The new EricMartindale.com is an experiment in data aggregation, and might have a few bugs. Feel free to explore, and then provide feedback directly to @martindale.
As many of you know, a lot of my best friends came from an online hobby called "online roleplaying". One of the more popular forms is a type of collaborative fiction called "play by post", in which the participants alternate writing sections of the story. More succinctly; I started a roleplaying site of my own in 2005 called RolePlayGateway to give people the same opportunity I had when I was younger.
I wanted to take a moment and go over some of my favorites, for those who are reading.
RolePlayGateway: an obvious favorite. It takes a little while to find your place (if you're a more 'advanced' roleplayer), but our strength is the wide range of people that play here. Oh, and we have an awesome chat built specifically for roleplaying!
Roleplayer Guild: Run by Dan Neumann, Roleplayer Guild is as close to a sister site of RolePlayGateway as it gets. They've got a slightly different format from RolePlayGateway, letting you browse roleplays based on their "quality" level (e.g., Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced). A great place to go if you're looking to start a nice tight-knit group!
Althanas: Althanas is one of the only other large sites dedicated completely to play-by-post roleplay. I've roleplayed here for a couple years (as an anonymous account!) and they're a great group. The "Guides" sections is irreplaceable, so if you're looking to learn, this is the place to be.
Up and coming!
These sites are new or are just getting off the ground, so they're not as established as the above listings.
Roleplaygetaway: launched as a refuge from the insanity that RolePlayGateway provides, RolePlayGetaway (albeit, a confusing name) is showing a lot of promise. With a brand new roleplaying system built to track your roleplays, it is taking the same route that RolePlayGateway's fabled roleplay tab is taking. It's being run by several of my staff members and close friends, and I can attest that they know what they are doing. I hope to see more sites like this!
Fallen off my list...
These sites used to show some promise, but for some reason or another have fallen by the wayside. As such, I'm rel="nofollow"'ing their links.
AnimeLeague: AnimeLeague appears to have gone the way of AnimeMetro; that is, it has begun to focus more on Anime and conventions instead of roleplay. Sadface!
Gaia Online: Gaia Online used to be a fairly decent place for play-by-post roleplay, but then it got uber popular. It too is now expanding beyond play-by-post, and the focus has been lost.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
In liturgical Islam texts, we are called Masihi (مسيحي), or "Followers of the Messiah". In Chinese, we are 基督徒 - a literal "Christ follower". Regardless of what you call us, I feel that who is defined as a "Christian" has deviated far from what has been laid out by Christ and his closest disciples.
On a daily basis, I am faced with the bitter disgust incited by the dogma surrounding the "Christian" faith. A growing number of intellectuals shun Christianity as a result of its hypocrisy; all too common is the known Christian who is seen lying, cheating, stealing, or otherwise sinning--directly in opposition to the perception of the Church to be wholly condescending upon sinners and their deeds. The view of Christian doctrine that enforces a "fire and brimstone" doom upon those who do not repent from their sinful ways is one that is misunderstood and misinterpreted, turning people away from the true nature of Christianity before a full understanding is given.
In 1st John, John writes (and I promise to keep my number of Bible references to a minimum):
If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
1st John 1:8
It is the very nature of the Christian faith to recognize that we sin: this is the whole premise of following the figure that our faith is named after. We are sinners, and we do participate in activities and perform activities that are duly defiant of the damnation that is preached from some pulpits. It is our aspiration to emulate the figurehead by admitting our sins and providing unconditional love to everyone and everything we come into contact with that is supposed to set us apart from nonbelievers.
However, it is unfortunate that most "Christians" have lost sight of our true nature (that is, to love and care for all of God's creation) and are not the loving and caring role models that our faith demands. John continues in chapter 4:
7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
1st John 4:7-12
As the passage exemplifies, God is embodied in our capacity to love; it is the command of love that we must maintain first and foremost. If we do not have love, we have nothing. (See "All You Need Is Love")
I fully agree with the perception that Christians today are too righteous: we are commanded to be humble. It is for this reason, among others, that I most frequently choose to be called (...) a "follower of Christ" as opposed to a "Christian" (which ironically enough, was used as a condemning phrase). Christians have no right to tout their holiness as a indicator of superiority over anyone.
We must love everyone; Muslims, Jews, the poor, the sick, the needy... people of all races, faiths, nationalities and conditions; all are included in the Christian's domain of unconditional love and tolerance, no matter what their actions. As the great Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said:
Let freedom ring. And when this happens, and when we allow freedom ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children—black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics—will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: "Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Work is work, as per the usual. I'm work at a company called TechNoggins, doing all sorts of various things. Primarily, I am Callcenter Manager, handling calls for three states and eleven major cities. It's unfortunately fairly slow today, which means my salary isn't augmented by the influx of web development work. Sad day.
I've been messing around with some of Facebook's features, recently. I just linked "My Notes" to this blog, which seems like a cool feature, but it needs some work. It imported my posts what seems to be twice?
Someone posted LeekSpin on the Grand Tournament forum. I've been subtly amused by the music to which this has been put, and have been listening to it for just over an hour now. You want to talk about overplaying, hrm? Full immersion, hrrrm?
Well, looks like I have a PC here in the office that I need to fix. So, until later, I'm gone. :P
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Between work, my social life, and training, I play a game called EVE Online. It's the first game I've ever shelled out a monthly fee for, and it's well worth it. I came across this fan-made video for one of the in-game factions on CrazyKinux's blog.
Full screen this and play it in HD, while keeping in mind that this is made entirely of recorded gameplay video.
I'm the director of a group of players (called a "Corporation" as opposed to "Guild" in other MMORPGs), and if you're interested in playing with me, shoot me a line or message me in game as "Baeryn". You'll never find a game so perfect.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I've been seriously slacking in getting RPGateway's blog up and running, but I've finally gotten around to re-posting the files and re-connecting Wordpress to the database. Now all I've got to do is to get a couple of our admins (and hopefully, one of our loverly owners) to start posting and managing it.
The idea here is to create a single update page where watchers who don't want to be involved in the site can still read updates from the staff. A buzz can be established, and hopefully, some real momentum can be generated with content that is updated daily. The so-called 'blogosphere' (I cringe too, relax.) is a very powerful force in the tubes today, and I think it's important to at least begin to establish some sort of presence here.
I was recently pointed to Trevor Somerville's 30 days to success, and I'm only reminded that articles are the Queen in a world where daily updates are King. Good luck to Trevor, I'll probably swing by once or twice to check up on his progress and see if he has any useful tips.
I started fiddling with some new posting options again, in particular the email posting. Blogger lets you set up a secret email to which you can send blog posts, at which point they'll automatically be added to your blog. I had a contact set up in my Gmail as of (insert long period of time) ago, and I sent a post to it, but I haven't seen anything of it. It looks like the same email, but... apparently not. I guess I'll be reconfiguring this later.
I've been having great experiences with SEO and RolePlay Gateway, we're rising in rankings rather quickly, even after the domain migration. Many thanks to the folks over at DigitalPoint for my education over the past few months. I'm sure I'll be telling these success stories soon, but right now I have to head off to Winston to run a few service calls.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
A big subject of contention in my life is my job. I work 60 hours a week, for less than minimum wage. I deal with clueless customers who are often surprised by my perfect greeting, as I am often complimented, sometimes chastised, on my well-rehearsed voice. Sometimes I think we lose call volume because I sound like an answering machine. Hah! It shall be no more, tonight was a successful night of Trixbox PBX goodness, our entire system is on the first run using the IVR answering. I digress.
My job sucks. I earn $5/hr, working what is supposed to be 60 hours a week, but is slowly dwindling downward. The stress of paying rent, utilities, and heaven forbid taxes on such a budget is indomitable: I can't imagine adding insurance and gas to this, when I get a car up and running. The love of my life chastises me for it, and I can't tell her enough how much I really do hate it. I do not have a working car, and I do not yet have insurance to provide the DMV with proof that I do have insurance, so I don't have a license. There are fast food places within walking distance, surely. Ideally, if I had a car, I could be an on-call Engineer and earn maybe an extra hundred bucks a week. Sure, I earn $33/hr as a consultant, but when business is the equivalent of dysentery on a hot summer day, I earn jack for nothing. Of course, in this scenario, it is difficult to find the finances to afford a car to begin with.
It's hard in these circumstances to even consider such things as school, a degree, or better living conditions. It's devastating to me, my life, my relationships, and everything that cascades on from such. It doesn't help when the doors in my house are left open, dissipating what little heat I've trapped in the kitchen into the other frozen rooms of my apartment. Piles of dirty dishes plague the sink, and I'm never home to wash them. Wait, remind me again why I'm washing someone else's dirty dishes? Oh, that's right - my apartment would be even dirtier if it weren't for the thirty minutes a night I spend after getting home from spending the remainder of my free time with Amber. Of course, directly after, shower and bed. Only to wake in the morning for work at 0800. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday.
If only people were patient, if only I could let them into my world. Unfortunately, I'm expecting a box to be placed on my doorstep any day now, with all of the various items I've gifted out over the past year and a half. There's nothing I can do to stop it, as far as I can tell, except to go work at Subway. I wish I could tell her that it'd be by the grace of God if I got out of that position, once I went there. No, it's not understood. It can't be understood. How long can one love without being loved in return? The sad thing is, it is in both ways. How sick and maniacally twisted is that?
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Warning: Strong nerdery follows. Please be cautious of your fragile mind.
Since late 1997, in all of my pre-teen glory, I have been involved with something my friends and I simply called roleplay in our own little vernacular. Of course I've since learned that roleplay doesn't only refer to the peer-driven world of online roleplay, it refers to all sorts of real-world tabletop games, live acting, and various amounts of storytelling, but this particular post is written with the word roleplay referring to the freeform online roleplaying that I have always been so close to.
Freeform roleplay, or the idea that there is no GM (game master) or storyteller (as in Vampire: The Masquerade), and is instead driven solely by the players, with no concrete rules for battle, statistics, or progression of the story. Rules and guidelines were driven by common expectation, which developed as a sort of social justice system that remains effective, even today.
The very roots of this sort of roleplay stem from early chat systems, where one could adopt a simple moniker and create a personality around the idea of an "avatar", which in most cases consisted only of this name. Players, without defining themselves as such, would interact in an imaginative world that coalesced out of their collaborative imagination. Each would react to the other characters' actions and dialogue in a fashion that suited their own character's theoretical personality, and this would create a constantly evolving story arc.
As the web (and the young teen's perception of the web) evolved and grew, so did the concept of roleplay. Online forums became an entirely new beast, allowing users to write more and more into their in character posts, instead of being limited to the single lines that chat provided (of course, some chats had enough space for people to post a full paragraph, or even two - but this was limited at the time), they were able to expound upon their writing and even proofread their copy before sending it across the web for the other players to view.
Freeform roleplay had also grown to be very competitive at this point, with groups of players forming groups known as clans, guilds, or otherwise, and expanded their IC competitions from chat to the forums and message boards now provided by a few enterprising organizations (or individuals). It was this competitive banter and challenge that defined what many now call the golden age of roleplay, which is what really drove the forefront of this gaming medium.
There were plenty of players who had entered their late teens (and some even were adults at this point, gasp!) who moved away from chat, and who moved away from the conflict-driven world of this type of roleplay. They went on to create storyline-oriented games, with a small and select number of players in more of a collaborative fiction setting. These players often went on to become writers and editors, being driven more by the literary aspect of relaying a fiction onto the internet, and often have their own private niche where they can continue to do this with their long-standing playergroup.
And... that's where we are today. The freeform roleplay community is growing and changing, barely 15 years old at this point. We have the chance to nurture it, just as we have the chance to neglect it. Those of us who've been involved since the beginning have the greatest opportunity to influence the course of growth, and that's exactly what I'm hoping to do.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I often get asked for my Skype address, sometimes in relation to business or casual conversation. I politely decline with some degree of hand-waving about my reasons, and suggest an alternative form of communication (typically either Google Talk or Google Hangouts, depending on the context—both are built right in to Gmail!). I'd like to outline some of the reasons why I've made the decision to avoid Skype, primarily so I have something to link to when someone asks me about it.
First and foremost, we don't really know what Skype actually does. The binary (the actual program you run on your computer) is obfuscated, so attempts at disassembling it [PDF] to verify some of its strange behavior and the information it is transmitting have so far come up with very little. This is an issue, because Skype produces encrypted traffic even when you are not actively using Skype. This means we can only speculate on what information Skype is collecting about you after you've so graciously chosen to install it, and perhaps more importantly who it is sending that information to.
When a Skype client is not in a call and is running on a machine with public IP address, it has on the average 4-8 active TCP connections and atleast one UDP connection.
While connecting to external IP addresses is normal for a server/client architecture and necessary for receiving notifications, the volume of traffic and number of connections is concerning, considering the compounding issues between Skype's peer-to-peer architecture [PDF] and the "reasonable level of detection accuracy" in snooping on voice calls in Skype [PDF], despite the [purportedly] encrypted nature of the Skype protocol.
Speaking in general terms, Skype is "black box" software which has undergone no public review despite very concerning observed behavior. When new Skype malware (like Skype IMBot, of which an analysis is available, or the more recent Skype account hijacking) is released, there are very few options to protect ourselves if we've got Skype installed. On Linux, tools like AppArmor and TOMOYO exist, but without the ability to easily view the source and understand the attack (per perhaps even fix it proactively, before it occurs) we are at the mercy of Skype's new maintainers to provide a timely resolution in a reactive approach.
If you use a proprietary program or somebody else's web server, you're defenceless. You're putty in the hands of whoever developed that software.
— Richard Stallman
In conclusion, while Skype may be convenient, it presents a series of questions that must be asked and implications to be considered before choosing it over other chat, VoIP, and video chat solutions. I can only hope that more people consider these things before doing so.
Asides
Some of the other things I found interesting, more recently than the research I've linked in this post, include Skype's role in the Syrian conflict, in which a claim was made as follows:
A media activist in Idlib named Mohamed said a rebel informant working for the government was killed in Damascus six months ago after sending warnings to the Free Syrian Army on Skype.
“I saw this incident right in front of my eyes,” Mohamed said. “We put his info on Skype so he was arrested and killed.”
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a really weird movie, and it really scared me. Not only is the concept nail-head-on, but I used to be called Jim Carrey, and some say I bear a striking resemblance to him in my expressions. Well... yeah. It's difficult to explain.
So what, I got over that. But then, just when I thought the worst was over, I was randomly Googling - the verb form of to search the google search engine - and then... BOOM! HEADSHOT!
Okay, I can handle someone from WW2 looking almost like myself - and the fact that he's a pilot, one of my dreams. Okay. I can handle that. And then...
http://www.artofcombat.com/instructors.htm : The training group (SOI) in Dallas was small and under the guidance of Eric Martindale (which promoted Ralph to 9th kyu), ....
I can handle a martial arts instructor being named Eric Martindale as well, a little odd, but then again, I've always been involved in martial arts, haven't I? Eric apparently promoted that guy to 9th kyu, right? So don't you have to be 10th kyu? So he's 1337 like that, right? ... And then...
And of course there's the soccer referee, or is he a player? I don't remember. He's another Eric Martindale. A little weird, too... but I've played soccer since the age of five. And then...
Holy crap, that IS me. For real. Only slightly unexpected at this point... after all of these STRANGE entries. Slightly. O_o ....
And then...
I've apparently lost myself on http://lostfriends.org - or is someone looking for me? Oh... that's what I meant to say. I haven't found myself there yet... but apparently Google did. And then...
I WAS on this page at some point... and this one is somewhat entertaining. Apparently, in Charlotte during some point about a year ago, someone named Eric Martindale died in a car accident. I believe I had four people come up to me that day and ask if I had died... I was about two hours north of charlotte at the time, and the "Eric Martindale" news had reached most parts of North Carolina and Virginia, and I got two phone calls, one from my mother - asking if I had died. .... ... ... ... .... And then...
I'm the president of a North Carolina rotary club. I've always been a fan of rotary engines... but this is ridiculous... WTFH? .... I'm becoming very frightened at this point... very frightened. I love rotary engines. That rotary club is two cities away. ... And then...
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Raleigh scored #5 on Forbes' New Tech Hot Spot list. STEM employment has grown 17.9% since 2001. I'm proud to call this place home and be a part of the entrepreneurial culture that thrives here.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Absolutely right. Last time I searched, there was something like that called Diaspora which looks like what you're talking about, but it's still in Alpha and I'm afraid it may be over people's heads.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I'm not so sure I would lay the blame for facebook's "problems" with their development model. Not that I'd argue for their development model because I know little about it or particulars of their changes, but my problems with them stem purely from a design perspective (call it Human Factors if you want).
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
+Joltrast . we actually managed to accidentally stop at Buc-ee's just as we got into Texas. It wasn't bad, but... somewhat anticlimactic. We did pick up a CD called "Texas Road Trip", though!
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I just came across an artist's work of a futuristic fantasy Tokyo that is overgrown with vegetation, and is amid reclamation by nature. Immediately, I thought that these images demanded a roleplaying game to go along with them, perhaps of the walk-through nature.
They came from a blog called Tokyo Genso (Tokyo Fantasy) - which has some altogether amazing works of art, so go check them out. :)
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I don't know why I didn't include it in the main post, but Feynman also did a series of lectures called The Messenger Lectures that I have to say are probably my favorite lectures of all time. I haven't seen "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" yet, so I'll have to go find it. Thanks, +Siromi Samarasinghe!
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
There's been a lot of talk about how Squidoo is getting punished because of how they are getting used by spammers. The idea there was to go in, create something called a "lense" that is relevant to something about your niche, and then do your marketing thing there.
Well, I just ran into "a new service from Amazon. It appears to let you create your own list and present it to the social community. I'm definitely thinking about using it before the Googledance makes it another cesspool.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I was putting together a "Top 10 Ways to Kill a Roleplay" list, and I figured I'd post it on the GWing Roleplay site to get everyone's input on the issue. Roleplayers there should spread the votes across all of the options, for the most part. I'll probably take the top 10 and make this top 10 list a bit more intuitive.
On another note - a friend from my childhood found me on Facebook last night, and we were talking this morning a bit. It's good to hear from her, it's been a few years. Her mother called me on Saturday, and we chatted for a short while. It's always good to stay connected. Okay, maybe not always, but this circumstance DOES apply.
Though, it doesn't quite make up for Facebook's broken note import feature.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
August 30th - the day MMA became legal in North Carolina. I've been waiting for this for a long time. Virginia and South Carolina are long drives - especially for me, I live right in the capital area. With any luck, they'll shortly be finalizing rules and regulations for leagues, at which point I'll be joining and grabbing every fight I can get.
I'm big into mixed martial arts. I currently train a style of Okinawan Karate called Isshinryu, which is an in-your-face discipline. It's one of the younger styles, named in 1956 by Grandmaster Tatsuo Shimabuku.
I've trained many styles in the past, including Judo and Muay Thai. I've never been beaten in a traditional art, but I'm sure hoping to find a challenge in MMA. I'm so ready for this.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
+Eric Martindale Awesome post dude! I loved it even more, cause I love road trips. The way you've written it, I guess you do too.
Funny about the Bucees. But there's something funnier. Good funnier. There's a drugstore called Walls Drugstore, in Walls, SD, a very small town, and it's like a tourist attraction. Signs for that drugstore are everywhere, and in the middle of nowhere. It's just their thing. There are signs in Afghanistan, Amsterdam, and South Pole :) http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_bKoAd4YrGgM/S-cc_4G9w-I/AAAAAAAAFFs/DjV8PDmoIfA/s1600/Wall_Drug_Sign+-+afghanistan.jpg
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I'm growing weary of the community that thrives on IRC, particularly of the fighter portion. (When I say fighting, I refer to a sport called text-fighting.) Andrew describes them quite eloquently: arrogant. They seem to believe that the IRC world is all there is, and that it is necessary to determine which channel, and perhaps even network, is better through means of blind hatred and ignorance.
Take, for example, this Animelab and SurrealChat thing. The GWing chat is hosted on SurrealChat. We often get users from Animelab telling GWingers that they suck and should die, in much more vibrant color, because SurrealChat is stupid, and they hate SurrealChat. Granted, this conflict has died down, but it does seem to be an epidemic.
I love when a conversation of these IRC nerds proceeds as follows.
"I'm the best roleplayer on this server." "No, you're not." "Yes, I am." "How about a hybrid match to determine that, then?" "Okay. Stance up."
Does my point need to be exemplified any more clearly?
Fighting a hybrid match is NOT ROLEPLAYING. Morons.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
In speech recognition breakthrough, Microsoft converts spoken English into spoken Mandarin, using the same voice.
Jump to 7:11 in the video for the speech demo. Quote below from Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer:
“Just over two years ago, researchers at Microsoft Research and the University of Toronto made another breakthrough. By using a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human brain behavior, researchers were able to train more discriminative and better speech recognizers than previous methods.
[...] We have been able to reduce the word error rate for speech by over 30% compared to previous methods. This means that rather than having one word in 4 or 5 incorrect, now the error rate is one word in 7 or 8.”
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
In speech recognition breakthrough, Microsoft converts spoken English into spoken Mandarin, using the same voice.
Jump to 7:11 in the video for the speech demo. Quote below from Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer:
“Just over two years ago, researchers at Microsoft Research and the University of Toronto made another breakthrough. By using a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human brain behavior, researchers were able to train more discriminative and better speech recognizers than previous methods.
[...] We have been able to reduce the word error rate for speech by over 30% compared to previous methods. This means that rather than having one word in 4 or 5 incorrect, now the error rate is one word in 7 or 8.”
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
In speech recognition breakthrough, Microsoft converts spoken English into spoken Mandarin, using the same voice.
Jump to 7:11 in the video for the speech demo. Quote below from Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer:
“Just over two years ago, researchers at Microsoft Research and the University of Toronto made another breakthrough. By using a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human brain behavior, researchers were able to train more discriminative and better speech recognizers than previous methods.
[...] We have been able to reduce the word error rate for speech by over 30% compared to previous methods. This means that rather than having one word in 4 or 5 incorrect, now the error rate is one word in 7 or 8.”
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
In speech recognition breakthrough, Microsoft converts spoken English into spoken Mandarin, using the same voice.
Jump to 7:11 in the video for the speech demo. Quote below from Rick Rashid, Microsoft’s Chief Research Officer:
“Just over two years ago, researchers at Microsoft Research and the University of Toronto made another breakthrough. By using a technique called Deep Neural Networks, which is patterned after human brain behavior, researchers were able to train more discriminative and better speech recognizers than previous methods.
[...] We have been able to reduce the word error rate for speech by over 30% compared to previous methods. This means that rather than having one word in 4 or 5 incorrect, now the error rate is one word in 7 or 8.”
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
As of today, I've changed the address of my blog from just EricMartindale.com to a new location that will contain my blog posts in a new format. Don't worry though, all your old links will still work just fine.
Why am I doing this? Well, there are a number of reasons why - not the least of which are some SEO (search engine optimization) adjustments that I'm in the process of making. However, the biggest and most important thing to you is the introduction of Eric Martindale's Lifestream, which is the newest and latest feature of EricMartindale[dot]com. This new area of the site is called a Lifestream because it will show you everything that I've been doing lately, from shared posts on Google Reader to photos from Flickr.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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...
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
So, Firefox allows you to open favorites in a sidebar - which is great for things like FriendFeed, Google Talk, Twitter, or even Facebook chat. It lets you use a good web service as what essentially becomes an extension for your browser, so you can browse your regular pages while still participating in the conversation.
I recently switched over to the social browser, Flock - with great success and elation. Flock is built from the Firefox codebase, but they are massively more social in what the browser does - drag and drop images, open media feeds, view your friends in their People and Places sidebar, among many other really cool things.
Then there's Friendfeed - which is a web service that recently took off (but I must say, I've been using long before the hype. :D) because it allows you to combine all of your social media connections (Web 2.5, if you will) and even cross-post responses between them (closer to Web 3.0, minus filtering and duplicate content issues...). After putting in a request to Flock's develpment team to start moving in this direction, I decided to take matters into my own hands.
When you bookmark something in Firefox, you can open the properties of the bookmark and hit a checkbox, "Open this link in the sidebar." However, this option is not available in Flock (by default). So let's open our trusty about:config:
Do a filter on "sidebar", and you'll find a value called "flock.favorites.loadPageInSidebar" - which is set to false by default. Right click this value, and click "toggle".
Bingo. Now you will have the checkbox on all your bookmarks that will allow you to open links in your sidebar!
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints
We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.
On Capitalism versus Statism: “[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]
While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].
Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.
Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints
We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.
On Capitalism versus Statism: “[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]
While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].
Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.
Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints
We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.
On Capitalism versus Statism: “[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]
While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].
Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.
Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
“Do not kill, do not rape, do not steal, these are principles which every man of every faith can embrace.” -- Murphy, The Boondock Saints
We should not be deluded into thinking that #OccupyWallStreet is a protest against capitalism. It is a protest against the blatant theft perpetrated by the financial and banking systems that has plagued our great nation and its government for at least the past 98 years.
On Capitalism versus Statism: “[...] If we are to keep the term "capitalism" at all, then, we must distinguish between "free-market capitalism" on the one hand, and "state capitalism" on the other. The two are as different as day and night in their nature and consequences. Free-market capitalism is a network of free and voluntary exchanges in which producers work, produce, and exchange their products for the products of others through prices voluntarily arrived at. State capitalism consists of one or more groups making use of the coercive apparatus of the government — the State — to accumulate capital for themselves by expropriating the production of others by force and violence [...]” -- Murray N. Rothbard, 1972 [1]
While the protests continue to grow in cities around the country [2], Anonymous is warning the NYPD against continued police brutality [3] and even previously trusted news outlets begin to censor [4] if not blatantly ignore [5].
Look through the actual photos [6]. These faces are not those of hippies, bums, or of radicals. These are the faces of your friends and family, of your neighbors and coworkers [7]. It is the majority, the 99% of affected Americans, that are on the streets protesting. It is We the People.
Thanks to +Jeremy Dahl for providing the link and video, +Michael Mozart for livestreaming the protests earlier today, and +Breana Van Den Heuvel for providing a constant stream of photos and news as this evolves.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
As a corporate business insider I can offer a perspective from the "enemy's" den. Many people agree that this movement has gained momentum and has the potential to become as big or bigger than the Tea Party Movement. I grew up in the same generation as many of those protesting today and I understand the innuendo behind Anonymous, I understand point being made by the zombies, and I understand what general sense of anger is meant for. However, keep in mind that you are generally a younger generation trying to speak to an industry dominated mostly by an older generation of people. To these people this movement appears random, chaotic, and annoying simply because they don't even know what this movement's demands or goals are. Indeed for almost all of September I don't think Wall Street even understood exactly what they were protesting, and just recently have they gotten some kind of vague idea as to what these people want done. Most people relate these types of sit-in's to hippies from their generation and view them as more of an unorganized annoyance. To my friends who I work with in NYC, comments I hear from them are to this effect (I am summarizing several people's opinions as one): "It's just stupid, they block traffic and cause trouble nearby. We have to exit buildings from completely the opposite side now just to avoid them if we're wearing a suit regardless of our purpose. No one is there during the day but all of a sudden they pop up during rush hour. They wreck local businesses and drive customers away. The corporations they protest are unaffected but the small businesses nearby are the ones they are actually hurting. We don't even know what they want."
My bosses have gone to meetings with Bernanke and Geithner it is unclear still whether these protests will actually have any influence over policy. At an executive level they still appear confused as to how to handle situation, mostly because they do not understand it. But understand this, from their perspective they have changed the following: In terms of big banks, their balance sheets have been improved light years beyond where they were in 2008 with more liquidity and more capital on hand to prevent these types of shocks to the system. They have repaid any tax dollars received and are often significantly more efficient at implementing change than the government is in making up it's mind on what to do. The majority of issues occurs because of the indecisiveness in Washington. Think about these issues: 12 people are tasked with cutting $1.7 Trillion in the next 5 weeks -- The only way that is going to happen is if they cut large dollar programs. That means Healthcare, medicare, social security, and of course military but that is even less politically viable than the other three. There is also gridlock on what will happen with the tax system in the future. Those main issues where indecisiveness has been are also some of the largest possible expenses a corporation could have. How do plan for variable expenses that could go up or down by 50% in EITHER direction? Corporations have no idea how to plan for healthcare, medicare, or social security plans for their employees because there is no decisiveness on what will occur in the future. They do not want to hire people that they cannot afford to keep a year later because of law changes. So even if they have the money for it now (which they do), they are unable to hire because of the risk of causing liquidity issues later and the massive negative PR associated with hiring and then firing. These banks also receive criticism for not lending money out, but this is not their fault. They ARE lending money out, but there is no demand. It is not supply side issues, there is plenty of money out there to be had. You can get a loan today no problem, don't believe me? Go try it at any bank you want. There is just no one who wants to take a loan. So all that free capital that we spent 3 years trying to push into banks is now stuck there.
This issue is not business related anymore. It is purely political. My above statements are not to absolve corporations of responsibility in 2008, but they are more to explain the current situation here and now. Europe is a whole other book to write about another time.
In a world where politicians and talking heads can call the greatest capitalist of our time Warren Buffett a socialist, and get away with it as "news" is the real issue at hand.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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].
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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].
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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].
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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].
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Being a fighter, I've been through this weight-cutting business plenty of times. Personally, yeah it's a pain in the ass, but we're athletes and in more cases than not - our bodies should be able to handle this. It should be at our own or our managers' discretion on whether or not we are healthy enough to cut weight.
Cutting weight continues to be a significant part of weight-restricted sports such as MMA, wrestling and boxing. It has gone on for so long that as the old aphorism goes, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
All those athletes, coaches, promoters, sanctioning bodies and fans associated with these sports have learned to accept it, consider it part of the culture, and turn a blind eye.
They all know – even if they won't admit it – that rapid, significant weight-cutting is unhealthy and potentially deadly. Most serious wrestlers have a personal story about the perils of such weight-cutting either through first hand knowledge or vicariously via a close friend or teammate. But the desire to win continues this potentially dangerous ritual.
What for decades has consisted self-reporting and self-monitoring of weight has not worked. And "documentation" of weight by a friendly doctor has been ineffective at best.
Therefore the primary issue of weight should be removed from the combatant. Simple, clear and easily enforceable rules and guidelines should be initiated to better protect the athletes.
My suggestions are as follow:
All standard fight agreements must be signed at least 45 days prior to the scheduled event.
No fighter may enter into a fight agreement weighing greater than 10 percent over the agreed upon weight limit. For example, the agreed-upon weight is 171 pounds. Therefore, each fighter can weigh no more than 171 pounds + 10 percent (188 pounds total) to sign the fight agreement.
At 30 days prior to fight, neither fighter can weigh more than 5 percent over the agreed-upon weight limit. For example, the agreed-upon weight is 171 pounds. Therefore each fighter can weigh no more than 180 pounds.
On the official day of weigh-in, if a fighter is more than 1 percent overweight, the fight cannot take place. Since the promoter is the employer, the promoter will be fined by the sanctioning body.
On the official day of weigh-in, if a fighter is less than 1 percent overweight, he or she can be given additional time to make weight. If on the second weigh-in, the fighter remains overweight, a financial penalty can be levied and paid to the on-weight fighter, at his or her discretion.
If during a championship fight the champion is overweight greater than 1 percent at the official weigh-in, the fight will not take place and the challenger is given the belt as interim champion.
If during a championship fight the champion is overweight by less than 1 percent and after an opportunity cannot make weight, the fight may still go on. If the champion wins, the title will be considered vacant. If the challenger wins, he will assume the title.
All weigh-in dates (bout agreement day and 30-day check) will be video monitored by live computer webcam and recorded. Each camp will watch the other camp calibrate the scale and weigh in over live video webcam stream (Skype). The sanctioning body will monitor the weigh-in in a similar fashion.
Understandably, this is not a system that could be implemented quickly or easily when considering the restraints of some state commissions and some of the inconsistencies from one regulatory body to the next.
However, my goal is for this ideal guideline to serve as a basis for substantive discussion and a potential framework to better protect the safety of the athletes that participate in MMA.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
While marketing RolePlayGateway, one of the things we considered was the "virality" of our approach. Viral marketing is any marketing technique that induces Web sites or users to pass on a marketing message to other sites or users, creating a potentially exponential growth in the message's visibility and effect. We're going to guide you on the road to a truly viral campaign.
A successful viral push can be launched simply by following three simple rules.
Don't spend everything you have on a single campaign.
Don't rely entirely on one vehicle of viral marketing.
Be different from everyone else; stand out.
While we're not nearly viral enough, part of our success so far has been the evangelism of our passionate users. And there you have it, one of the most important keys to successful viral marketing:
Passion:
Users who are passionate about your service, your community, or your site. They will propagate, they will evangelize, and ultimately will generate more passionate users who will do the same thing for you. Dawn Anfusocalls these members Boomers - and it is important to not ignore them.
Make it easy for your users to share. Make it hard for them NOT to share. Add a feature on your site that encourages them to send an email to their friends about the service. Add blocks where they can copy and paste code straight to their social profiles on sites like MySpace, Facebook, and Bebo. Jeanne Jennings wrote an amazing article on Optimizing the "E-mail This" Marketing Opportunity, and I'd recommend you read it and implement the things you learn from it.
Widgetize:
On that note, we arrive on one of our most powerful vehicles for viral marketing: Widgets. The list of sites that you can infect with widgets are endless. From iGoogle to individual sites, widgets encourage users to put your tool on their page. Be sure to incorporate other techniques here: Include encouragement to share it. Make it easy to post elsewhere and share.
One of the items that RolePlay Gateway could utilize to great success is the concept of game trailers. Many of the games on RPGateway are text-based, and have no real graphics. However, most of these games have amazing storylines, storylines which could be utilized to hitch audiences, or at least entertain them. Flash-based videos, or trailers, with pivotal content, captivating video and audio, and viral marketing elements such as "Email this!" or "Share This", would be an amazing leap forward. Take a look at how YouTube's video player works. Such trailers could even be uploaded to social networking sites, like YouTube and Google Video, and shared to millions of users with a touch of viral marketing magic.
Juice It Up:
Include your URL everywhere you go. Facebook, MySpace. Everywhere. This generates user authority, even if the site you are on has nothing at all to do with your target market. Cross sections are a beautiful thing, and even if you don't get a drop of link juice in comments, market saturation is a very important, yet delicate, part of viral marketing.
Maintain a presence on every social networking site you can sustain. Extend your campaign to all of them. Create social groups for each of these sites, and publicize them. The more targets you hit, just like investing, the less committed you are to that particular market. Your assets are distributed, and while the workload may be unfathomably difficult (keeping up with so many social networking sites sucks... that's why we have ProfileLinker), the potential for success is incredible.
Reward:
Another option is to provide tangible rewards for marketing. This can be in the form of prizes, such as in a contest, or to individual users. Incentives are very powerful, and drive many users to promote where they'd be otherwise apathetic. Things can be very simple, such as giving them tokens or credits, to very expensive, such as providing real cash per referral. This is probably the most effective, albeit expensive, method of encouraging users to infect others.
Don't Stop.
Don't set these actions in motion and then hope they work. Get involved. Comment on profiles. Reply to messages. Enhance your viral effect. Make it tangible. If users can see that there is a real person there, they will be a lot more enthusiastic and encouraged to participate, and your viral marketing campaign will be more successful.
Other Resources!!!Web Marketing Today has an amazing list of resource articles that are sure to help you build your campaign.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I've been using Twitter since pretty early on (and long before @oprah), and I've found it to be a superbly convenient communication tool and notification service. Even though it's still very young on the web (Twitter was founded in March of 2006) It's been the home to great ideas like the #twitterdata proposal and the publicdomain book-via-tweets project. It's also an awesome reputation management platform, and can be used to both to provide effective customer service and help distribute news and updates about your business or product, which is exactly how I use it for my online roleplaying project.
But as with the rest of the social media world, Twitter can become very complex very quickly (but I still contend that there is no social media overload) and as a result, can be difficult to manage. As a result, I use several third-party tools to help me manage and gather information that helps me do my Twitter job much more efficiently and effectively.
Splitweet
[caption id="attachment_196" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Splitweet allows you to post and monitor multiple Twitter accounts and brands."][/caption]
For those of us with multiple Twitter accounts (like some people who create a Twitter account for each roleplaying character they use), Splitweet is an absolute savior. This service allows you to tweet to multiple accounts at the same time, as well as combining the "stream" from each account into one page. A lot of desktop Twitter clients offer this kind of functionality, but where Splitweet truly excels is in its ability to track what it calls "brands" (more reputation management terms here): you can specify keywords and phrases that will appear in a separate feed, even if you do not follow those users. This gets us around the disastrous changes Twitter made to the @replies, and helps us keep up to date on any mentions of our site's name and any tweets relating to what it is that we do.
Sherflock
[caption id="attachment_195" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Sherflock provides detailed statistics and summaries of Twitter users you are associated with."][/caption]
Sherflock is an absolutely awesome stat tracking machine that helps weed out the waves of spam that have been coming in since Twitter has gone mainstream. Sherflock gives a large number of statistics about each every account the either follows you or that you are following, and lets you sort and filter users based on these statistics.
Twitterfall
[caption id="attachment_194" align="alignnone" width="217" caption="Twitterfall offers a live stream of twitter updates on keywords that you specify."][/caption]
This tool allows you to specify any number of keywords that you wish to view on a live, moving stream of tweets. This is very useful if you are using a computer that allows you to "pin" a window on top (like Ubuntu Linux), or if you have a multiple-monitor rig, or even if you use multiple computers using the input-sharing app Synergy. You'll get a live feed of updates on any topic of your choice, which can even be updated and changed in real-time.
Using these three tools will help you maximize you Twitter performance and make the most of an already awesome service, preventing you from being inundated with the massive stream of messages that you're surely going to subscribe to.
What are your top three Twitter tools? Feel free to make a comment or write your own post, and I'll gladly append a link to this post to help everyone out!
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Onward, and Ever Upward 2013 was an amazing year; between founding +Coursefork, building soundtrack.io and para.io, working with several amazing startups [1], and being allowed to call myself a peer to some of the smartest people I know all throughout, it has been a year of both great achievement and personal growth. This sets an incredibly compelling stage for 2014 and everything to come therein.
Today, I'm excited to announce that I'll be joining the likes of Jeff Garzik [2], Patrick Nagurny, and Ian Patton under the leadership of CTO Stephen Pair at +Bitpay, which allows anyone to quickly and seamlessly accept Bitcoin as payment, settling immediately in any currency, including USD.
Bitcoin has become one of the biggest stories of 2013, having grown over 9000% in value [3] and even surpassing Western Union in transaction volume [4]. As potentially the most counterfeit-proof form of payment in history, Bitcoin is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies since the invention of the Internet as society moves increasingly into decentralized systems in an era of waning trust and increasing technological awareness by growing economies like China, India, and Brazil [5].
Taking advantage of this trend of decentralization, BitPay is perfectly positioned to serve as the mechanism for BitCoin's mass-adoption as massive merchants such as +Overstock.com move to accept this new form of payment. It's exciting to be involved with a company in this position at such an early stage, and expand the breadth of my experience to include another decentralized system, and especially to be holding the responsibility of expanding the company's open-source initiatives and engaging the developer community in a meaningful way.
After parting ways with Coursefork late last year, I've taken a seat on the Board of Advisors, allowing the amazing team we built to realize the vision of open-sourcing the world of education [6] under the leadership of CTO +Brian Marks. Brian was previously the CTO of successful education startup WebAssign [7], and will be an excellent steward of Coursefork's team and technology as they move towards the much-needed decentralization and open-sourcing of the education industry. My best wishes to the team as they endeavor to do so!
Exciting times all around, and I'm truly lucky to be a part of it in so many ways. Now let's go make the world a better place.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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 wordlist 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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I've been in the market for my dream phone for almost a year now. Products have been released left and right, but none of them seem to have the functionality that I am desiring. Okay, I admit - "phone" is a bit misleading. What I'm really looking for is a smartphone... no, not a smartphone, a digital companion.
Things I'm looking for:
Phone
Camera
Media Player
Freedom
Phone I want a mobile phone with what has become industry standards, including the dual-mode functionality of GSM and WiFi connections. I should be able to take this phone to any service provider, and get service using this device, keeping both my number and my contacts.
Camera I want a decent camera that gets decent lighting. While a 2 megapixel camera is about the range I'm looking for, most important is the quality of the resulting pictures. The functionality of a modern-day camera should be available, including light temperature and balance. I should be able to record video using this, as well.
Media Player I should be able to play any format of media on this device as I can play using my home Linux box. OGG, MP3, MPEG, AVI...
Freedom I wish to be able to install software freely, from wherever I may choose. If I choose to install emulators and play me some NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis games, I should be able to do this freely, and have the necessary hardware resources to do this. I want to be able to make changes to my device's software at any point in time. I should be able to sync my calendar, to do list, and contacts with my choice of repositories.
I'll grow and review this as necessary. Until then, the Apple iPhone looks bitterly disgusting, while the Motorola Q's use of Windows continues to push me away.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
FIC has announced an on-sale date for its Neo1973, expected to be the first low-cost, high-volume phone with a user-modifiable Linux-based operating system. Additionally, the OpenMoko project building open-source software for the phone has published a wealth of technical resources.
See the link for more information. This is a huge step towards my dream phone.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I was literally just in a meeting where I got into a deep conversation about Bitcoin with a phone exchange service. They were obviously interested in the idea and even brought up adding Bitcoin as a payment option, however, they had hesitation as their primary customer base had "value/savings based" mindsets. Changing the psychological perception of Bitcoin is a huge step towards ubiquitous integration.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I just bought a subscription to the Google Calendar/Microsoft Outlook/Windows Mobile syncing tool, OggSync. It's going to allow me to (finally) sync Google Calendar, my phone's calendar, and my Outlook Calendar. Isn't that hawt?
It's $29.99 per year, and after resolving an issue or two of duplicate events - it's well worth the money.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Amber and I have been yelling at each other on and off for the past hour or so, due to the problems she is having with her current math project. I'm glad she's sloughed off her English project, as doing five people's annotations, comparisons, and evaluations of Shakespeare's Othello on her own was clearly wearing thin on her.
Unfortunately, she doesn't own a copy of Microsoft Office, which includes Excel, which is apparently what she needs. A few months ago I pointed her in the direction of OpenOffice, but errors in conversion and viewing (Comments made in Word won't display in OpenOffice, but they will work vice versa), changes and differences in interface and menu placement, broken features, etc etc., have been an endless source of frustration for her. I really wish I knew how to use it at an expert level, but it just seems like I can't help her, because I know so little about the software. Having to communicate via the phone doesn't help, either.
I'm heading over there after work, maybe I can help her more then. Hoorah for another night of sleep deprivation!
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I've been building a scraper using PHP5 and the newly added XPath functionality. The idea here, as an exercise in programming, is to scrape complete records from Google Maps, including name, address, and phone number.
Here's a snippet of what I've been trying to do. This probably isn't the best approach, but I can't quite figure out how to pull a child of a resulting element, PHP is forever returning an error when I try to use firstchild.
//start our result counter $i = 0; //try setting higher than 1000 while ($i < 1000) { //show status so we don't get lost echo "Currently extracting data from records ".$i." through ".($i + 10)."...";
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
Hurricane Sandy: Resources, Guides, and Information
With #HurricaneSandy already flooding streets [1] and causing damage [2] in #NYC due to the effects of the combined hurricane, western stormfront, and full-moon tides [3], I wanted to take just a quick moment to collect some resources related to the storm. I have quite a few friends directly in the path of the storm (ahem, +Sharon Strandskov!) and I want to urge everyone to stay safe. Make no illusion, this storm is serious business: take a look at the attached photo to see a comparison to Hurricane Irene.
As always, preparedness is key. If you're in the path of the storm and haven't yet found your battery-powered radio, it's strongly recommend that you do so now while you have the light, as both your Internet and cell signals are likely to be interrupted. If you haven't stocked up on water and [non-perishable] food, it's a bit late and you're going to have to hunker down and hope for the best.
Course of Action: From the FEMA Guidelines [4]: 1) Listen to the radio or TV for information. [ed.: or FEMA's Twitter [5]] 2) Secure your home, close storm shutters, and secure outdoor objects or bring them indoors. 3) Turn off utilities if instructed to do so. Otherwise, turn the refrigerator thermostat to its coldest setting and keep its doors closed. 4) Turn off propane tanks.· Avoid using the phone, except for serious emergencies. 5) Moor your boat if time permits. 6) Ensure a supply of water for sanitary purposes such as cleaning and flushing toilets. Fill the bathtub and other large containers with water.
As an additional tip that I recently learned, you can fill plastic bags with water and put them in your freezer to prepare for extended power/water outages. These will stay cool longer than bottled water in your refrigerator.
If you're in one of the evacuation areas and haven't yet followed the instructions or aren't able to do so, make sure to seek shelter and follow the appropriate guidelines. [4]
Take a moment and look up your local news station's Facebook / Twitter and subscribe, optionally via SMS so that when the power goes out, you still have a method of receiving realtime updates (provided cell coverage doesn't go down / get inundated with emergency requests).
As a bonus, there's a pretty awesome #HTML5 canvas wind visualization demo that updates in realtime [6]. Some pretty slick techniques there, so view the source [Luke].
Feel free to add your own resources in the comments. I'll edit the post to add the most helpful resources.
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
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 referencepostsallday 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.
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?
Replies are automatically detected from social media, including Twitter, Facebook, and Google+. To add a comment, include a direct link to this post in your message and it'll show up here within a few minutes.
I often get asked for my Skype address, sometimes in relation to business or casual conversation. I politely decline with some degree of hand-waving about my reasons, and suggest an alternative form of communication (typically either 
Cutting weight continues to be a significant part of weight-restricted sports such as MMA, wrestling and boxing. It has gone on for so long that as the old aphorism goes, "Familiarity breeds contempt."
[/caption]
[/caption]
[/caption]
There's been a lot of active discussion about the state of AOL's directory project, 