7gT
[6]: https://plus.google.com/107345301833335315063/posts/WaprzVgZky5

SXG+: The Road Trip
I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.

It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.

We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one-but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.

Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.

There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.

Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.

We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted-the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]

I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.

Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.

+Aaron Kasten +Al Ebnereza +Amanda Blain +Anna Lowry +Brett Bjornsen +Calvin Christopher +Carter Gibson +Daniel Armendariz +Daniel Enloe +Daria Musk +Erika Stahoski +Gisel Ocañas +John Fanavans +Johnny Roquemore +Joltrast . +Justin Myers +Ken Pham +Keyan Mobli +Laurie DesAutels +Liza Sperling (how did we miss each other?!) +Megan Noel Rhea +Michael O'Reilly +Michele Predmore (even though we didn't get to meet!) +Moritz Tolxdorff +Rory Swan +Sheighla Friel +Summer Fulcher +Superdave Houdini +Trey Ratcliff +Yifat Cohen.

(Did I miss anyone? Recording them here for posterity and more!)

Photo credit +Al Ebnereza, who is the man.

[1]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/DFPv5HMVDzj
[2]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/PVHXLcXReuW
[3]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/Fah5dZVjPpg
[4]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/GXLjio86ua4
[5]: https://plus.google.com/111562638514922412630/posts/97Fh6BTo7gT
[6]: https://plus.google.com/107345301833335315063/posts/WaprzVgZky5

SXG+: The Road Trip
I'm now home and settled in after a whirlwind trip to +SXSW with +Superdave Houdini, and getting back to work on +LocalSense. We drove over 2,000 miles in total to +HIRL with amazing Google+ community members like +Carter Gibson, +Amanda Blain, and +Moritz Tolxdorff. It's over for me now, but the afterglow of meeting even more amazing people than I did at the #DCHIRL will linger with me for a while yet, and the impressions they've made upon me will be permanent.

It started in Raleigh, NC where I departed at around 6:30 PM to meet +Superdave Houdini in Valdosta, GA at around 2 AM. One Georgian speeding ticket later, I was #scheming with my soon-to-be roatrip partner (who'd just arrived from Miami, FL!) and +Raleigh Burke in a Google Hangout for an hour or two before hitting the road again.

We stopped in Tallahassee, FL for some breakfast and #starbucks ( #buxxin !) while I knocked out a few work tasks, and were New Orleans-bound within the hour. We soon passed a sign for a place called “Buc-ee's”, which was apparently 797 miles away ( #WTF ?) [1]. This is apparently a thing, and there's not one-but multiple posts on The Internet™ about that particular sign.

Following up our post-breakfast journey with a stop on Bourbon Street [2] for some wings was an absolute must, and we rewarded our success in overtaking +Amanda Blain (who was stuck way back Atlanta on the +StartupBus!) with a drink or two before cramming back into my car and cranking some #whitegirlfriday jams. Thankfully we had #bluetooth in the car, so +Superdave Houdini was able to play the appropriate soundtrack for the epic that was already unfolding.

There was more +Starbucks Coffee to be had in Baton Rouge, LA [3] before heading out on the final stretch to Texas, fueling our excitement as we looked forward to the upcoming shenanigans in Austin. Texas indeed greeted us with all its majesty, a grandiose lone star at a rest stop just across the border, where one of Mini-Supes' (R.I.P.) last photos was taken... (photo forthcoming!) but US-10 had some surprises for us before we'd land for the night.

Just as we were passing through Vidor, TX, we encountered bumper-to-bumper traffic that we later learned was the result of an overturned truck somewhere along that particular stretch. Not especially excited to endure three hours worth of traffic, we decided to route two hours down towards Bridge City [4] and then west to Winnie before picking up US10 again on the way into Houston, where we stayed with the brilliant and gracious +Calvin Christopher for drinks, intellectual discourse, and planning for the following day.

We all sadly lost a good partner and great friend that night [5], but we weren't to be thwarted-the show must go on! We had three hours remaining, and needed to be back on the road. So off we went! [6]

I'm sure all the others will document the happenings in Austin sufficiently, so I'll save my insight for later--but I'll end with a special thank you to +John Fanavans, +Summer Fulcher, and the rest of you who met us that night when we arrived. That night certainly set the tone for the remainder of what turned out to be one of the most alive, and vibrant, and incredible experiences possible.

Thank all of you for making Google+ for what it is.

+Aaron Kasten +Al Ebnereza +Amanda Blain +Anna Lowry +Brett Bjornsen +Calvin Christopher +Carter Gibson +Daniel Armendariz +Daniel Enloe +Daria Musk +Erika Stahoski +Gisel Ocañas +John Fanavans +Johnny Roquemore +Joltrast . +Justin Myers +Ken Pham +Keyan Mobli +Laurie DesAutels +Liza Sperling (how did we miss each other?!) +Megan Noel Rhea +Michael O'Reilly +Michele Predmore (even though we didn't get to meet!) +Moritz Tolxdorff +Rory Swan +Sheighla Friel +Summer Fulcher +Superdave Houdini +Trey Ratcliff +Yifat Cohen.

(Did I miss anyone? Recording them here for posterity and more!)

Photo credit +Al Ebnereza, who is the man.

[1]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/DFPv5HMVDzj
[2]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/PVHXLcXReuW
[3]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/Fah5dZVjPpg
[4]: https://plus.google.com/116354326277822099288/posts/GXLjio86ua4
[5]: https://plus.google.com/111562638514922412630/posts/97Fh6BTo7gT
[6]: https://plus.google.com/107345301833335315063/posts/WaprzVgZky5

A recent post from renowned security analyst Bruce Schneier highlighted an interesting problem to me.

It was announced last week that Hugo Chávez of Venezuela intends to repatriate 211 tons of gold (worth some $12.1 billion dollars by calculations based on current prices) from Europe back to Venezuela.

Venezuela would need to transport the gold in several trips, traders said, since the high value of gold means it would be impossible to insure a single aircraft carrying 211 tonnes. It could take about 40 shipments to move the gold back to Caracas, traders estimated. “It’s going to be quite a task. Logistically, I’m not sure if the central bank realises the magnitude of the task ahead of them,” said one senior gold banker.

So the challenge is this: how can Venezuela safely retrieve 211 tons of gold from its European stores? What solutions can you come up with using lateral analysis?

Don't forget to stop and admire the sunset every now and again.

Last week, I got the opportunity to stay in a cabin on a remote island and go surf fishing with my father and uncle.  We left at 3AM (the morning after Thanksgiving) to make the 7AM ferry, and were fortunate enough to have only light wind and warm sun for our short visit.  I captured this awesome sunset after casting my line at the end of the first day.

Even as a boy, this yearly tradition was something I'd look forward to all year.  Unfortunately as my schedule became increasingly busy over the past decade, I wasn't able to join in on the often week-long excursion.  Now that I'm older and caught up in the #startuplife , I have a new appreciation for the rejuvenating nature of this magical place.

This same island almost claimed my life when I was younger, when the tidal  currents at the south point of the barrier island swept our entire fishing party out to sea after I tried to save my younger brother and his friend, who were caught in the violent surf.  I don't think I've ever looked at the ocean the same way since, as having to exchange with your father and brother what you all believe is your final “I love you.” is, needless to say, an incredibly illuminating experience.

After being rescued by the coast guard, I insisted on immediately casting my line back into the water in an act of nonchalance (or perhaps more within my character, defiance?) and continue fishing.  We were able to return the following year with the memories fresh on our minds, but it wasn't long after that my schedule began to preclude my participation.  I'm so glad that I was able to steal away the two days to take a much-needed break and gain some incredible perspective.

Backflipped out of the back of a perfectly good airplane on Sunday, then back to the grind I go. #adventuring  

Don't forget to stop and admire the sunset every now and again.

Last week, I got the opportunity to stay in a cabin on a remote island and go surf fishing with my father and uncle.  We left at 3AM (the morning after Thanksgiving) to make the 7AM ferry, and were fortunate enough to have only light wind and warm sun for our short visit.  I captured this awesome sunset after casting my line at the end of the first day.

Even as a boy, this yearly tradition was something I'd look forward to all year.  Unfortunately as my schedule became increasingly busy over the past decade, I wasn't able to join in on the often week-long excursion.  Now that I'm older and caught up in the #startuplife , I have a new appreciation for the rejuvenating nature of this magical place.

This same island almost claimed my life when I was younger, when the tidal  currents at the south point of the barrier island swept our entire fishing party out to sea after I tried to save my younger brother and his friend, who were caught in the violent surf.  I don't think I've ever looked at the ocean the same way since, as having to exchange with your father and brother what you all believe is your final “I love you.” is, needless to say, an incredibly illuminating experience.

After being rescued by the coast guard, I insisted on immediately casting my line back into the water in an act of nonchalance (or perhaps more within my character, defiance?) and continue fishing.  We were able to return the following year with the memories fresh on our minds, but it wasn't long after that my schedule began to preclude my participation.  I'm so glad that I was able to steal away the two days to take a much-needed break and gain some incredible perspective.

Backflipped out of the back of a perfectly good airplane on Sunday, then back to the grind I go. #adventuring  

Don't forget to stop and admire the sunset every now and again.

Last week, I got the opportunity to stay in a cabin on a remote island and go surf fishing with my father and uncle.  We left at 3AM (the morning after Thanksgiving) to make the 7AM ferry, and were fortunate enough to have only light wind and warm sun for our short visit.  I captured this awesome sunset after casting my line at the end of the first day.

Even as a boy, this yearly tradition was something I'd look forward to all year.  Unfortunately as my schedule became increasingly busy over the past decade, I wasn't able to join in on the often week-long excursion.  Now that I'm older and caught up in the #startuplife , I have a new appreciation for the rejuvenating nature of this magical place.

This same island almost claimed my life when I was younger, when the tidal  currents at the south point of the barrier island swept our entire fishing party out to sea after I tried to save my younger brother and his friend, who were caught in the violent surf.  I don't think I've ever looked at the ocean the same way since, as having to exchange with your father and brother what you all believe is your final “I love you.” is, needless to say, an incredibly illuminating experience.

After being rescued by the coast guard, I insisted on immediately casting my line back into the water in an act of nonchalance (or perhaps more within my character, defiance?) and continue fishing.  We were able to return the following year with the memories fresh on our minds, but it wasn't long after that my schedule began to preclude my participation.  I'm so glad that I was able to steal away the two days to take a much-needed break and gain some incredible perspective.

Backflipped out of the back of a perfectly good airplane on Sunday, then back to the grind I go. #adventuring  

Don't forget to stop and admire the sunset every now and again.

Last week, I got the opportunity to stay in a cabin on a remote island and go surf fishing with my father and uncle.  We left at 3AM (the morning after Thanksgiving) to make the 7AM ferry, and were fortunate enough to have only light wind and warm sun for our short visit.  I captured this awesome sunset after casting my line at the end of the first day.

Even as a boy, this yearly tradition was something I'd look forward to all year.  Unfortunately as my schedule became increasingly busy over the past decade, I wasn't able to join in on the often week-long excursion.  Now that I'm older and caught up in the #startuplife , I have a new appreciation for the rejuvenating nature of this magical place.

This same island almost claimed my life when I was younger, when the tidal  currents at the south point of the barrier island swept our entire fishing party out to sea after I tried to save my younger brother and his friend, who were caught in the violent surf.  I don't think I've ever looked at the ocean the same way since, as having to exchange with your father and brother what you all believe is your final “I love you.” is, needless to say, an incredibly illuminating experience.

After being rescued by the coast guard, I insisted on immediately casting my line back into the water in an act of nonchalance (or perhaps more within my character, defiance?) and continue fishing.  We were able to return the following year with the memories fresh on our minds, but it wasn't long after that my schedule began to preclude my participation.  I'm so glad that I was able to steal away the two days to take a much-needed break and gain some incredible perspective.

Backflipped out of the back of a perfectly good airplane on Sunday, then back to the grind I go. #adventuring  

After a year and a half working with some of the smartest and most competent engineers I've ever met, it's time for me to part ways with BitPay. I've had the opportunity to be deeply involved in the design, implementation, and deployment of some incredible technologies, but we're turning a page in the story of Bitcoin's rise and it's time to start exploring the new chapter. BitPay continues to paint an incredibly compelling picture as to what the decentralized future looks like – we worked on some incredibly far-reaching and massively impactful ideas, including: - [ChainDB][chaindb], a distributed database backed exclusively by the Bitcoin blockchain. - [Copay][copay], a truly decentralized wallet & identity management platform. - [BitAuth][bitauth], a secure authentication mechanism for peers on the web, using the `k1` curve. - [Impulse][impulse], a method of securing zero-confirmation transactions. - [Foxtrot][foxtrot], a completely encrypted data transmission network. - [Bitcore][bitcore], a library of common software functionality to glue everything together. You might notice a few common themes. Let me point out the two most important. Firstly, that everything here is open source (with the notable exception of ChainDB). Open source, and more importantly [free software][free software], is a very big deal to me. Prior to joining BitPay, I was [open sourcing education][coursefork], [contributing to open source software](https://github.com/martindale), and [speaking on the importance of open source](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuYLWdG-lP0). Some of the things I'm most proud of are the things _other_ people built with the things _we_ gave away – _that's_ the real power of open source. Secondly, that everything here is based on Bitcoin, not some alternative blockchain. BitPay was a firm believer in Bitcoin as the exclusive platform that would secure the post-fiat era, and that belief has held strongly with me before and after my departure. Until a more compelling alternative to Bitcoin emerges, One of the other exciting things to come out of BitPay was the emergence of [DECENTRALIZE][decentralize], which we formed last fall with a few of our fellow employees. DECENTRALIZE has become [an acclaimed content source][cointelegraph:decentralize] in the latest resurgence of decentralized thinking, and now it gets to be a much bigger priority for me. Before I joined BitPay, I'd put a lot of work into [Maki][maki], a framework for making full-stack application development significantly easier. Maki took a bit of a back-burner position while I was focusing on my work at BitPay, so I'll be redoubling my efforts to see that vision through. In fact, I think now's as good a time as any to share that vision. To that end, I'm starting a new project named Fabric. I'd like to entirely eliminate centralized servers on the Internet and catalyze the development of an entirely new class of economic actor. More details soon. As we embark on our next journey, let's always remember the carefully selected input used to create [the Genesis Block][genesis]: > The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks [chaindb]: https://bitpay.com/chaindb.pdf [copay]: https://copay.io/ [bitauth]: https://github.com/bitpay/bitauth [impulse]: https://impulse.is/ [foxtrot]: https://github.com/bitpay/foxtrot [bitcore]: https://bitcore.io [decentralize]: https://decentralize.fm [free software]: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.en.html [coursefork]: https://coursefork.org/ [maki]: https://maki.ericmartindale.com/ [cointelegraph:decentralize]: http://cointelegraph.com/news/114496/leaders-in-bitcoin-broadcasting-pandoras-box-is-open-and-theres-no-going-back [genesis]: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Genesis_block

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

On the Ongoing Attacks between China, U.S., Russia, Israel, etc.…
The latest round of evidence of ongoing digital warfare between the superpowers is now being reported in the N.Y. Times [1] after an undeniably incriminating 60-page report on the Chinese attacks on the U.S. by security firm Mandiant [2].

“Either they are coming from inside Unit 61398, or the people who run the most-controlled, most-monitored Internet networks in the world are clueless about thousands of people generating attacks from this one neighborhood.”
                                                    — Kevin Mandia

The report goes on to track individual participants in the attack, tracing them back to the headquarters of P.L.A. Unit 61398.

Attacks from the Chinese have been ongoing for many years, notably back to Operation Titan Rain [3] in 2003, in which attackers gained access to military intelligence networks at organizations such as Lockheed Martin, Sandia National Laboratories, Redstone Arsenal, and NASA [4].  Direct military targets were also included in the assault, such as the U.S. Army Information Systems Engineering Command at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, the Defense Information Systems Agency in Arlington, Virginia, the Naval Ocean Systems Center, a Defense Department installation in San Diego, California, and the U.S. Army Space and Strategic Defense installation in Huntsville, Alabama [5]. 

These ongoing attacks are labeled "Advanced Persistent Threats" or "APT" by the American Military, are considered acts of war by both the White House [6] and the Department of Defense [7] as far back as 2011, and are not unique to the Chinese origins.  You may remember the 2007 attacks on Estonia [8], which has been attributed to entities within Russian territory operating with the assistance of the Russian government [9].  These attacks disabled a wide array of Estonian government sites, rendering services in the world's most digitally-connected country unusable.  The attacks also disabled ATM machines, effectively disabling some portion of the Estonian economy.

The United States [and arguably Israel, [10]] have also been actively participating in these attacks [11] with the deploying of FLAME and Stuxnet against Iran, which made international headlines this past year when the coordinated efforts of the tools were used to disable Iranian nuclear centrifuges in an attempt to slow their progress in their nuclear program [12].  These efforts are ongoing, with the latest addition of the Gauss and Duqu malwares [13] continuing to target middle-eastern countries.

“From his first months in office, President Obama secretly ordered increasingly sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of cyberweapons, according to participants in the program.”
                                                    — +The New York Times

Obama reportedly went on to sign a classified directive last year [14] enabling the government to seize control of private networks, and the 2012 NDAA (National Defense Authorization Act) includes terms [15, section 954] that authorize offensive attacks on foreign threats [16].  The official United States policy already is to deem any cyberattack on the U.S. as an "act of war" [17], and it looks like these types of actions and attacks have already been made legal.

While it may once have been a subject of fiction [18], it's now and has been a harsh reality that we're in the middle of a new era in warfare, and the battles are already well-underway as countries around the world are openly engaging in offensive attacks on one another that are impacting economies on a massive scale.  I don't know what else to call this other than a world war—even the CIA's Center for the Study of Intelligence (CSI) predicted this [19], as have many others even earlier [20].  

Here's a thought; if our constitution gives us the right to bear arms, and the government deems these types of attacks as acts of war, then isn't it our right to keep and bear these arms?  Yet another case for a mass-algorate society [21], which Mr. Obama appears to agree with me on [22], at the very least.

[1]: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/19/technology/chinas-army-is-seen-as-tied-to-hacking-against-us.html
[2]: http://intelreport.mandiant.com/
[3]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_Rain
[4]: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1098371,00.html
[5]: http://www.zdnet.com/news/security-experts-lift-lid-on-chinese-hack-attacks/145763
[6]: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/rss_viewer/international_strategy_for_cyberspace.pdf
[7]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[8]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007_cyberattacks_on_Estonia
[9]: http://www.vedomosti.ru/smartmoney/article/2007/05/28/3004
[10]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[11]: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/01/world/middleeast/obama-ordered-wave-of-cyberattacks-against-iran.html?pagewanted=all
[12]: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-11388018
[13]: http://www.zdnet.com/meet-gauss-the-latest-cyber-espionage-tool-7000002405/
[14]: http://endthelie.com/2012/11/15/obama-reportedly-signs-classified-cyberwarfare-policy-directive-with-troubling-implications/#axzz2LMPlf8iA
[15]: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr1540enr/pdf/BILLS-112hr1540enr.pdf
[16]: http://endthelie.com/2011/12/17/approval-of-covert-offensive-cyberwar-sneakily-inserted-into-ndaa/
[17]: http://www.forbes.com/sites/reuvencohen/2012/06/05/the-white-house-and-pentagon-deem-cyber-attacks-an-act-of-war/
[18]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuromancer
[19]: https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/csi-studies/studies/vol48no4/new_face_of_war.html
[20]: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/reprints/2007/RAND_RP223.pdf
[21]: https://plus.google.com/112353210404102902472/posts/MVQXyw9EJDE
[22]: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-57569503-1/obama-endorses-required-high-school-coding-classes/

Hi Eric,
Thanks for getting back to me. I will have her send you an email. Check out her site - http://www.uencounter.me/. Honest feed back would be great. I almost went this last time - had to much work. H

Interesting moment in this article concerning the future of fees and larger institutions actualizing the necessity to adapt to modern standards of cutting edge financial innovations (http://www.fastcompany.com/3033412/back-to-square-one?utm_source=mailchimp&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=tech-weekly-newsletter&position=1&partner=newsletter).

Why not?  Who is backing bitcoin to insure it?  No one.  We've already seen multi-million dollar values of bitcoin embezzlement.   The claim it is secure is bs.  

If I have bitcoin store at any one of these sites and then all of a sudden they go belly up, what happens?  I lose everything.

A bank going belly up at least they have backing on it to secure the vast majority of the funds kept in it. 

Is other currency, or banking 100% secure?  No.  But it is a lot more than bitcoin.  

It it was supported and insured like other currencies, I'd say there isn't a reason.  But it isn't. 

And it is as much beholden to the market as any other currency out there also.   We've seen people price manipulating it just like other currency trading.

So no real insurance or security, and questionable "banks" for it.  No thanks.

When did you create your first Google Account?
During a conversation at the +LocalSense office today, I happened to go back and look for the oldest email I'd received in my Gmail account and it got me thinking about just how much data I've given Google over the years.  It's incredible to think about a sense of scale now, especially considering that I have [as of this moment] 134,530 messages in Gmail alone -- that doesn't even consider all of Google's other services now tied to my Google Account.

You can quantify some portion of how much Google knows about you through the "Google Dashboard" [1].  Google also allows you to download [some] of your data with their data liberation tool [2].  I recommend doing this regularly, and making an effort to be aware of the amount, and value, of your data.

I received the first two emails in my Gmail inbox on 11/28/04. They were both from Google, and a few of the links don't work anymore. [3] Didn't anyone tell them that cool URIs don't change? [4] The attached photo is of the well-written introduction to Gmail, the second message in my inbox.  It's fun to look back and think about the state of email at the time, and how innovative Gmail actually was.

[1]: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
[2]: https://www.google.com/dashboard/
[3]: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/start.html
[4]: https://www.google.com/settings/exportdata

When did you create your first Google Account?
During a conversation at the +LocalSense office today, I happened to go back and look for the oldest email I'd received in my Gmail account and it got me thinking about just how much data I've given Google over the years.  It's incredible to think about a sense of scale now, especially considering that I have [as of this moment] 134,530 messages in Gmail alone -- that doesn't even consider all of Google's other services now tied to my Google Account.

You can quantify some portion of how much Google knows about you through the "Google Dashboard" [1].  Google also allows you to download [some] of your data with their data liberation tool [2].  I recommend doing this regularly, and making an effort to be aware of the amount, and value, of your data.

I received the first two emails in my Gmail inbox on 11/28/04. They were both from Google, and a few of the links don't work anymore. [3] Didn't anyone tell them that cool URIs don't change? [4] The attached photo is of the well-written introduction to Gmail, the second message in my inbox.  It's fun to look back and think about the state of email at the time, and how innovative Gmail actually was.

[1]: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
[2]: https://www.google.com/dashboard/
[3]: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/start.html
[4]: https://www.google.com/settings/exportdata

When did you create your first Google Account?
During a conversation at the +LocalSense office today, I happened to go back and look for the oldest email I'd received in my Gmail account and it got me thinking about just how much data I've given Google over the years.  It's incredible to think about a sense of scale now, especially considering that I have [as of this moment] 134,530 messages in Gmail alone -- that doesn't even consider all of Google's other services now tied to my Google Account.

You can quantify some portion of how much Google knows about you through the "Google Dashboard" [1].  Google also allows you to download [some] of your data with their data liberation tool [2].  I recommend doing this regularly, and making an effort to be aware of the amount, and value, of your data.

I received the first two emails in my Gmail inbox on 11/28/04. They were both from Google, and a few of the links don't work anymore. [3] Didn't anyone tell them that cool URIs don't change? [4] The attached photo is of the well-written introduction to Gmail, the second message in my inbox.  It's fun to look back and think about the state of email at the time, and how innovative Gmail actually was.

[1]: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
[2]: https://www.google.com/dashboard/
[3]: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/start.html
[4]: https://www.google.com/settings/exportdata

So, I bought a new laptop from System76. About damn time, I say.

The specs:

• 15.6" HD+ LED Display @ 1600x900
• ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4570 Graphics with 512MB GDDR2 Memory
• Core i5-520M Processor ( 32nm, 3MB L3 Cache, 2.40GHz )
• 2 GB - DDR3 1066 MHz (DDR3: zoom zoom. ;])
• 250 GB 5400 RPM SATA II (I considered a bigger hard drive, but I have a NAS at the house and honestly plan on taking advantages of synchronized OSes like ChromeOS in the very near future, so I decided against it)

So far, I'm absolutely lovin' it. The hardware is very clean and Apple-like, with no disgusting third-party stickers plastered all over the thing. There's a System76 logo sticker on the back, which I could easily remove with some isopropyl if I so chose. Part of System76's sales pitch is pre-built Ubuntu boxes (which is what sold me, to be honest), so it came with Ubuntu 10.04, my day-to-day operating system of choice (especially since Backtrack makes things oh-so-awesome.)

I do have some minor complaints:

1. I had a dead pixel on my LCD. They won't replace it unless "there are more than 6 dead pixels. :(
2. As a result of the hinge design, the screen won't fold back more than ~35°. A bit of a pain in specific use scenarios.
3. A lack of one-button volume controls. The volume controls are only available through function keys, sadly. Some buttons on the top right for volume up, down, and mute would make this already awesome laptop perfect.

I don't know how much control System76 has over these hardware-design issues, but fixing them would seal the deal on any of my future purchases. ;)

When did you create your first Google Account?
During a conversation at the +LocalSense office today, I happened to go back and look for the oldest email I'd received in my Gmail account and it got me thinking about just how much data I've given Google over the years.  It's incredible to think about a sense of scale now, especially considering that I have [as of this moment] 134,530 messages in Gmail alone -- that doesn't even consider all of Google's other services now tied to my Google Account.

You can quantify some portion of how much Google knows about you through the "Google Dashboard" [1].  Google also allows you to download [some] of your data with their data liberation tool [2].  I recommend doing this regularly, and making an effort to be aware of the amount, and value, of your data.

I received the first two emails in my Gmail inbox on 11/28/04. They were both from Google, and a few of the links don't work anymore. [3] Didn't anyone tell them that cool URIs don't change? [4] The attached photo is of the well-written introduction to Gmail, the second message in my inbox.  It's fun to look back and think about the state of email at the time, and how innovative Gmail actually was.

[1]: http://www.w3.org/Provider/Style/URI.html
[2]: https://www.google.com/dashboard/
[3]: http://gmail.google.com/gmail/help/start.html
[4]: https://www.google.com/settings/exportdata

Hello there, adoring internet-stalkers! (I'm kidding. ~_~) You may have noticed (if you were loyal, that is ;)) that my Feedburner-powered RSS Feed has been lacking in activity lately. There's a reason for that.

Recently, I got rid of WordPress and Sweetcron in favor of a new CMS platform, Chyrp. I had been running Wordpress for a long time, using it to share my thoughts with the general internet populace. However, it had become a bit of a chore to maintain, and it really felt like duplicate work on top of all the other content-generation I was already performing (i.e., forum posts, blog comments, Last.fm "Loved" Tracks, Google Reader shared items, etc.), so I began to look for a way to aggregate this content into a central place.

For a while, FriendFeed served this purpose well, but I didn't like the lack of control I had over the source. Facebook also filled part of this gap (and it still does, to a point), and they've even purchased FriendFeed, but I was looking for something quite a bit more customizable and self-hosted. Through various referrals, I came across Yongfook's Sweetcron project which was a new platform designed specifically for this new thing they called, le gasp, "Lifestreaming".

However, after fighting with Sweetcron and its aggregation methods, particularly its lack of support for various service feed formats; I decided to look into something else. Initial searches landed me upon Tumblr, who had conveniently announced a feature that syncs comments across multiple services (or aggregates). Sadly, I didn't want to get back into a world where all my code was hosted by someone else, and I had no control over it. I kept Sweetcron running on my site under lifestream/, but I continued searching for a better solution.

I then stumbled across Bazooka, which was billed as "the first free PHP tumblelog engine". Thanks to Bazooka developer Evan Walsh, who alerted me to a more up-to-date and current replacement called Chyrp. And I was sold. I immediately spent a few hours converting my existing content from WordPress and SweetCron over to a test installation of Chyrp, and then took the next night changing my site structure and 301'd all my old links to the new URLs.

That's where EricMartindale.com stands today. I've spent a few weeks getting my stream set up the way I want it, and I'm turning the RSS feed back on. Posts should begin flowing into your RSS reader very shortly. Post comments, feedback, and questions here!

Edit 10:13 PM EST: It looks like Feedburner is having some trouble parsing my new RSS content. You can subscribe to my direct feed and it will always work.

Edit 10:58 PM EST: I've fixed the problem and committed the patch to GitHub.

RPGChat is one of the other large roleplaying forums out there, and they've been around since about May, 2001. Since then, RPGChat has gone through many evolutions, and has expanded rapidly - they started with a forum, grew into a decent sized roleplaying chat, and finally removed the chat and went back to forums.

You'll immediately notice the large number of forums, which for most boards isn't an issue. In today's roleplaying world, RPGChat's index fits right in.

They've got four basic navigation options at the top of the page, which are images instead of text, which isn't very good for SEO. The four menu options are Home, Forums, Chat, and Rules. I gave each of them a shot, but it looks like only the "Home" and "Rules" link work.

I'm going to take a look at their code, because using images for links isn't horrible if you specify the right attributes. Let's have a glance:

<a href="http://forums.rpgchat.com/index.php"> <img src="header/but_home.jpg" border="0"> </a>

Yikes! Not only does the anchor not have a title attribute, but the image doesn't have an alt attribute! Search engines won't be able to understand the context of these links, and the flow of link juice to the two working links won't be very beneficial.

I participated on these forums for a few months as the username Alighieri, for that period, I became the single most active user in their welcome forum. I posted in several other topics, but got pretty frustrated with the limitation on the length of a post (20,000 characters).

When attempting to post a profile for one of my characters, I was immediately snubbed by the limitation. This makes well-researched posts difficult to make, specifically with the citations that must be put in place for accurate references. Ultimately, I was forced to cut out portions of my character's history to fit it into the post.

After posting for a few weeks nonstop in the Welcome Forum, I headed off to the The Arena area, where turn-based fighting is largely popular. I opened a topic with a list of the top turn based fighters, placed into a neat little image and posted right into the topic. It took a few days to get any response at all, (save for a few people who contacted me over AIM) and when I did get a response, I logged in to RPGChat to find that I had been banned for "advertising on multiple occasions", much to my surprise.

However, while my visit was cut short, I met some good friends, and had some great discussions. Unfortunately, the forum does not allow any links to external sites of any kind, and also does not allow signatures, which makes it very difficult to spread the word about the topics you start there. This isn't very good for encouraging member interaction, and makes it very difficult for momentum of any sort to be gained within the community.

After speaking with someone who had messaged me on AIM prior to my banning, I confirmed my worst fears - RPGChat is a closed community, and is not very open to outside communities or positive interaction with those communities. This is the number one concern mentioned to me about RPGChat and their future, and there is ongoing fear of the community continuing to stagnate without any growth other than direct referral.

I sent a request via the site's contact form, as listed at the bottom every page, which merely opened a new email to their support address, forums@rpgchat.com - I sent a couple questions in my email, and I identified who I was, but I haven't yet received a response. It'd be great if we could get an interview with an admin from RPGChat on the history of the site!

In terms of organic visitors, a search for pages on RPGChat has about 16,200 results. When digging through the pages, I noticed that only 477 pages were in the primary index, with the remainder in the supplemental index. That's scary!

Let's take a look at their search results:

As you can see from the above search, we can confirm that there is some duplicate content problems. However, from what we've seen - most of RPGChat's traffic is a result of direct referral. We can identify with the importance of defensible traffic, but organic traffic is also a high-quality method of driving laser-targeted traffic to your site, and it looks like RPGChat is seriously missing out on this.

RPGChat has a relatively active forum; 63,708 threads, 1,925,709 posts, and 59,352 "active" members. While that's only an average of about 30 posts per thread and only about 32 posts per user, they do have some great quality and style elements in their posts that you simply don't see in many other places in roleplaying forums these days. I think it would be a great move for them to deactivate a lot of their older and inactive members, and send out reminders to these users to come back and join in on the fun.

It also seemed like a consensus that the single best area on RPGChat was the Clans & Guilds forum, which most users simply called "C/G" for short. It looks like most other forums' version of a multiverse, where roleplay is freeform, and most action is player-driven with rules being defined by the status quo.

Lack of availability aside, RPGChat leaves a pretty strong impression, and if you're careful to follow their 500 word list of rules, you can likely make some friends and enjoy some great high-quality roleplay. The administration needs to do some overhauling if they're going to keep the community healthy, but for the time being - RPGChat makes for a great roleplaying destination.

I'll be back. Kiteboarding is next.

was a pleasure meeting you man! hope to see you again when i come back to the us

That's nice, but unless it sends an SMS to my wife to get back to work...

Google's disabled it definitely now -- I can't even get it back.

Almost everyone I know wants to improve on-chain scaling. Why are we falling back to the same old two-party politi…

Interesting, wish I could be back in Raleigh for this. Unfortunately that won't be happening. Hopefully someone posts the synopsis of the event. Please and thanks. 

How do you find out if you deleted those emails? I tried to figure it out once a while back and unfortunately I had deleted them and Googling around did not offer another way of finding out. My oldest is from 12/1/2004 but it's not my welcome letter.

Congrats +Eric Martindale! Thanks for bringing me back to NC :)

RT @martindale: Almost everyone I know wants to improve on-chain scaling. Why are we falling back to the same old two-party politics we se…

Hey @plugdj, can you just export everyone's data (playlists, play history, etc.) and email it to them? Lots of folks want their things back.

Replacing English characters with non-English characters does not make you cool.

See the Oasiz Community for examples.

It almost reminds me of the kids on MSN chats back in the day.

+Rob Riddle Go back out to your stream (Home), you'll see it at the very top. No quite your profile but you know what I mean.

+Victor ocheri I wish more people would question everything all the time. This complacency of thought and acceptance of convention are holding us back from phenomenal progress as a species.

+Zebulin Magby do you honestly believe that there was ever any real anonymity online, even in the days of Bulletin Boards? I think there was just little motivation or profit to be made back then. Now is a different story.

Thanks, +Eric Martindale! Here's hoping we stay safe! People can also send a text to FEMA at 43362 with DRC or SHELTER plus your zip code to get a text back with the closest shelter or disaster recovery center.

That's one of those great, simple ideas that makes me think, "Huh. Why didn't someone think of that sooner?" :) Your dedication to making a positive difference is really inspiring!

My current project is to give back to the online community that has taught me so much by making some educational videos of my own! I hope to start very very soon, if school doesn't get in the way of my education. =P

We ended up wandering the neighborhood to see a couple of the spectacular "haunted candy walks" with Max, the German exchange student. We headed back inside by about 7:30 to watch The Punisher and to cuddle on the couch until it was time to leave.

Hrm, I wish I could get pictures of the pumpkin I carved for them - I'll try to do that tomorrow night, maybe.

I love my Amber. <3

“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.”
-- +Justin Uberti

Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!

“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.”
-- +Justin Uberti

Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!

“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.”
-- +Justin Uberti

Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!

“At a high level, it’s based on XMPP MUC (XEP-0045) and Jingle (XEP-0166/167), with some other enhancements needed to handle our architecture.”
-- +Justin Uberti

Open-source continues to find a home at Google. Looking forward to seeing more of the Hangout technology pushed back upstream!

I bet blackhats in Russia and China are pissed off that someone else revealed a useful exploit and security is about to be tightened.

More details would be nice. Like what OS are we talking about and why are they "wiping it off the system" and it keeps coming back? Are they not fixing the code that allows it in in the first place? Are they using some OS where one has to be careful what one clicks on lest one get infected with something? If so, how is something that insecure used in the war-fighting infrastructure? Did the NSA get overruled by some powerful senator that needed to repay a campaign favor?

Glancing through some of my old text documents (I have a file called 'New Text Document (97).txt' ) and came across this:


Master says:
I took a Dremel and cut into the back of the thing.
Master says:
Removed the embedded battery
Master says:
>=D
Elijah says:
x_x
Master says:
Duct tape works wonders man, I tell ya.
Elijah says:
If you have kids, I hope they go to bed when you tell them.

Article is 1/2 true, agree on the human behavior side of things, but the climate change is wrong. Climate change is just another name for "weather patterns", and nothing new is happening today that hasn't happened back in history before the invention of carbon emitting machinery. Droughts and hot spells happened many times over. We are at the end of a solar maximum calendar of the sun and will be headed into a cooling period for a long while now, which if we go to cold, the same affect will happen. So what then? Go out and run your car on the drive for a hour ever day in hopes of warming the planet up?? 

+Audra Distefano yep, so far so good! +Mary Bedard and I did the CNN Center Tour after she finished her presentation earlier today, and went to the World of Coca-Cola and the Atlanta aquarium on Thursday. We're going to try the Zoo and Stone Mountain tomorrow before we head back to North Carolina. :)

If done properly, it seems like an obvious choice. Scientists are supposed to seek knowledge, not put up barriers to access. The free exchange of ideas is incredibly important for science, and making that exchange easier should be one of the goals. It's ironic that this, of all fields, should suffer from a sluggish move away from old fashioned models.
I think it's inevitable. The only question is how and when. I can understand why the current system is upheld because of its apparent benefits of filtering unwanted papers and comments, and backing up what's published with weighty names from established editors and scientists... but I'm quite sure it's inferior to more open networking models.

“It really is a great place to exchange ideas. I've been in hangouts where people have practiced wedding toasts, given tours of their home cities in distant lands, crowd-sourced dating advice, music hangouts, concerts, art hangouts, hangouts with news people while they were live on air, or just a casual hangout where we decided to toss back a couple beers and put on silly hats and talk about random things going on in the world.”
-- +Brett Bjornsen, talking about Google+ Hangouts.

“It really is a great place to exchange ideas. I've been in hangouts where people have practiced wedding toasts, given tours of their home cities in distant lands, crowd-sourced dating advice, music hangouts, concerts, art hangouts, hangouts with news people while they were live on air, or just a casual hangout where we decided to toss back a couple beers and put on silly hats and talk about random things going on in the world.”
-- +Brett Bjornsen, talking about Google+ Hangouts.

“It really is a great place to exchange ideas. I've been in hangouts where people have practiced wedding toasts, given tours of their home cities in distant lands, crowd-sourced dating advice, music hangouts, concerts, art hangouts, hangouts with news people while they were live on air, or just a casual hangout where we decided to toss back a couple beers and put on silly hats and talk about random things going on in the world.”
-- +Brett Bjornsen, talking about Google+ Hangouts.

“It really is a great place to exchange ideas. I've been in hangouts where people have practiced wedding toasts, given tours of their home cities in distant lands, crowd-sourced dating advice, music hangouts, concerts, art hangouts, hangouts with news people while they were live on air, or just a casual hangout where we decided to toss back a couple beers and put on silly hats and talk about random things going on in the world.”
-- +Brett Bjornsen, talking about Google+ Hangouts.

Interesting blog post, He seems pretty angry about it all and while I agree that a deeper understanding is needed for some programming tasks, other just need you to crank out code. Could be wrong but I think people use to argue that Java wasn't scalable either... it evolved and every bank in the country seems to think its the only language out there now. It scales now even though it could have been reasonably debated back in 2001 when it was slow and immature.

What it really comes down to is that a huge majority of software is ephemeral, give it 2-3 years and it will be rewritten not because the code has any real problems but, technology has changed along with the business requirements. Things move change, don't build a cathedral when a bazaar will exceed the requirements.

This post just went up on GitHub's blog, showing some action-steps they're taking to help us move towards a mass-algorate society. They're hosting a CoderDojo class for kids aged 7 to 18 in the San Francisco area. How cool is that? #education

“Sit back, close your eyes, and think about how good you are at coding. Man, you're awesome. When did you learn how to be so awesome? Now just think how awesome you would be if you had learned how to code when you were seven years old.”

How can we engage our children in learning how to program?

I can't find the author (Cameron Mcefee) or GitHub on Google+, so I can't tag them. Sadface.

This post just went up on GitHub's blog, showing some action-steps they're taking to help us move towards a mass-algorate society. They're hosting a CoderDojo class for kids aged 7 to 18 in the San Francisco area. How cool is that? #education

“Sit back, close your eyes, and think about how good you are at coding. Man, you're awesome. When did you learn how to be so awesome? Now just think how awesome you would be if you had learned how to code when you were seven years old.”

How can we engage our children in learning how to program?

I can't find the author (Cameron Mcefee) or GitHub on Google+, so I can't tag them. Sadface.

This post just went up on GitHub's blog, showing some action-steps they're taking to help us move towards a mass-algorate society. They're hosting a CoderDojo class for kids aged 7 to 18 in the San Francisco area. How cool is that? #education

“Sit back, close your eyes, and think about how good you are at coding. Man, you're awesome. When did you learn how to be so awesome? Now just think how awesome you would be if you had learned how to code when you were seven years old.”

How can we engage our children in learning how to program?

I can't find the author (Cameron Mcefee) or GitHub on Google+, so I can't tag them. Sadface.

This post just went up on GitHub's blog, showing some action-steps they're taking to help us move towards a mass-algorate society. They're hosting a CoderDojo class for kids aged 7 to 18 in the San Francisco area. How cool is that? #education

“Sit back, close your eyes, and think about how good you are at coding. Man, you're awesome. When did you learn how to be so awesome? Now just think how awesome you would be if you had learned how to code when you were seven years old.”

How can we engage our children in learning how to program?

I can't find the author (Cameron Mcefee) or GitHub on Google+, so I can't tag them. Sadface.

I take phone calls from customers, diagnose and estimate the length of time it will take to fix their problem, and schedule an appointment for an engineer to be there. It is then my duty to dispatch this appointment to the engineer, at the appropriate point in time.

At this point in time, I am no longer associated with your on site service. If the engineer does a bad job, it is my job to talk to you and determine if the problem requires the engineer to go back out and solve the issue, and determine whether or not it requires billing.

Do not vent your stress to me. I will get the engineer in contact with you as soon as possible.

Do not yell at me because the engineer was unable to make it at the scheduled time. I will have an engineer to you as soon as we can, I promise. Sometimes appointments take longer than expected, and sometimes cars break down.

That is all.

This is a bunch of the peepz from GundamWing.com and AnimeMetro.com - getting together way back at MetroCon 2.

+Peter A. Saldaña III 's statement pretty much support the current of the myth behind Rapa Nui's (Easter Islands) deforestation and demographic mass change of centuries ago. There are other mysteries about the culture such as its writing system as raised by +hizoka andou I ve heard that the first missionaries (back in the 17-18 centuries) were able to record some informations about that if you're talking about the "Rongo Rongo" (kinna of blurring ones but its only lead we have so far I believe!). Don't quote me on this but best of luck on your studies...

Happy Halloween, everyone.

We (Amber, her mother, and myself) went to see Marie Antoinette on Saturday (At least, I believe it was Saturday. My recollections are always somewhat hazy...) after a decidedly long day for me. Amber had been wanting to see it for some time, and I think she was satisfied with it. Something of a chick flick, I suppose - but a well done movie, overall. The first half of the movie was about the utter lack of sex in Marie's arranged marriage, and the drama that such a scandalous endeavor would entail. The movie evolved into further drama, and proceeded to end as a glorified drama. I wasn't particularly impressed, but I did enjoy my time.

So, converging back from the semi-related tangent to a more relevant topic, Amber and I are trying to decide exactly what we're going to do tonight. I'm still stuck here at work, and she's finishing up some work for school. We're likely going to end up snuggling on the couch watching a movie of some sort. Perhaps there will be some horror films on SciFi, or something of the like?

Here's to a Happy Halloween night for everyone.

+John Reiher Well, strictly speaking, that's only true because the target language is Mandarin, which has different part-of-sentence semantic rules than English.   Translating English to German should be mostly doable on the fly because almost all  English constructs map well to German in the same order (conventional sentence order of subject verb indirect object direct object).  Doing the same thing German to English isn't feasible because in German the use of an auxillary or modal verb pushes a word to the end of the sentence, so you can't start translating till you get there.  So translating "I've forgotten much of my German" is easy to translate to german, but "Ich habe viele Deutch vergessen" can't be translated back until you hit that last word.

(Man, high school german was 35 years ago, amazing how much I haven't forgotten) ;)

Yes, I am damn well aware that this is a stock template. Right now, I couldn't care less. I'm not even posting, really.

Well, GWing is back, but somehow, all of the files in my home directory disappeared, as well as all of my backups. For right now, I've created a simple placeholder page for everyone who just happens to type GWing.net into their address bar.

Now that I think about it, I may just end up redesigning the whole index page anyways. I'm considering using Drupal or something similiar, or just recoding a simple page for the index. I'm going to need to further tie in to the main user database - the phpbb one - to allow a smoother experience.

Now that I'm talking about the forums, I should mention that I have no idea how I put so many things on the board without completely breaking it. I have over 100 installed modifications installed, and I still have a functional forum. Now, don't get me wrong: There are a LOT of bugs... but it's functional. [Insert-puzzled-glee]

I think I will refer to the above insert statement as [IPG] from now on.

While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.

Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.

[1]: http://github.com/
[2]: http://dribbble.com/

While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.

Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.

[1]: http://github.com/
[2]: http://dribbble.com/

While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.

Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.

[1]: http://github.com/
[2]: http://dribbble.com/

+Joseph Coco I don't think you are being honest with the reality of what a business would have to have set up to take bitcoin. 

It is naive to think they can just manage it themselves, especially with the ever changing value, and varying international values,  just like regular credit payment services have to deal with. 

I think pro-bitcoin bias is coloring your responses.   My research on it as someone who considered using them, paints a lot different picture than you are presenting.

I'm no anti-bitcoin.  I'm all for all sorts of varieties of currency and transactions.   But I want the truth and facts to be said about them.

I also notice everyone is ducking the security and backing issue. 

Banks are accredited and insured to protect their customers.   There isn't any bitcoin handler that has that.  Not even Square Marketplace. 

If you want people to use them, great.  If you want to use them yourself, great.  But don't blow smoke up peoples....   trying to cover real negatives about them. 

While hiring the first five engineers here at +LocalSense, we've never looked at someone's résumé. Not even once. One of the greatest things about the business world today compared to a decade ago (or even a couple years back!) is that you can directly qualify someone's past work through, at least for software engineers, tools such as GitHub [1]. The best measure of a potential hire's impact is going to be direct observation of their past work, and not a page or two of biography on the individual and their credentials.

Now, this approach remains difficult for more traditional careers in fields like academia and publishing, which simply don't have the agility necessary for something like GitHub or Dribbble [2] to make the impact they have. They have an existing [rigid] infrastructure that places the barrier to entry of any disruptive technology prohibitively high. The most established sectors will struggle the hardest, and perhaps fail the most spectacularly.

[1]: http://github.com/
[2]: http://dribbble.com/

I agree somewhat with the basic idea that there is no UNIFIED message to the Occupy movement. Most people see this as its downfall. For me I see this differently.

I kind of like the non linear message that Occupy movement is doing as a social experiment that can go anywhere. To me this rivals virtue ethics which I believe to be the best form of ethics as it is based on an individual with a basic system of organization and some loose guidelines. It is based on some general guidelines "peaceful demonstrations, 99%, end corporate greed, bring humanity back to business, ect" , but each Occupy movement is unique. It seems to me that the movement is based on the context of the individual cities and bases of folks. For instance SLC, UT has not had any issues with the police or the media. Everyone has been nice and we have been well received around the city. Tis not like that everywhere. there are so many sociological issues and political issues for each location. I feel this has not been tried before. It is adaptable and changable so it bends before it breaks unlike the tea party which is super rigid. The Occupy movement does not have to alienate anyone, and it is based in cooperation. If any movement wants to get a rigid simple voice all they need to do is vote on it. For me this is suddle and genious. It forces everyone who is interested to think for themselves plus it works as a collective conscious snowball . For me this is the greatest part of the movemnet. What could be more free than "free thought". For me this Occupy movement is "free thought association in action". For me this is a liberating liberty one mind at a time. What do you think about this?

Hey it's SO HIP to +HIRL during a +HIRL or other fun times... hehe
I'm shocked you woke up so early +Daria Musk .. seriously 23 hours ... ouchy! Welcome back to 2012!
+Tiffany Henry lol... wait, when did you awake today? :)~ +Who Said That?
How's ROUND 2 of the DC +HIRL going?

I just invested in $500 worth of targeted advertising for GWing Roleplay. So, what's the total impact upon my wallet?

A grand $5 in activation fees.

Big shoutouts to Computers.net for pointing this out. I was thinking of organizing a group of friends to throw multiple instances of these offers into advertising for GWing, but I realized that it would be difficult to target the advertising properly, as I found it rather complicated to create my own template of keywords and negative keywords to match the optimal result for what we desire in our community. If you sign up for these offers, be sure to carefully monitor your expenses! The billing is most likely set to recurring, and will continue to charge your credit card after your account balance has been used.

Alternately, I woke this morning to find DoesMyGeek's New Podcast, and was greeted by a shoutout and a link over the air to yours truly, and GWing Roleplay. What an amazing podcast, talking about the classic combination, roleplay and beer. Here's to you guys. ;)

One more - I just got linked to Michael Robertson's Evaluation of a College Degree, and found the article particularly interesting in this time. And now: back to work.

Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+

I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.

My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.

And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.

On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.

So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.

Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+

I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.

My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.

And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.

On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.

So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.

Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+

I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.

My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.

And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.

On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.

So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.

Google Reader + Disqus would be a better Google+ than Google+

I'm not feeling Google+. I get that people are excited about high level of "engagement" and stuff, but to me it looks like something that is trying to solve too many problems at once. Or combine things that don't need to be combined.

My stream on Google+ looks something like this: link post, link post, lolcatz, lolcatz, long 3-page-down post by +Robert Scoble , lolcatz, link post, long post, etc. It's kind of like twitter, but it's not glanceable. I can have twitter on my secondary monitor and glance at the timeline every few minutes and get back to what I was doing if I don't see anything interesting in a number of tweets that fits on the screen. With G+ the number of posts to glance at is about 1. So you have to scroll to check what's going on - no go, imho.

And to be something like a social blogging platform it lacks formatting, flexibility, etc. And most importantly it requires you to make a move which is not what most people are willing to decide to do easily.

On the other hand, I like that you can read the stream and comment right away. Unlike in Google Reader (or any other RSS reader) where you have to click through to the site to comment/read comments. And quite a lot of the blogs already use a global social commenting platform - Disqus.

So if there was a GReader-like RSS reader combined with inline Disqus comments it would have everything I like about Google+ without all the other stuff that looks like a big indecisive pile of everything to me.

+Terrence Lui definitely, i'd love to hear more about your efforts and would love to help brainstorm the recruiting process.

There are people that have a gift of hiring good people. I personally think that a friendly exchange with an individual and a philosophical conversation can go a long way.

Personally, respect is the biggest key for me in a employee/employer relationship. I think upfront and straight forward is the ideal.

What are the key traits you want in an employee? Diversity is key for a team, but you need focused individuals and broad thinking individuals as well.

In my past I have loved the hiring process and offering my recommendation to employers. When I worked for a sporting goods store, I doubled back on my managers suggestion during a final interview and the manager was very unhappy about it. Something was off.

I left the job for an unrelated reason a month later and they hired the guy I turned away against my recommendation. He proceeded to embezzle over 10,000 in merchandise before being caught stealing bats and selling them second hand. The reason it felt wrong.

Mutual respect is key.

I personally would request an email to introduce yourself (if you have more than a handful of applications face to face with every potential is not cost effective)

from that, don't focus 100% on experience. You need a well rounded team, that means old and new perspectives.

Also, don't promote someone to supervisor that is the best designer. Adequately gauge the persons talents and build them in that area. A supervisor does not have to know a thing about who they are supervising. It depends on your desired form of leadership. Some models take the best and have them lead, some take leaders and have them work with the best.

Christmas time is here! The incessant Christmas music on the radio, the lights around this quiet little town, the music played over the speakers on main street, and the greenery and otherwise unusual happiness of the general populous. The best time of the year, many say - I can see why. I just hope the radio music doesn't wear thin on me too soon...

I'm getting over my sinus infection, with only a minor headache right now. Church went extraordinary, and life (as of right now) is good. Earlier this afternoon, Amber and I put together a French Meringue for her class at school, which looks absolutely gorgeous. We used an old lace napkin to pattern the surface with a delectable pattern of powdered sugar, and it came out well.

I just cleaned off her computer desk, just on one of those random cleaning spree (read: obsessive compulsive) things. I sorted her father's CDs, to much satisfaction. We also raked the yard... and now we're decorating her house. Well, they are - I'm cleaning up her father's computer now, too. What a day!

Spats lost!? I feel that he deserved the win, but that's not what the judge determined. I'm glad that Kouketsu took care of those flames in the "who do you think will win" topic, because I don't think I can last much longer dealing with such complete and total disgraces to the ideals of quality text fighting.

GWing seems to be picking up some more, there is a lot of progress being made in the Growth area. Several new moderators (critics...), namely Circ and Dovey, are preparing an awesome system for reviewing authors' submissions. I think I'm going to try and influence Amber to provide SOME input, as it is her forum, and it'd help her to get back into writing.

Dinner time. Ja ne!

Yep, this April 22nd, 2008 is my birthday (credit to the intro goes to sXePhil), and I'm turning 21 today. However, due to the upcoming MMA fight that I've got at Dorton Arena on April 26th, all mandatory 21st birthday celebrations will be postponed until after the fight.

For those of you who aren't already aware, you can pick up tickets at Carolina Fight Promotions. I'm going to be fighting Andy Teague, a well-versed jiujitsu competitor, and the match is scheduled for three rounds at 3 minutes each.

So, today being my birthday--and as such, I've received tons and tons of birthday wishes--I thought I'd give some shoutouts to everyone who has done so. It's pretty simple, all you've got to do is write a "happy birthday" post somewhere on the web, link to me, and then show me the page you want me to link back to.

My twitter friends have had an early start, and it's already the afternoon - don't procrastinate, I'm ending this at midnight tonight!

Thank you guys for the happy birthday wishes! Martin Bowling Michelle Reno Brian Mark Rae Hoffman Dave Rohrer Alex Simpson Heather Sexy SEO SEOcom

You're right, +Debbie Coultis.  The problem is that more often than not, any customizations made to the existing open resources (+MIT OpenCourseWare, for example) never make their way back "upstream", or otherwise made available to future educators or students who might have use of them.  I talked a bit about how +Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), specifically with software, was involved in the open-source community very early on, but perhaps I should've gone into more depth here.

There are many free (and some open) educational resources emerging, but we need deeper interchangeability between them if their innovations are to be capitalized on.

+Bob Calder I don't know if Robert Panoff was in the audience or not, but you're right.  +Coursera isn't the answer, but it is at least a step forward in increasing the availability of the delivery system.  Once we're able to edit that content and the processes (e.g., make everything hackable), we'll close the loop on collaboration in education.

Thanks, +Nathan Greenling!  Once +Coursefork ships more robust composition features, I'll attach the slides into the YouTube video at their corresponding points and perhaps include some further speaker notes.

In June of 1971, just days before his 26-year-old son, Michael, got married, future-U.S. President Ronald Reagan sent him the following letter of advice. Michael Reagan Manhattan Beach, California June 1971 Dear Mike: Enclosed is the item I mentioned (with which goes a torn up IOU). I could stop here but I won't. You've heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the "unhappy marrieds" and cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another viewpoint. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it. Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn't know won't hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding lipstick on the collar or catching a man in the flimsy excuse of where he was till three A.M., a wife does know, and with that knowing, some of the magic of this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of blame. There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as you put in it. The man who puts into the marriage only half of what he owns will get that out. Sure, there will be moments when you will see someone or think back to an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn't take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music. If you truly love a girl, you shouldn't ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as she looked at her, the woman you love, remembering this was the woman you rejected even momentarily for her favors. Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps. Love, Dad P.S. You'll never get in trouble if you say "I love you" at least once a day. Thank you, Letters of Note, for sharing this incredibly prescient tidbit.

After the usual late-nighter, I went out to grab some coffee somewhere north of 6:30 this morning. The young woman behind the counter asked in a surprisingly enthusiastic tone, perhaps recognizing me from a certain coffee adventure prior.

"What're you doing up so early!?"

I started to reply with a nondescript "Eh, work.", but what words actually slipped out of my mouth turned out to be more inquisitive.

"Well, have you ever heard of Google Plus?" I ventured, fully expecting a blank stare with that ever so vague hint of condescension. Perhaps I was too exhausted to consider how much buzz Google+ had generated, or to remember that it went public no less than a day prior. Whatever the case, her reply jarred me for a moment.

"Yeah, I've heard of it! Isn't it that new Google social network?" she asked.

I briefly explained how I'd met a handful of incredible people through Google Hangouts, and that we were all working on a side project outside of our normal jobs, and for fun no less. It might well have been my sleepless stupor again, but the ensuing conversation led me to believe she was absolutely fascinated with the idea of meeting and collaborating with people from around the world.

I grabbed my coffee and headed back to work, my enthusiasm bolstered by exchange.

P.S.: Since I can't hyperlink specific words in a Google+ post, the project I'm working on is Hangout Academy ( http://www.hangoutacademy.com ) and our team is as follows: +Carmelyne Thompson, +Jake McCuistion, +Christa Laser, +Lucas Johnson, and +Mohamed Mansour. We're on the warpath to get our first release out, so circle us if you're interested in hearing more about what Hangout Academy is.

After the usual late-nighter, I went out to grab some coffee somewhere north of 6:30 this morning. The young woman behind the counter asked in a surprisingly enthusiastic tone, perhaps recognizing me from a certain coffee adventure prior.

"What're you doing up so early!?"

I started to reply with a nondescript "Eh, work.", but what words actually slipped out of my mouth turned out to be more inquisitive.

"Well, have you ever heard of Google Plus?" I ventured, fully expecting a blank stare with that ever so vague hint of condescension. Perhaps I was too exhausted to consider how much buzz Google+ had generated, or to remember that it went public no less than a day prior. Whatever the case, her reply jarred me for a moment.

"Yeah, I've heard of it! Isn't it that new Google social network?" she asked.

I briefly explained how I'd met a handful of incredible people through Google Hangouts, and that we were all working on a side project outside of our normal jobs, and for fun no less. It might well have been my sleepless stupor again, but the ensuing conversation led me to believe she was absolutely fascinated with the idea of meeting and collaborating with people from around the world.

I grabbed my coffee and headed back to work, my enthusiasm bolstered by exchange.

P.S.: Since I can't hyperlink specific words in a Google+ post, the project I'm working on is Hangout Academy ( http://www.hangoutacademy.com ) and our team is as follows: +Carmelyne Thompson, +Jake McCuistion, +Christa Laser, +Lucas Johnson, and +Mohamed Mansour. We're on the warpath to get our first release out, so circle us if you're interested in hearing more about what Hangout Academy is.

After the usual late-nighter, I went out to grab some coffee somewhere north of 6:30 this morning. The young woman behind the counter asked in a surprisingly enthusiastic tone, perhaps recognizing me from a certain coffee adventure prior.

"What're you doing up so early!?"

I started to reply with a nondescript "Eh, work.", but what words actually slipped out of my mouth turned out to be more inquisitive.

"Well, have you ever heard of Google Plus?" I ventured, fully expecting a blank stare with that ever so vague hint of condescension. Perhaps I was too exhausted to consider how much buzz Google+ had generated, or to remember that it went public no less than a day prior. Whatever the case, her reply jarred me for a moment.

"Yeah, I've heard of it! Isn't it that new Google social network?" she asked.

I briefly explained how I'd met a handful of incredible people through Google Hangouts, and that we were all working on a side project outside of our normal jobs, and for fun no less. It might well have been my sleepless stupor again, but the ensuing conversation led me to believe she was absolutely fascinated with the idea of meeting and collaborating with people from around the world.

I grabbed my coffee and headed back to work, my enthusiasm bolstered by exchange.

P.S.: Since I can't hyperlink specific words in a Google+ post, the project I'm working on is Hangout Academy ( http://www.hangoutacademy.com ) and our team is as follows: +Carmelyne Thompson, +Jake McCuistion, +Christa Laser, +Lucas Johnson, and +Mohamed Mansour. We're on the warpath to get our first release out, so circle us if you're interested in hearing more about what Hangout Academy is.

After the usual late-nighter, I went out to grab some coffee somewhere north of 6:30 this morning. The young woman behind the counter asked in a surprisingly enthusiastic tone, perhaps recognizing me from a certain coffee adventure prior.

"What're you doing up so early!?"

I started to reply with a nondescript "Eh, work.", but what words actually slipped out of my mouth turned out to be more inquisitive.

"Well, have you ever heard of Google Plus?" I ventured, fully expecting a blank stare with that ever so vague hint of condescension. Perhaps I was too exhausted to consider how much buzz Google+ had generated, or to remember that it went public no less than a day prior. Whatever the case, her reply jarred me for a moment.

"Yeah, I've heard of it! Isn't it that new Google social network?" she asked.

I briefly explained how I'd met a handful of incredible people through Google Hangouts, and that we were all working on a side project outside of our normal jobs, and for fun no less. It might well have been my sleepless stupor again, but the ensuing conversation led me to believe she was absolutely fascinated with the idea of meeting and collaborating with people from around the world.

I grabbed my coffee and headed back to work, my enthusiasm bolstered by exchange.

P.S.: Since I can't hyperlink specific words in a Google+ post, the project I'm working on is Hangout Academy ( http://www.hangoutacademy.com ) and our team is as follows: +Carmelyne Thompson, +Jake McCuistion, +Christa Laser, +Lucas Johnson, and +Mohamed Mansour. We're on the warpath to get our first release out, so circle us if you're interested in hearing more about what Hangout Academy is.

Just caught this over a MySpace (gasp!) bulletin. Actually, I'm lying, Shannon called me when she posted this to make sure I saw it. Because you know I wouldn't have.

Girls - pick the first guy on your top friends.
Unless their family than pick the next one.
Guys - do the same, but the first girl .

- Don't change it
- Enter their name
- Be honest
- Repost this so your friends can do it too

1. Who is it?
...Errriiiccckkk.

2. How did you meet?
6th grade, baby. We go back.

3. If you were crying would this person cheer you up?
Always.

4. Where is this person?
Wendell

5. Have you ever spent the night with this person?
I've crashed at his place. But not with him. We don't roll like that, s0n.

6. Will this person repost this?
Lol, Never.

7. Is this person family?
Yup. Always will be part of it.

8. Do you trust this person ?
Uh Hu. He knows me better than anyone.

9. If you could change something about them, would you?
Nope. Well, I'd make it so he called more often. But we're both so damn busy.

10. Does this person live close to you?
5 minutes away.

11. How much does this person know about you?
TOO much...=). Just kidding.

12. What would you do if you were stuck in an elevator with this person?
We'd probably do stuipd shit so the people monitoring the elevator cameras
would be laughing their asses off. And then I'd probably be fussing him out, saying this was all his fault and he'd just sit there trying to take apart the damn elevator keypad and claim it was something he's always wanted to do. What a retard... ;)

13. Do you argue with this person?
God yes. And we fight. I'm Talking an all out BRAWL. ;)

14. If you guys went to jail together, what would it be for?
Running from the cops. Hacking into some top secret government website. Aiding and Ebedding. TRYING to get into Lake Royal. ha...

15. Do you want to see this person right now?
Sometime soon, Yeah. I miss him =(

"MY TOP BOY"- if you're a girl and "MY TOP GIRL"-if your a guy

I love you too, Shannon. You're... mostly correct. On which parts... I'm not at liberty to disclose. :D

In June of 1971, just days before his 26-year-old son, Michael, got married, future-U.S. President Ronald Reagan sent him the following letter of advice.

Michael Reagan
Manhattan Beach, California
June 1971

Dear Mike:

Enclosed is the item I mentioned (with which goes a torn up IOU). I could stop here but I won't.

You've heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the "unhappy marrieds" and cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another viewpoint. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it.

Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn't know won't hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding lipstick on the collar or catching a man in the flimsy excuse of where he was till three A.M., a wife does know, and with that knowing, some of the magic of this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of blame. There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as you put in it. The man who puts into the marriage only half of what he owns will get that out. Sure, there will be moments when you will see someone or think back to an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn't take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music. If you truly love a girl, you shouldn't ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as she looked at her, the woman you love, remembering this was the woman you rejected even momentarily for her favors. 

Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.

Love,

Dad

P.S. You'll never get in trouble if you say "I love you" at least once a day.

Thank you, Letters of Note, for sharing this incredibly prescient tidbit.

#relationships   #advice

In June of 1971, just days before his 26-year-old son, Michael, got married, future-U.S. President Ronald Reagan sent him the following letter of advice.

Michael Reagan
Manhattan Beach, California
June 1971

Dear Mike:

Enclosed is the item I mentioned (with which goes a torn up IOU). I could stop here but I won't.

You've heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the "unhappy marrieds" and cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another viewpoint. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it.

Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn't know won't hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding lipstick on the collar or catching a man in the flimsy excuse of where he was till three A.M., a wife does know, and with that knowing, some of the magic of this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of blame. There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as you put in it. The man who puts into the marriage only half of what he owns will get that out. Sure, there will be moments when you will see someone or think back to an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn't take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music. If you truly love a girl, you shouldn't ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as she looked at her, the woman you love, remembering this was the woman you rejected even momentarily for her favors. 

Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.

Love,

Dad

P.S. You'll never get in trouble if you say "I love you" at least once a day.

Thank you, Letters of Note, for sharing this incredibly prescient tidbit.

#relationships   #advice

In June of 1971, just days before his 26-year-old son, Michael, got married, future-U.S. President Ronald Reagan sent him the following letter of advice.

Michael Reagan
Manhattan Beach, California
June 1971

Dear Mike:

Enclosed is the item I mentioned (with which goes a torn up IOU). I could stop here but I won't.

You've heard all the jokes that have been rousted around by all the "unhappy marrieds" and cynics. Now, in case no one has suggested it, there is another viewpoint. You have entered into the most meaningful relationship there is in all human life. It can be whatever you decide to make it.

Some men feel their masculinity can only be proven if they play out in their own life all the locker-room stories, smugly confident that what a wife doesn't know won't hurt her. The truth is, somehow, way down inside, without her ever finding lipstick on the collar or catching a man in the flimsy excuse of where he was till three A.M., a wife does know, and with that knowing, some of the magic of this relationship disappears. There are more men griping about marriage who kicked the whole thing away themselves than there can ever be wives deserving of blame. There is an old law of physics that you can only get out of a thing as much as you put in it. The man who puts into the marriage only half of what he owns will get that out. Sure, there will be moments when you will see someone or think back to an earlier time and you will be challenged to see if you can still make the grade, but let me tell you how really great is the challenge of proving your masculinity and charm with one woman for the rest of your life. Any man can find a twerp here and there who will go along with cheating, and it doesn't take all that much manhood. It does take quite a man to remain attractive and to be loved by a woman who has heard him snore, seen him unshaven, tended him while he was sick and washed his dirty underwear. Do that and keep her still feeling a warm glow and you will know some very beautiful music. If you truly love a girl, you shouldn't ever want her to feel, when she sees you greet a secretary or a girl you both know, that humiliation of wondering if she was someone who caused you to be late coming home, nor should you want any other woman to be able to meet your wife and know she was smiling behind her eyes as she looked at her, the woman you love, remembering this was the woman you rejected even momentarily for her favors. 

Mike, you know better than many what an unhappy home is and what it can do to others. Now you have a chance to make it come out the way it should. There is no greater happiness for a man than approaching a door at the end of a day knowing someone on the other side of that door is waiting for the sound of his footsteps.

Love,

Dad

P.S. You'll never get in trouble if you say "I love you" at least once a day.

Thank you, Letters of Note, for sharing this incredibly prescient tidbit.

#relationships   #advice

As I have mentioned before, I'm in a love affair with Chyrp, which is an up-and-coming platform meant to replace WordPress and work a bit like Tumblr, as a microblogging and lifestreaming service.

One of Chyrp's major draws for me is the Aggregator module, which is included in Chryp 2.0 by default. Mike Crittenden of MergeWeb Fame has covered the use of Chyrp's Aggregator previously, but I figured I'd dive in a bit further and help others in configuring their feeds.

You may also be familiar with StackOverflow, a crowd-sourcing social-media head-bashing awesome site that enables users to ask tech-related questions and get awesome community-approved answers. The same group runs several other sites using the same model, including SuperUser and ServerFault, and they are even releasing their codebase as free and open source as the <a href="http://stackexchange.com/>StackExchange project.

But, onward into the goodies: syndicating your activity on StackOverflow (and the other sites) using Chryp.

The first you'll need is your Activity Feed. To acquire this, visit the "Recent" tab of your user profile and look in the bottom right hand corner: you'll see a link to "user recent activity feed". This is the URL for your activity feed, grab that and let's move on to Chyrp.

In Chyrp, you'll want to add a new aggregate in your Admin panel. Paste your Activity Feed into the "Source URL" box, then configure the remaining settings as follows:

Feather: Link Post Attributes: name: "feed[title]" source: "feed[id]" description: "feed[description]"

Now, assign a "Name" and make sure the correct Author is selected, and click "Update". You're all done! You'll see new content from your feed the next time your aggregates update.

Questions? Comments? Lemme have 'em.

Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality
+Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year.  We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].

The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.

These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved.  The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion.  This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].

Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story.  The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups".  In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software.  I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.

It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].

[1]: https://www.spaceglasses.com/
[2]: SpaceGlasses are the future of computing
[3]: https://vimeo.com/8569187
[4]: http://unlogo.org/pages/about
[5]: that's free as in libertas, not as in gratis.
[6]: http://www.rtp.org/rtp-180-open-source-all-things
[7]: I recently started a project to this effect called "Para", a client-agnostic peer-to-peer network for implementing a data layer on top of the real world.  I'm seeking collaborators!  Check it out: http://para.io

Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality
+Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year.  We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].

The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.

These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved.  The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion.  This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].

Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story.  The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups".  In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software.  I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.

It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].

[1]: https://www.spaceglasses.com/
[2]: SpaceGlasses are the future of computing
[3]: https://vimeo.com/8569187
[4]: http://unlogo.org/pages/about
[5]: that's free as in libertas, not as in gratis.
[6]: http://www.rtp.org/rtp-180-open-source-all-things
[7]: I recently started a project to this effect called "Para", a client-agnostic peer-to-peer network for implementing a data layer on top of the real world.  I'm seeking collaborators!  Check it out: http://para.io

Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality
+Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year.  We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].

The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.

These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved.  The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion.  This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].

Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story.  The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups".  In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software.  I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.

It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].

[1]: https://www.spaceglasses.com/
[2]: SpaceGlasses are the future of computing
[3]: https://vimeo.com/8569187
[4]: http://unlogo.org/pages/about
[5]: that's free as in libertas, not as in gratis.
[6]: http://www.rtp.org/rtp-180-open-source-all-things
[7]: I recently started a project to this effect called "Para", a client-agnostic peer-to-peer network for implementing a data layer on top of the real world.  I'm seeking collaborators!  Check it out: http://para.io

Compelling Narratives using Augmented Reality
+Google Glass has, for better or worse, shaped the narrative around augmented reality this past year.  We've seen the arms (eyes?) race rapidly develop, culminating recently with the +YCombinator-backed +meta announcing their "SpaceGlasses" [1], one of the first truly compelling experiences built around a convincingly capable device [2].

The hardest part of augmented reality is not the hardware, nor the computer vision software—both extremely difficult academic challenges in their own right, and certainly not to be taken by the faint of heart—but in the experience.

These problems will be solved, through no small effort, but they will be solved.  The most daunting challenge is to build a compelling story that binds the available data (read "the Internet") to the real world, and exposes it in an unobtrusive and seamless fashion.  This too will emerge naturally, but early pioneers in the space need to think carefully about the application of augmented reality in order to succeed; no one wants a world filled with advertisements [3], and in fact—some even try to eliminate them [4].

Here, +Field Trip attempts to builds one such compelling story.  The experience of contextual information making itself available without interrupting your interactions with the real world is so tantalizingly close you can feel it, but one wonders just how much control the user will have over the frequency and relevance of the information "popups".  In the early days of the software industry (late 60s, early 70s), an ongoing debate between the [then] default of free software vs. closed software unfolded, setting the foundation for today's conversation around open source and free [5] software.  I'll be talking more about this in a presentation at the upcoming #RTP180 : Open Source All Things event [6] in North Carolina.

It's another step forward for ubiquitous augmented reality, an exciting one indeed, but one that won't achieve mass adoption until the user can control their own experience [7].

[1]: https://www.spaceglasses.com/
[2]: SpaceGlasses are the future of computing
[3]: https://vimeo.com/8569187
[4]: http://unlogo.org/pages/about
[5]: that's free as in libertas, not as in gratis.
[6]: http://www.rtp.org/rtp-180-open-source-all-things
[7]: I recently started a project to this effect called "Para", a client-agnostic peer-to-peer network for implementing a data layer on top of the real world.  I'm seeking collaborators!  Check it out: http://para.io

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

Running a role playing game online presents a large of amount of flexibility in the way you run the game. You no longer need individual sessions where all players are present, and there are a plethora of options as to where you are going to run it - if you want to run it in any one place.

One of the number one questions I receive relates to the medium for online RPGs. There are tons of different ways of communicating online, mainly grouped into a few categories. We have instant messenger, chats, message boards, and emails. There are a few custom services out there, but I'm going to touch on the four that I've mentioned.

On RolePlayGateway, we have a set of roleplaying forums as well as a roleplaying chat. When you're running an RPG, there are a few items you should consider when deciding where you're going to keep everything.

Forums have the benefit of being static and always available - users can post to forums at any time during the day and be sure that other users (and roleplayers) can see their message. Forums are also very flexible, they allow you to embed images and other multimedia within your posts, allowing you to share any experience with your players. However, it is post based - forums are often not the quickest way to communicate, as it is not a live feed of information like a chat.

Chats, on the other hand, have the benefit of being real time. Games can be run in chat (and instant messenger) on a moment's notice, and work best when all of the players can be available at the same time. Because it is real time, short blip-based sessions such as character conversations and interactions work extraordinarily well with chats. Players can get the chance to interject into other player's actions and statements without the worry of too much time going by. It is for this reason that the longer posts, such as those that exceed a paragraph, are often too large and unwieldy for chats - players end up waiting too long for each post, and will get bored.

Longer posts do very well on forums, where writing an individual post can take half an hour or longer to refine and perfect - just enough time for the players to go look at other games and other topics before they come back and begin formulating their response.

If you're running a game with a detailed and/or complicated storyline or characters, it is always good to post something on a forum for player reference. This lets the players have a place to communicate out of character (OOC) - such as when they won't be able to make a chat session, or when they want to discuss plans for character interaction, growth, or development. Even if your game is already on a forum - it is a good idea to create a place for OOC discussion. For chat-based games - this gives a perfect opportunity for players to jump in at the middle of a game with little trouble, as they simply need to read over the history of the game on the forum, which they can do at any point in time, and less time is needed explaining the game to the player.

Instant messenger works well when dealing with one on one sessions, such as when two characters are the only ones in an interaction or a meeting needs to be private. These interactions can be summarized or written into a cinematic format and then posted to the forum, for other players to enjoy as well. Instant messenger (as well as Private Messages) does very well at asking questions of the other players, which is convenient when you have a question about how they're playing a role or a reference they made in character.

There are also emails - many games aren't run by email anymore, but email is still a very valuable tool. RolePlayGateway like many forums offers you the ability to subscribe to topics. Subscriptions will let you receive an immediate email update whenever someone replies to the thread. This is extraordinarily helpful when there's an RPG with only a few players that can only reply every once in a while, but it requires that people, y'know, actually check their email. RolePlayGateway also has the special ability to instant message you when there's an update to a subscribed thread. All you need is a Jabber account (GMail accounts work, too) and to set up the notifications. We'll send you a message as soon as there's an update.

What methods have you used to manage your online roleplaying games? Are you a fan of forum or chat? Both? What helps you determine where you're going to hold your game? Discuss!

I've been relying heavily on node.js this past year to provide a robust set of tools to solve the problems I encounter on a daily basis. I was pleased to see honorCipherOrder was added to node's TLS library in node.js v0.7.6, and released with node.js v0.8.0.

Late last year, security researcher Juliano Rizzo announced a new attack against the AES encryption used in the SSL/TLS transaction he dubbed BEAST. The details are interesting to those who care, but it turns out that we can mitigate this attack in node.js by enforcing honorCipherOrder on the server. Let's take a look.

If you have an HTTPS server that looks like this:

var https = require('https');
var fs = require('fs');

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('cert.pem')
};

https.createServer(options, function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200);
  res.end("hello world\n");
}).listen(443);

...you can now manage the cipher order by using the ciphers option. In the following code snippet we're going set the options for the above server to use Steve Caligo's cipher order, which prefers TLS 1.2 ciphers (which are not vulnerable to the BEAST attack) for clients that support TLS 1.2 but falls back to the RC4 ciphers on TLS 1.0 clients.^[...]

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('cert.pem'),
  ciphers: 'ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES256-SHA:RC4-SHA:RC4:HIGH:!MD5:!aNULL:!EDH:!AESGCM'
};

Finally, we will enforce the cipher order on the server's side of the negotiation:

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('cert.pem'),
  ciphers: 'ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES256-SHA:RC4-SHA:RC4:HIGH:!MD5:!aNULL:!EDH:!AESGCM',
  honorCipherOrder: true
};

...which leaves us with the following code for a working server that is not vulnerable to the BEAST attack (in node v0.8.0+!):

var https = require('https');
var fs = require('fs');

var options = {
  key: fs.readFileSync('key.pem'),
  cert: fs.readFileSync('cert.pem'),
  ciphers: 'ECDHE-RSA-AES256-SHA:AES256-SHA:RC4-SHA:RC4:HIGH:!MD5:!aNULL:!EDH:!AESGCM',
  honorCipherOrder: true
};

https.createServer(options, function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200);
  res.end("hello world\n");
}).listen(443);

Edit, 6/13/2013: Lloyd Watkin has done some research on his own and decided to use a different cipher chain:

ECDHE-RSA-AES128-SHA256:AES128-GCM-SHA256:RC4:HIGH:!MD5:!aNULL:!EDH

You should read into why he chose it and make an educated decision. </edit>

Until node.js implements this as the defaults (they should), this is something you should implement where using HTTPS with node!

I've just learned of a virus that was launched against the U.S. Drone Fleet. See the attached article from Wired.

Earlier this year, the Pentagon recently concluded that digital attacks such as this can constitute an act of war [1]. This one doesn't [yet] seem as sophisticated as last year's attack on Iran's nuclear reactors by Stuxnet [2], but it continues to show how important and integral our computer systems are in this rapidly changing world. Security professionals +Alex Levinson, +Jerome Radcliffe, and +Scott Hanselman surely have some great insight here, I highly recommend you go take a look at some of the things they've written.

In 2009, a very sophisticated [and successful] cyber-attack was launched from inside China that targeted the United States through Google and Adobe [3] that caused surprisingly few stirs within our government, especially after NATO was sent in to assist in the defense of Estonia's computer systems during the 2007 attacks [4]. Not long after this, the widely-used and [formerly] explicitly trusted RSA security mechanism, used in a large number major institutions around the world. was completely and entirely broken [5] by an embarrassingly simple hack [6].

Aside: We can look back at some of the things actual software engineers like +Ryan Dahl [7] and +Zack Morris [8] have been saying lately and quickly conclude that there's something fundamentally broken with the whole system. If you've ever worked on or with a large software project, you can see evidence of negligence and ignorance alike embedded at every level. It certainly contributes to if not causes these types of security concerns.

[1]: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304563104576355623135782718.html
[2]: http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/10/stuxnet.html
[3]: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/01/operation-aurora/
[4]: http://www.wired.com/politics/security/magazine/15-09/ff_estonia
[5]: http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9214757/RSA_warns_SecurID_customers_after_company_is_hacked
[6]: http://www.zdnet.co.uk/blogs/mapping-babel-10017967/rsa-hack-targeted-flash-vulnerability-10022143/
[7]: https://plus.google.com/115094562986465477143/posts/Di6RwCNKCrf
[8]: http://zackarymorris.tumblr.com/post/10973087527/the-state-of-the-art-is-terrible

There's been a lot of active discussion about the state of AOL's directory project, DMOZ. There have been many attempts to unseat the directory project from its position as the most authoritative listing resource, such as the Yahoo Directory. Many of these attempts have fallen by the wayside, as Rand Fiskin points out, but none have remained more controversial than DMOZ. More recently, Chris Crum's post on WebProNews about his lack of respect for DMOZ has stirred up a hornet's nest of DMOZ criticism, including a particular post claiming DMOZ is a waste of time.

I forwarded a lot of this on to Philip Nicolcev, known by username as "frug", who is the editor of several roleplay-oriented categories on DMOZ. He responded to me directly with a highly insightful email, and I was fortunate enough to receive his permission to share its contents.

I've been editing the pbp category at DMOZ for what... 4 years now? About that. This article is a big whiny complaint which misses the mark. They are both correct and sadly mistaken. Yes, dmoz is outdated and yes, it fails because of attitude problems, but not silly allegations of 'corruption' or people who are bitter because they didn't get listed. We don't list everything, I don't list even half of the submissions I get, and anyone who has been an administrator or an editor for a similar type of project knows better than to take these kinds of complaints seriously. One thing they say is definitely correct: Apply once carefully following their rules if you wish and then, as Will suggested, forget about them.

This is exactly the approach that should be modeled for any directory, regardless of its state or condition. When you are submitting a link to a directory, you are being offered the privilege to be listed as a resource by the owners and management of that directory. They are not obligated to list your link, let alone review it in a timely fashion--but this would be genuinely appreciated and would reflect on the directory's position as a "good" resource.

DMOZ is the primary source for Google's Directory, and you must respect the opinion of such a large and successful company. It's obvious that the idea behind an open directory like DMOZ is good, but where they fail is in execution. More on that later.

He continues:

That is what you should do. Apply once and forget about it, don't claim anybody is corrupt because whether you believe my opinion or not, there's no corruption. Nobody cares enough about dmoz anymore for it to be valuable for extortion. Don't be ridiculous. Furthermore if you were to speak to some of the senior editors you'd discover that they are pretty damn uptight, even obsessive. The problems with dmoz are, in my opinion, twofold. First off, you have the dated trashy look of the website which is a relic of the 1990's. It's not user friendly, it doesn't entice anyone to go browsing, and it hasn't adapted or added features that would help people understand the structure of the directory or find what they're looking for. The editor forums still use phpBB2, and you should see the editing panel. You wouldn't believe how dated this stuff is. Frankly it has needed an overhaul for years now.

I largely agree with him. The phpBB team deprecated the phpBB2 branch at the beginning of this year, ending support for the outdated platform. AOL would do well to do a complete overhaul of the site's design now that "Web 2.0" has come and gone (and I could reference posts all day on that) - and AOL has completely missed their opportunity to latch on and ride the wave.

Philip finishes his correspondance with the frightening truth that has been plaguing many post-Web2.0 sites and services:

The second problem, attitude, is partially the cause of the first problem. It's a stagnant atmosphere where nothing gets done and nobody gets listened to. They would rather leave a directory as a cluttered mess of garbage than risk breaking its structure by overhauling it. Fixing my category took me about two years before I had approval to restructure it, and I'm in a small niche category nobody pays much attention to. Since becoming an editor I have deleted about 60% of the outdated links listed. Had I not joined, they'd still be there cluttering things up with linkspam geocities pages from 10 years ago. So yeah, dmoz is failing, but not because of corruption or because some guy didn't get what he wanted. And, honestly, if the author of this article was applying to dmoz just to 'test how fair it was' then I'm glad they rejected him. Somehow they made the right decision because he's wasting their time.

And that's the exact problem - the DMOZ community has completely stagnated, which has resulted in the puddle of goop that the directory has become. In my personal opinion, I think that AOL could do a lot better job at community management (all reputation management aside) by setting up a more rigid structure of responsibility. The editors need to be held responsible for a timely review specified by their superiors, and there needs to be cross-checking of the editor's work by other qualified editors.

Is this another example of AOL's purchases being mismanaged and ultimately being forgotten, such as what many people claim is the case with ex-Nullsoft product WinAmp? Perhaps, but I think that remains to be seen. After all, even our favored Google took a questionable amount of time to convert phone-consolidation service GrandCentral to the new Google Voice after its 2007 acquisition. DMOZ was in fact originally a Netscape project, which then-strong AOL acquired in 1998. Since that acquisition, little has changed.

All said and done, DMOZ needs some love if it's going to survive as anything more than a relic of trust and authority in the Web 2.0 bubble. As Philip points out, it has both good and bad traits and deserves further attention, but it needs to be attention in (and from) the right direction. The questions remain; where has AOL been? What can be done about the editors (or lack thereof)? How can DMOZ be improved?

The author of the particularly famous Wheel of Time series passed away yesterday due to cardiac amyloidosis. Diagnosed with the disease in March of 2006, Jordan, born James Oliver Rigney Jr., vowed to fight the disease and continue his legendary writing career for many years to come. It is a great loss to the fantasy community, and on behalf of RolePlayGateway, we send our condolences to his family and friends, who will no doubt be the most affected by his passing.

You can catch more on Robert Jordan's Official Blog, but due to the high traffic, here's a mirror of his post:

It is with great sadness that I tell you that the Dragon is gone. RJ left us today at 2:45 PM. He fought a valiant fight against this most horrid disease. In the end, he left peacefully and in no pain. In the years he had fought this, he taught me much about living and about facing death. He never waivered in his faith, nor questioned our God’s timing. I could not possibly be more proud of anyone. I am eternally grateful for the time that I had with him on this earth and look forward to our reunion, though as I told him this afternoon, not yet. I love you bubba. Our beloved Harriet was at his side through the entire fight and to the end. The last words from his mouth were to tell her that he loved her. Thank each and everyone of you for your prayers and support through this ordeal. He knew you were there. Harriet reminded him today that she was very proud of the many lives he had touched through his work. We’ve all felt the love that you’ve been sending my brother/cousin. Please keep it coming as our Harriet could use the support. Jason will be posting funeral arrangements. My sincerest thanks. Peace and Light be with each of you, Wilson Brother/Cousin 4th of 3 To Catalyst: Never, never loose faith. RJ did not. Harriet hasn’t. I haven’t. Going through what we have, our faith is only strengthened. Besides, if God didn’t exist, we would have never had Jim. We did. God does. Remember my Brother/Cousin, my friend, think of him fondly and glorify God’s name. Editor’s Note: The entire staff of Dragonmount.com would like to extend its most deepest sympathies to Robert Jordan’s family. He touched all of our lives in some way and we wish him the rest and peace he deserves. We will be posting information in the near future about where you can send condolences. Please check the News Section for these updates.

May you rest in peace.

One of the sites I own and run (RolePlayGateway) has a pretty large forum, with several customizations and features that I've added on to the base install of phpBB3. As time went on, we continued upgrading the servers (moving from GoDaddy shared hosting to GoDaddy virtual dedicated servers, then onward to MediaTemple's (gs), and now we're on the second tier of MediaTemple's (dv) hosting) in an effort to keep the hardware moving as fast as possible.

As I'm sure you know, hardware can be pretty expensive! One month, while on MediaTemple's Grid Server, we racked up $600 in CPU time overage charges. (Ow.) Now that we've moved onward to bigger and better packages, we're shelling out just about $100 per month for a rock-solid server solution that can be upgraded seamlessly in the future. But since upgrades can only go so far without being prohibitively expensive, I thought it was time to take a look at some of our coding approaches.

Enter memcache, the distributed database caching solution originally designed by LiveJournal to help them deal with massive databases and large volumes of users. DavidMJ has written some shiny ACM modules to help phpBB3 make use of some caching systems, and a memcache module was among them.

That didn't work so well. It gave about a 50% boost to phpBB3's performance (which was great!), but we were still choking the server, and ended up upgrading to a bigger and more robust package with MediaTemple. So I started looking into more options, and DavidMJ suggested xcache. So I go grab xcache and compile it, then enabled it in php. Bingo! There's a 500% boost in our page compile times, and across most of our pages we're now well under 0.1 second compile times. (With the exception of viewtopic.php, which frequently approaches 2 seconds due to bad coding on my part... this will be fixed soon.)

So now that I've got the thirst for speed, let's take a look at how we're performing. To do this, use the apache benchmarking tool:ab -n 100000 http://www.mydomain.com/my_page This will test the URL you specify 100,000 times, and give you some feedback about how the page performs. You'll end up with something looking like this:

Server Software: Apache/2.2.3 Server Hostname: www.mydomain.com Server Port: 80 Document Path: /my_page Document Length: 0 bytes Concurrency Level: 1 Time taken for tests: 15.30100 seconds Complete requests: 1 Failed requests: 0 Write errors: 0 Non-2xx responses: 1 Total transferred: 715 bytes HTML transferred: 0 bytes Requests per second: 0.07 [#/sec] (mean) Time per request: 15030.100 [ms] (mean) Time per request: 15030.100 [ms] (mean, across all concurrent requests) Transfer rate: 0.00 [Kbytes/sec] received Connection Times (ms) min mean[+/-sd] median max Connect: 0 0 0.0 0 0 Processing: 15030 15030 0.0 15030 15030 Waiting: 30 30 0.0 30 30 Total: 15030 15030 0.0 15030 15030

Some tweaks to the default xcache config that I recommend:

Set the number of caches to one per processor on your server! ; set to cpu count (cat /proc/cpuinfo |grep -c processor) xcache.count = 4

This post will be updated as I explore phpBB3 and more server side options. (I wrote part of this post, then stopped writing... and figure I'd publish it a couple days later anyway!)

“There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.”

We're live with Torsten Hoffmann, director of #Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It, in 10 minutes! Watch here...

This is a fantastic speech. I lost the audio for a minute towards the end when, I suspect, people were telling the presenter that his time was nearly up :). Would be nice to see the slides alongside it, seems like a wider-angle shot would have included them.

It's those that don't follow the "world / crowd" that end up discovering new things that revolutionize the world and become leaders. The ones that follow, are the ones that are behind. --Me, an unreasonable man.

Hello World in Ada:
________________________
with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
procedure Hello is
begin
  Put_Line ("Hello, world!");
end Hello;
__________________________.....

RT @martindale: We're live with Torsten Hoffmann, director of #Bitcoin: The End of Money As We Know It, in 10 minutes! Watch here... https:

I sometimes get mired in the monotony of programming work also. I have that obsessive nature that most scientists possess. This quote is true inspiration.
I had a moment like Feynman's recently while playing with my son's Duplo Legos. We started building these really big towers and so I went off on an architectural research tangent when he went to sleep. It had no functional end except to make better lego towers but damn it was fun. And as I was doing this I had an epiphany concerning my programming. So, in conclusion, more Legos!!!

+Carmelyne Thompson is exactly right. Hackathons are a live view of the 'soft skills' of a dev - social interaction, time management, desire to be in the situation in the first place, leadership, teamwork - all the stuff a public code repo can't show. The end product's not always the point, and definitely not if you're looking for teammates, business partners, nerd friends, or employees.

This appears to be a known fact for quite a while now...
(bolded by me)

Although often identified as "Easter Island heads", the statues are actually torsos, with most of them ending at the top of the thighs, although a small number of them are complete, with the figures kneeling on bent knees with their hands over their stomachs.[49][50] Some upright moai have become buried up to their necks by shifting soils.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Easter_island#Mythology

Last week, I got the opportunity to stay in a cabin on a remote island and go surf fishing with my father and uncle. We left at 3AM (the morning after Thanksgiving) to make the 7AM ferry, and were fortunate enough to have only light wind and warm sun for our short visit. I captured this awesome sunset after casting my line at the end of the first day. Even as a boy, this yearly tradition was something I'd look forward to all year. Unfortunately as my schedule became increasingly busy over the past decade, I wasn't able to join in on the often week-long excursion. Now that I'm older and caught up in the startup lifestyle , I have a new appreciation for the rejuvenating nature of this magical place.

The question is, when will people who rage about php stop treating coding like a religion and start realizing that tools are just tools, and the best tool for the job isn't necessarily the be all and end all of code.
I'm so tired of hearing people bemoan the horrors of php without having an alternative that offers any advantage whatsoever to the majority of my uses.

I wouldn't throw away my car because it's an ugly color or had a few dents in it if the only alternative was to buy a truck.

It's a good article, and Eric is always good about finding contrary opinions and listening, but a grain of salt is always necessary.

+James Williams The end of the article draws a line between node.js issues and php. It's the same kind of talk i hear about php: "this is a cancer, we must purge it, it has issues therefore its the worst thing ever and don't ever use it because you will code yourself into hades".
Most coders own a few cars. Javascript is my motorcycle, php is my compact car, and c# is my pickup truck. If I was less lazy I'd have more cars, but I do well with the ones I've got. If I could take the motorcycle onto the highway (server side) and get away with it, I'm sure I would.

An awesome list of applications for Linux that is mainly for my use (when I get home tonight), but you might get some use out of it, too.

Some of the better ones are mumble and murmer, some Teamspeak and Ventrilo replacements that I've never heard of. And the list is forcing me to finally get around to using Deluge (woot).

I think I might end up doing a full reinstall of Ubuntu tonight, just because I've mucked with the system so damn much it isn't even funny. Maybe this time around, I'll get my Motorola Q, in all of its new screen goodness (I recently replaced the LCD screen), to actually charge while connected via USB to my Linux box. And, if I really wish to aim high, maybe I can get sync working!

+Toni Lane Casserly you should take a look at +trinket (formerly Coursefork) and all the work they've done in this space!  If we address the root cause [1], we end up with a naturally decentralized solution.

+Karl Rectanus will have some magnificent insight in regards to your institutional questions.  He has deep experience in this area.

Please help!:

My Open Source Scanning/Tunneling Microscope (a device that can see atoms) is competing for an open hardware scholarship grant - that's ~$2k to help me get this project (finally) reach a public beta stage! The award is determined by 24 hours of internet voting, and voting ends at 6pm US eastern standard time (7 hours from now).

Just do the following:
1. go here: http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/open-hardware-scholarship-voting/
2. select "Chemhacker Scanning/Tunneling Microscope"
3. click "vote"

Thanks very very very much!

If you want to learn more about my project, go here: chemhacker.com
If you want to learn more about all the projects up for the scholarship, go here: openhardwaresummit.org/scholarship

Please help!:

My Open Source Scanning/Tunneling Microscope (a device that can see atoms) is competing for an open hardware scholarship grant - that's ~$2k to help me get this project (finally) reach a public beta stage! The award is determined by 24 hours of internet voting, and voting ends at 6pm US eastern standard time (7 hours from now).

Just do the following:
1. go here: http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/open-hardware-scholarship-voting/
2. select "Chemhacker Scanning/Tunneling Microscope"
3. click "vote"

Thanks very very very much!

If you want to learn more about my project, go here: chemhacker.com
If you want to learn more about all the projects up for the scholarship, go here: openhardwaresummit.org/scholarship

Please help!:

My Open Source Scanning/Tunneling Microscope (a device that can see atoms) is competing for an open hardware scholarship grant - that's ~$2k to help me get this project (finally) reach a public beta stage! The award is determined by 24 hours of internet voting, and voting ends at 6pm US eastern standard time (7 hours from now).

Just do the following:
1. go here: http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/open-hardware-scholarship-voting/
2. select "Chemhacker Scanning/Tunneling Microscope"
3. click "vote"

Thanks very very very much!

If you want to learn more about my project, go here: chemhacker.com
If you want to learn more about all the projects up for the scholarship, go here: openhardwaresummit.org/scholarship

Please help!:

My Open Source Scanning/Tunneling Microscope (a device that can see atoms) is competing for an open hardware scholarship grant - that's ~$2k to help me get this project (finally) reach a public beta stage! The award is determined by 24 hours of internet voting, and voting ends at 6pm US eastern standard time (7 hours from now).

Just do the following:
1. go here: http://www.openhardwaresummit.org/open-hardware-scholarship-voting/
2. select "Chemhacker Scanning/Tunneling Microscope"
3. click "vote"

Thanks very very very much!

If you want to learn more about my project, go here: chemhacker.com
If you want to learn more about all the projects up for the scholarship, go here: openhardwaresummit.org/scholarship

I just found an awesome list of Open source applications for Windows, and thought I'd take the time to update.

I think I'm sick or getting sick from the weekend, which was awesome all in itself. Rode over to Ian's on Saturday, enjoyed a good night with some new friends, playing Unreal Tournament (the original, what else?) until somewhere around 3AM. Ah, good times. I woke up the next day in time to give Amber a call before she left for work. We got to gaming shortly after lunch, and for once, our ship didn't esplode! (partly because we left it behind for the majority of the game...)

Sunday we relaxed and watched football, both American and World. Poor poor Chelsea! I ended up rolling in at about 4PM, and proceeded to put together some home cooking for when Amber got off work. Unfortunately, my plans were foiled by her work schedule, and she got off at six instead of the planned five, denying us the opportunity of going to the park to eat while the sun set. We enjoyed ourselves nonetheless, and had a good cuddly evening.

Work today was a pain, though. Internet was out, and Bellsouth took until 5PM to bring us a mediocre solution. One of our major clients was having email problems, which I couldn't troubleshoot until the internet was up. Pity.

And, now I come home, GWing is having some people problems, and the GT League is bumbling along as usual. Now, about that roleplaying social reform...

The Google+ Community on Kiva is 26% of the way to its first goal!

We're trying to raise funding for 250 distinct loans by March 1st. Fellow community members +Carmelyne Thompson and +Lucas Johnson helped me put this together at the end of last year, thinking it'd be a great way to help change the world for the better in 2012. We've raised $1,900 for 69 different loans so far, and hope you can do something to pitch in (with as little as $25)!

How to help:
1.) Sign up for Kiva.org and join the Google+ Team: http://goo.gl/Eaesy
2.) Browse loans, pick one that interests you: http://www.kiva.org/lend

I'm confident that as much as Google+ has grown in recent months, we can blow this goal out of the water and effectuate great things for the world. Let's see how far we can take it. :)

#philanthropy #microfinance #community #kiva #poverty

The Google+ Community on Kiva is 26% of the way to its first goal!

We're trying to raise funding for 250 distinct loans by March 1st. Fellow community members +Carmelyne Thompson and +Lucas Johnson helped me put this together at the end of last year, thinking it'd be a great way to help change the world for the better in 2012. We've raised $1,900 for 69 different loans so far, and hope you can do something to pitch in (with as little as $25)!

How to help:
1.) Sign up for Kiva.org and join the Google+ Team: http://goo.gl/Eaesy
2.) Browse loans, pick one that interests you: http://www.kiva.org/lend

I'm confident that as much as Google+ has grown in recent months, we can blow this goal out of the water and effectuate great things for the world. Let's see how far we can take it. :)

#philanthropy #microfinance #community #kiva #poverty

The Google+ Community on Kiva is 26% of the way to its first goal!

We're trying to raise funding for 250 distinct loans by March 1st. Fellow community members +Carmelyne Thompson and +Lucas Johnson helped me put this together at the end of last year, thinking it'd be a great way to help change the world for the better in 2012. We've raised $1,900 for 69 different loans so far, and hope you can do something to pitch in (with as little as $25)!

How to help:
1.) Sign up for Kiva.org and join the Google+ Team: http://goo.gl/Eaesy
2.) Browse loans, pick one that interests you: http://www.kiva.org/lend

I'm confident that as much as Google+ has grown in recent months, we can blow this goal out of the water and effectuate great things for the world. Let's see how far we can take it. :)

#philanthropy #microfinance #community #kiva #poverty

The Google+ Community on Kiva is 26% of the way to its first goal!

We're trying to raise funding for 250 distinct loans by March 1st. Fellow community members +Carmelyne Thompson and +Lucas Johnson helped me put this together at the end of last year, thinking it'd be a great way to help change the world for the better in 2012. We've raised $1,900 for 69 different loans so far, and hope you can do something to pitch in (with as little as $25)!

How to help:
1.) Sign up for Kiva.org and join the Google+ Team: http://goo.gl/Eaesy
2.) Browse loans, pick one that interests you: http://www.kiva.org/lend

I'm confident that as much as Google+ has grown in recent months, we can blow this goal out of the water and effectuate great things for the world. Let's see how far we can take it. :)

#philanthropy #microfinance #community #kiva #poverty

I'm competing in this event, and I need your vote! We're nearing the final 24 hours of this competition, and my startup has fallen into fifth place. Go here and vote for LocalSense : http://vator.tv/competition/vator-splash-la-june-2012?for=localsense&vote=1#participants

LocalSense™ was founded by myself, +Robert Rice, +Daniel Barbour, and +John Finocchiaro at the end of last year after seeing an enormous gap between how businesses and consumers use social media. We've spent the past six months building an incredibly powerful geo-aware platform to help bridge this gap and are extremely excited to get it into your hands. While we're in private alpha right now, but we're aiming to open a public beta by mid-June -- and winning this contest will help us get there.

Please vote for LocalSense, and if you want to be a really big help -- share it with your friends in the limited time we've got left!

I'm competing in this event, and I need your vote! We're nearing the final 24 hours of this competition, and my startup has fallen into fifth place. Go here and vote for LocalSense : http://vator.tv/competition/vator-splash-la-june-2012?for=localsense&vote=1#participants

LocalSense™ was founded by myself, +Robert Rice, +Daniel Barbour, and +John Finocchiaro at the end of last year after seeing an enormous gap between how businesses and consumers use social media. We've spent the past six months building an incredibly powerful geo-aware platform to help bridge this gap and are extremely excited to get it into your hands. While we're in private alpha right now, but we're aiming to open a public beta by mid-June -- and winning this contest will help us get there.

Please vote for LocalSense, and if you want to be a really big help -- share it with your friends in the limited time we've got left!

I'm competing in this event, and I need your vote! We're nearing the final 24 hours of this competition, and my startup has fallen into fifth place. Go here and vote for LocalSense : http://vator.tv/competition/vator-splash-la-june-2012?for=localsense&vote=1#participants

LocalSense™ was founded by myself, +Robert Rice, +Daniel Barbour, and +John Finocchiaro at the end of last year after seeing an enormous gap between how businesses and consumers use social media. We've spent the past six months building an incredibly powerful geo-aware platform to help bridge this gap and are extremely excited to get it into your hands. While we're in private alpha right now, but we're aiming to open a public beta by mid-June -- and winning this contest will help us get there.

Please vote for LocalSense, and if you want to be a really big help -- share it with your friends in the limited time we've got left!

The idea that we're somehow disadvantaged should the entire system crash, compared to our parents or grandparents, is silly and myopic. Living off the land flat out wouldn't/couldn't happen. There's simply to many people for everyone to hunt. If everyone started hunting/fishing to get food a) we'd run out of space in the forest/river shores and be killing one another for a spot b) even if we remained civilized we'd kill off everything so fast it wouldn't matter. Do you seriously think we get all those burgers by people taking care of cows... we don't... we have a whole technological industry built up around shoving as many into a small area and keeping them alive long enough that we can eat them. Chickens? Ya same thing. If it REALLY got so bad that "the grid" collapsed you're no better off than anyone else.

I have no idea how this turned into an end of the world/I can survive without a computer thread. This article isn't stating that everyone has to be in tech; only that going into tech/training/educating yourself for a world that is fully tech enabled is something you should do. He states in the second paragraph, "....and all the college kids wondering if a CS or engineering degree will pay off. To those readers: we might be in a bubble, but for you it doesn’t matter." Then in the fourth paragraph, "The truth is that the technology sector as a whole over any length of time is a positive-sum game even if the economy doesn’t grow at all..." In short, if you're looking to go into tech field you should still do it. Thanks for sharing this +Eric Martindale, good stuff!

If you notice, I currently display my Foursquare badges over in the right hand side. I'm not sure about how long I'll display them specifically, so here's a screenshot:

I recently received an email inquiring about how I accomplished this. Well, since I use Chyrp, here's how I did it:

1. In includes/controller/Main.php, add the following, somewhere around line 715 (immediately after $this->context["sql_queries"] =& SQL::current()->queries;): // BEGIN Foursquare Badges $cURL = curl_init(); curl_setopt($cURL, CURLOPT_URL, "http://api.foursquare.com/v1/user.json?badges=1"); curl_setopt($cURL, CURLOPT_HEADER, 0); curl_setopt($cURL, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1); curl_setopt($cURL, CURLOPT_HTTPAUTH, CURLAUTH_BASIC); curl_setopt($cURL, CURLOPT_USERPWD, "your@email.com:your_password_here"); $strPage = curl_exec($cURL); curl_close($cURL); $foursquare = json_decode($strPage); $badges = $foursquare->user->badges; foreach ($badges as $badge) { $this->context['foursquare_badges'] .= '<img src="'.$badge->icon.'" title="'.$badge->description.'" />'; }
// END Foursquare Badges
2. In themes/your_theme_name/content/sidebar.twig, wherever you want to display your foursquare tags, simply add: <div> <h1>Foursquare Badges</h1> $foursquare_badges </div></code> You can display this wherever you like, in any part of your Chyrp template.

Be aware that this requires PHP's CURL module. I encourage you to enable Chyrp's caching module as well, so every page load does not incur a single API request (I have a feeling that they probably won't appreciate it). The benefit of this is that your Foursquare badges will now be output by your server, so they are both indexable by search engines and degrade very gracefully when the client doesn't have Javascript enabled (NoScript users, particularly).

Enjoy!