You probably don't know that I am working on a humor book. Yes (alec) I am still working on that. This blog here is in need of a post, so I am cross-posting something I wrote for the book earlier today here. Enjoy.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Frances Burney
British Writers has me reading Frances Burney, who wrote about her mastectomy. Reading a first hand account of her de-boob-ing, I - for some unknown and forever haunting reason - decided to Google image search 'Mastectomy'. Here is a second by second account of my thoughts.
"Huh, boobs. Not to bad. More boobs, I'm fine with this. Most of these boobs are intact. That image looks like it is from a stock photo website. I wonder if th---OH MY GOD MY EYES OH MAN SWEET LORD GOD AHH AHHHH AHHHHHH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS ALT F4! ALT F4!!!!!!!!"
"Huh, boobs. Not to bad. More boobs, I'm fine with this. Most of these boobs are intact. That image looks like it is from a stock photo website. I wonder if th---OH MY GOD MY EYES OH MAN SWEET LORD GOD AHH AHHHH AHHHHHH FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS ALT F4! ALT F4!!!!!!!!"
Friday, December 2, 2011
Amazon Recommendations: Not a Quill
So making a joke against twitter's #penchat and #pencilchat, I am trying to start #quillchat. Of course I went to amazon to try and purchase a cheap quill set so I could get pictures to accompany the gags, upstart the quill re-birth movement. ("stay classic, stay classy, stay quill" is the WIP slogan). Long story short, Amazon does not know what to do with people like me, who purchase such eclectic things with it. Hey Amazon, not all eclectic people wear Tutu's! That is an stereotype! Please stop recommending I purchase tutu's!Bah! Humbug
I despise Christmas music. Maybe it's me being a Grinch, or an unemotional soulless asshole, but I have always hated Christmas music. I resent the fact that one of my favorite artists, M.Ward, spent a lot of time he could be using on other music efforts to release a Christmas album (a very she & him Christmas). Christmas music is where music goes to die. Bad music that is played on the radio constantly 1 month of the year. I avoid at all costs, the catchy tunes will have me infected with more misery (not the intended joy). I am keeping my noise cancelling headphones with me everywhere around campus, needing to avoid Christmas music at all costs.
It was to my surprise and pleasure to find an interesting setting in Last.fm's page:
A Christmas music filter! Genius! I need one of these for everywhere. I can't deafen myself for just a month all that easily, although the thought of pouring molten acid into my ears is seeming more and more appealing. Last.fm, I applaud you.
Christmas music, I hate you!
It was to my surprise and pleasure to find an interesting setting in Last.fm's page:
A Christmas music filter! Genius! I need one of these for everywhere. I can't deafen myself for just a month all that easily, although the thought of pouring molten acid into my ears is seeming more and more appealing. Last.fm, I applaud you.Christmas music, I hate you!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Abott & Costello
Listen to a recording of Who's On First by Abott & Costello, performed by myself and a friend (Kevin). I recorded and editing the entire thing at Depauws recording studio, as a part of the ITAP program. Have a listen:
Click here to listen
Click here to listen
Thursday, November 24, 2011
How to Cook a Turkey on Thanksgiving Day
How to Cook a Turkey
- Purchase turkey. You have not thought far enough ahead to get a good one, so make do with what you have.
- You forgot to pre-heat the oven, didn't you? Whatever, just turn the oven up to 450 degrees, it'l warm in no time.
- Thaw the turkey before cooking. You can do this in the oven while it heats up.
- wait around, bake your desserts. That stuffing needs to be made.
- Watch some football on TV
- You forgot about the turkey. Examine your burned-outside, frozen-inside specimen of ex-edible dinner.
- Turn off all kitchen hardware and pile everyone in the lap. Little Johnny can sit on his older sister's lap.
- Drive the family to the local Chinese Restaurant
- Enjoy a delicious thanksgiving dinner!
Wednesday, November 16, 2011
Thursday, November 3, 2011
Demystifying the complex: 5 Ball Cascade Practice Path
Guys, I have been approaching this 5 ball cascade all wrong. I have been practicing the 4 ball cascade, lefty 3 ball shower, and some '5 ball practice' siteswaps. On those siteswaps I have been making 0 progress. my 5 ball cascade has been making 0 practice. Then I realized something so obvious, it's painful. Learn 5 balls the same way you learned 3. Breaking it down throw by throw, and building up hand speed, and (more importantly) accuracy and consistency.
Start with 1 ball. Toss it high above your head at the 5 ball height. No 'about eye level here', but some previous tinkering with numbers, as I am sure you have done, has you knowing about where this is. Throw a bit higher than that, for safety and accuracy's sake. (If you are bored, I bet you are skilled enough to do this with 3 balls.
Move up to 2 balls. Don't throw one at the apex of the other, but rather quickly - as quick as you can. OK, not that fast. (the tempo will make sense when you have three, then you can scale it back and do 2 balls). Make sure you are not moving your hands too much to catch the balls before moving on to 3. Throw and catch both before throwing again.
3 balls now, do a 3 ball flash. Good. Now try, except count out '1-2-3-4-5' out loud as you throw them. 1,2,3, should be on throws, and 4 and 5 should be said before the first ball lands (right before it lands, in fact). Catch all of the balls before tossing again. While you will inevitably play with 4 and 5 balls, ensure that you have 3 solid before really continuing.
up to 4 balls! Just remember to watch the ball's height, and listen to the sound as they land - it all should be pretty consistent. Try counting out 12345 and seeing if you have time to say that '5' before catching. It'l be quick. Just remember, don't fumble constantly around with 5 (not getting better) until you can do 4 consistently. It may not look like it, but your hands are really learning something here.
OK, and the moment you have been waiting for. 5 tosses, 5 catches. Look elsewhere on the internet for grips and how to hold the balls. (I purchased smaller beanbags to practice with). If you have 4 consistent, being able to throw and catch 5 most of the time should not be hard at all. But again, don't move on to 6 until you have these 5 nice and consistent. This is probably the step that will achieve the most attention (deservedly or not). If you are fumbling and dropping most of the time, scale back to 4, to 3, ect. Every once in a while, do a pyramid. Being with 20 tosses of 1 ball, then 2, 3, and so on. Get comfortable with three balls in each of your hands.
And finally, 6 tosses. Now it starts to get fun, (and the advice repetitive) but essentially it goes like this: toss 6, catch 6. Repeat until cozy, do it 10 times in a row without dropping. Toss 7, catch 7. Be able to do it 10 times in a row without dropping. Move like this all the way up to 10, where you are throwing each ball twice. After that, try going straight to 15, then 20, or maybe smaller jumps. Tossing and catching - surprinsingly- is better advice than keeping a failing pattern alive - learning how to toss a ball from odd angles and while violating the 1-plane rule (no front/back shit) is not helping you learn any good muscle memory, despite how cool you feel getting that pattern solid. Take it easy, count out some numbers, and build it slowly.
So really, just learn 5 the same way you learned 3. It seems so obvious! It is so simple! But it works.
Disclaimer: I do not have a 5 ball cascade down, this advice is discovery+intuition+basic 3 ball tutorial concepts+other peoples general juggling advice, for 5 and other ball cascades.
Start with 1 ball. Toss it high above your head at the 5 ball height. No 'about eye level here', but some previous tinkering with numbers, as I am sure you have done, has you knowing about where this is. Throw a bit higher than that, for safety and accuracy's sake. (If you are bored, I bet you are skilled enough to do this with 3 balls.
Move up to 2 balls. Don't throw one at the apex of the other, but rather quickly - as quick as you can. OK, not that fast. (the tempo will make sense when you have three, then you can scale it back and do 2 balls). Make sure you are not moving your hands too much to catch the balls before moving on to 3. Throw and catch both before throwing again.
3 balls now, do a 3 ball flash. Good. Now try, except count out '1-2-3-4-5' out loud as you throw them. 1,2,3, should be on throws, and 4 and 5 should be said before the first ball lands (right before it lands, in fact). Catch all of the balls before tossing again. While you will inevitably play with 4 and 5 balls, ensure that you have 3 solid before really continuing.
up to 4 balls! Just remember to watch the ball's height, and listen to the sound as they land - it all should be pretty consistent. Try counting out 12345 and seeing if you have time to say that '5' before catching. It'l be quick. Just remember, don't fumble constantly around with 5 (not getting better) until you can do 4 consistently. It may not look like it, but your hands are really learning something here.
OK, and the moment you have been waiting for. 5 tosses, 5 catches. Look elsewhere on the internet for grips and how to hold the balls. (I purchased smaller beanbags to practice with). If you have 4 consistent, being able to throw and catch 5 most of the time should not be hard at all. But again, don't move on to 6 until you have these 5 nice and consistent. This is probably the step that will achieve the most attention (deservedly or not). If you are fumbling and dropping most of the time, scale back to 4, to 3, ect. Every once in a while, do a pyramid. Being with 20 tosses of 1 ball, then 2, 3, and so on. Get comfortable with three balls in each of your hands.
And finally, 6 tosses. Now it starts to get fun, (and the advice repetitive) but essentially it goes like this: toss 6, catch 6. Repeat until cozy, do it 10 times in a row without dropping. Toss 7, catch 7. Be able to do it 10 times in a row without dropping. Move like this all the way up to 10, where you are throwing each ball twice. After that, try going straight to 15, then 20, or maybe smaller jumps. Tossing and catching - surprinsingly- is better advice than keeping a failing pattern alive - learning how to toss a ball from odd angles and while violating the 1-plane rule (no front/back shit) is not helping you learn any good muscle memory, despite how cool you feel getting that pattern solid. Take it easy, count out some numbers, and build it slowly.
So really, just learn 5 the same way you learned 3. It seems so obvious! It is so simple! But it works.
Disclaimer: I do not have a 5 ball cascade down, this advice is discovery+intuition+basic 3 ball tutorial concepts+other peoples general juggling advice, for 5 and other ball cascades.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Another Google Reader Opinion Post
I have reserved my judgement about the changes to Google Reader until after the changes have occured. They have occured. I hate it. Here is why.
Google reader was the best 'social network' to exist thus far for me. Why? It was specialized. Google+ and Facebook duke it out for the end-all-be-all-one-stop-shop center for social interaction on the internet. This is idiotic. What we need more is specialization, think of the linux 'one thing well' philosophy. More specialized communities such as reddit, twitter, instagram, tumblr, quora, and yes - google reader have flourished underneith facebooks rule of terror. Now Google+ is taking them on directly, and that's all fine and good (whatever) but the recent changes to gReader have merged google+ into Google Reader.
When I found something worth sharing on Google Reader, I would shift+s, it, then continue on. The post I shared would go to my shared items, which is a page on the internet generated from an RSS or Atom feed. But most importantly it can be viewed by other google reader users, right inside of Google Reader. I would read what people I follow (such as my friends, or tech guru's) have posted, then I would go to my subscriptions and share posts I liked. The best part of this is that people would only see my posts if they wanted to. Now, my posts show up in my google+ timeline, and if I continue doing it the way I am I will flood everyone's inbox with my stupid internet shit they don't care about.
But the posts shared in my stream are viewed at a different site than gReader, They are excerpts only, one has to click through and open a new tab/reader to view the content. All the good out of google reader (content in one place) is gone now. Fuuuu! . . . Fuuuu!
</rant>
Somebody else's opinion Here
Google reader was the best 'social network' to exist thus far for me. Why? It was specialized. Google+ and Facebook duke it out for the end-all-be-all-one-stop-shop center for social interaction on the internet. This is idiotic. What we need more is specialization, think of the linux 'one thing well' philosophy. More specialized communities such as reddit, twitter, instagram, tumblr, quora, and yes - google reader have flourished underneith facebooks rule of terror. Now Google+ is taking them on directly, and that's all fine and good (whatever) but the recent changes to gReader have merged google+ into Google Reader.
When I found something worth sharing on Google Reader, I would shift+s, it, then continue on. The post I shared would go to my shared items, which is a page on the internet generated from an RSS or Atom feed. But most importantly it can be viewed by other google reader users, right inside of Google Reader. I would read what people I follow (such as my friends, or tech guru's) have posted, then I would go to my subscriptions and share posts I liked. The best part of this is that people would only see my posts if they wanted to. Now, my posts show up in my google+ timeline, and if I continue doing it the way I am I will flood everyone's inbox with my stupid internet shit they don't care about.
But the posts shared in my stream are viewed at a different site than gReader, They are excerpts only, one has to click through and open a new tab/reader to view the content. All the good out of google reader (content in one place) is gone now. Fuuuu! . . . Fuuuu!
</rant>
Somebody else's opinion Here
Sunday, October 30, 2011
To Be Human
What separates humans from apes? Evolutionary speaking, people look for a line, but there was no animal that transitioned to being a human, there was no first human. For this animal to be human, there must be other humans. To be human is to be social.
Saturday, October 29, 2011
I Attempt Fighting Fantasy
Fighting Fantasy is a series of game-books. Think of an overly complicated Choose your own adventure book. Read more about them here. Like choose your own adventure, but with stamina, items, etc. OK, so lets get going on our magical, and hopefully sodomy-free adventure! The first thing I need to do (after buying a book and pulling out my metal die) is create a character. There are a few already created for me to get started with, but screw that! Am I right? (...I am)
The book I bought is called 'City of Thieves'. So, I am assuming I will be playing as some thiefing character. The first thing this character needs is a name! A glorious name for a glorious character! I lanched this name-generating web page and got "Horril Darkeyes the Wondrous". That sounds like a pretty shitty name, so lets just go with "Uncle Touchy McClumbsy-Buttons Jr." Now that - that is a name of champions. The first thing I roll for is 'skill'. This reflects my fighting expertise. I roll a one, which gives me the lowest-possible-skill of 7. Sweet. Luckily my stamina and luck arn't bad (20 and 10, respectively). Uncle Touchy may not be skilled, he can take average damage, but he does have above par luck! [edit: Nope. Having high luck is bad, this character is shit] So lets start our adventure!
I have entered a strange town, wealthy but nervous. Despite enjoying my own company to that of others, I decide to stay there the night. I go to an inn and then a fat mayor shows up and demands he talks to me. Apparently they have been put under a curse, yada yada Zanbar Bone, yada city of theives, ect. or something. I don't really know, I just kind of skimmed this bit. Reading is hard! I have to go on a quest to find this Nicodemus guy. He is some old wizard, and totally not a brand of quit-smoking gum.
Uncle Touchy gets to Port wherever, and immediately an angry looking guard confronts me. My choice is to attack him, sell something to him, or tell him I want to be taken to Nicodemus. Uh, taken to Nicodemus! Duh!
So basically some guards grabbed me and said I was ugly. My choice is to let them put me in a dungeon, bribe them, or fight them. I decided that bribing them was the best option, because there is no way these guy's are not corrupt in the city of theives!
The next choice is how much to bribe them for, 5, 10, or 15. I don't want to lose half of my money, but I think they might sodomize me if I only give them 5, so I pick 10. Uncle Touchy is not a fan of sodomy.
After a while, I am walking down a street, and a ragged beggar boy runs out and hands me a message. It says that 6 arrows are about to kill me if I don't drop 10 coins and leave. I doubt these people would share the gold, so there probably is only one. I call that guy's bluff, probably just the beggar boy trying to get some cash for magazines he is too young to read.
I was, well, wrong. Not a bluff at all. I roll a Die to see how many arrows hit me. I roll a fucking 6, and this brings my stamina down from 20 to 2. Uncle Touchy is still alive! [insert surviving penetration/sodomy joke here]
I decide to staggar bleeding into a strange house, mostly because a little girl told me to. An old-as-fuck guy heals my wounds, kind of! I am up to 14 stamina, but he takes my sexy broadsword and gives me a crappy one instead. This makes me lose a skill point and I become the world's least skilled pedophile.
And on top of being an unskilled pedophile, I have to fight guards because I don't have papers. What is this, Arizona? (hey-o!). This doesn't look good for me, but I try anyway! I beat the guards, (somehow-- I rolled snake eyes on myself once), but I lost all but 2 of my stamina points doing so. In all honesty, it would have been pretty pathetic to watch.
I beat a barechested muscle man at a game of dont-drop-the-cannon-ball! I remember playing that when I was younger, those were the good ol' days. I pay a fat crystal-ball user for the location of Nicodimius and head off to look for him.
Nicotine the wizard-douche tells me he is too much of a wimp to fight zanybar himself, and that I have to do it. (gee, who didn't see that one coming?). Well, shit. Basically I have to buy/aquire a bunch of stuff to beat him. I am happy I am still alive at this point, so I decide to keep reading the book.
I aquire the silver arrow, but die by the hands of a giant motherflipping centipede in a sewer. Possibly the least honerable death anyone can think of, being killed by a bug while standing in shit.
I hate this book. Fuck reading.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Choose Your Own Adventure Comic
first off: check out http://checkthismusicout.com
and after that shameless plug, check this out for interesting and relevant things: http://samizdat.cc/cyoa/
Comics? Those are for kids!
Choose your own adventure stories? Those are for kids!
That's right. I am combining the two most disrespected forms of art by society -real corner-of-the-library shit- and putting them in one project. To be delivered (wait for it...) on the internet!. How could this possibly go wrong? That's right It can't - it's too awesome.
My current project is an incredibly epic choose your own adventure comic. Right now the comic has 80 panels, some of them will need to be broken into multiple (ie: more narrative panels), so I am guessing in the end about 100 separate images, each with webcomic-like size and formatting. It's pretty cool.
Writing this was not as difficult as one would think . The first step is to get an overall idea for the project, where certain paths will lead (in most cases - where the 'correct' or 'winning' path(s) will go). I got out a pen and paper (no, really!) and wrote down some key events, some important things that I knew would change how the story worked. I then roughed those out into a flow chart in my mind, how the hero will go to the different paths. In mine, it quickly splits into three separate adventures, and two of them merge back together. It's actually much more complicated, all of the stories cross and weave about each other, sharing events (often from separate points of view). This depth is partially why I am so excited about this project. The next step in the creation is making a spreadsheet. I fired up OneNote and my tablet, but the sheet was quickly too large for that, so I switched to my desktop and used online flowchart software lucidchart.com to create the flowchart. I should have just used some desktop flowchart software, so I would have more control. The flowchart is for for reference and brainstorming. It's easiest to write these things when you can see the big picture, and not get stuck just traveling down one path.
The next step was opening up Google docs and creating a spreadsheet. In separate columns: [description, choice 1, link 1, choice 2, link 2, choice 3, link 3, type]. Type is not needed, it just identifies the panel as being a ending, narrative, or choice panel, and thus the above pie chart can be created. The spreadsheet is confusing and dense, but beautiful in it's layout, it's is set up in a way that almost all of the links go to a point further on in the doc, not previously. That is to say, if it were a book, you would always be turning further, not back.
I will update here with more details as I work on the project. My plan is to look for some artists to help while I go back over the spreadsheet, and add visual cues and basic layout information to help with the art later.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Check This Music Out
New Website: checkthismusicout.com
Why I created checkthismusicout.com
I created this website for 2 reasons. The first is that music recommendation algorithms are imperfect, and the second is because you are not as smart as you think you are.
Music recommendation algorithms that analyze the qualities of the music, such as The Music Genome Project, are pretty cool. There is a lot of technology there, and how it works is not what I am saying sucks. What I am saying sucks is the entire concept in general. It's because they are very good at finding music that sounds the same. Let's face it, a lot of music sounds the same. Bands can't afford to be experimental, and being experimental is not what fans want*. For more on why music all sounds the same, check out Kirby Furgusons Everything Is A Remix video series. Us pathetic humans are totally OK with this - I am not saying it's a bad thing - But what is bad is not exploring. Listening to similar sounds is not bad. If it sounds good, it sounds good! But when we forgoe exploring and listening to new artists in favor of the familiar, this is where things go sour. I look at my friend Camerons library. Not one artist is not some subgenre of metal. I try and show him some fast Techno, but he doesn't even bother listening "Oh" he says. "I don't like techno". But he has never listened to it! This is one of my biggest pet peeves. Another friend only has artists that have appeared on Billboards top 50. This drives me insane.
In summary: Be Eclectic. Music recommendation algorithms are not good at helping you be eclectic.
You don't know what you like to listen too. You think you do, but you don't. If you think I am wrong, go listen to Fanfarlo. You liked them, didn't you? Yeah. Everyone does. But you didn't know you liked them! People are too comfortable listening to the same music, and never finding anything new. Try something new sometime. Trust me, you won't regret it. But where will you ever find this new artists. Oh, wait - I just helped solve that problem with the site Check This Music Out.
As a side note, I didn't really create the site. Alec Gorge did. We have been working together on code projects for a little while now. He is the code guru. He code's like beowulf. I just get the idea's, and I help out with User Interface and Design. I also contribute some code, but this is usually replaced by him later with a mumbling of profanity and confusion. I give Alec Gorge a high five. And some money. If you play Minecraft and have an iPhone, you should totally check out his iPhone app: Adminium.
How The Site Works
It's pretty simple, you go to the site and it commands you to check out a few tracks by an artist. It's really hard to pick just a few tracks, and I don't like the site working that way, (check out this album, or check out the band would be preffered) - but it's the best way to do it. We put a few songs on there because it gives you a starting point, something to search for and actually listen to. If you like the songs, you know how to delve deeper, look at albums and such. Personally, I buy (yes, buy) music by the album and never sort by genre, but that's just me. If you don't like the songs, then just go back to the site and look at another, we have a lot of different styles of music in here.
Speaking of purchasing music, the site does not display advertisements. Instead, at the bottom of the page there are to buttons that link to amazon. If you decide you like the artist, and want to show us some love, buy them after clicking one of those links - we are part of amazon's associate/referral program. Cool, right?
There is also a page where you can view the entire database in a nice list, if you prefer that to random chance. It's even alphabatized.
*There are a lot of exceptions
Thursday, October 20, 2011
I am not an adult
culled from the notebook on 10/18/11
Today I was called an adult. That's right, someone called me an adult. And not some guy who I held the door open for, an old teacher asked me how adulthood felt like, about college, freedom, the path of my life.
These are not questions I can answer. Fuck no.
Me? An adult? Don't I need a newspaper subscription to be an adult? I don't host dinner parties and I hum a rhyme when I tie my shoes. I take lots of candy whenever a bowl is on a counter. I've never enjoyed wine for fucks sake! I don't give a damn about televised news channels or local elections. I still watch complete episodes of Spongebob Squarepants - and not just when it's on, I netflix that shit.I don't listen to NPR or iron any clothes, ever. I don't own dress shoes or socks (not just dress socks - I don't own any socks). I don't know how voting or taxes work and I have never bought furniture that isn't filled with beans. My savings account has 17 cents in it and a month ago I went 4 days on nothing but 1 box on apple jacks. My resume, entirely hypothetical, boasts that I once stayed awake for 5 days. I have never had kiwi or owned an umbrella. My close has over 40 t-shirts and my one jacket isn't earth tone. I don't know what 401k means. Recently I ate an earthworm because a friend dared me to. When I go to concerts, people stand. My bookshelf is mostly comics. I put clothes in my microwave to dry them. I spray deodorant and my underwear is not white. I read The New Yorker for the cartoons and don't know my relatives birthdays. I have never used a filing cabinet, and I draw on placemats at restaurants. I've never changed the oil in my car or had someone call me "sir". I don't golf or play poker. My bed sheets have rockets on them, and up until 2 days ago I though "Manilla" folders were "Vanilla" folders - due to their color. (Why was I never corrected? Oh, right, I never use them!) I don't watch documentaries, drink out of flutes, or have an insurance card. I still drink chocolate milk for breakfast, every breakfast. I feel uncomfortable in Nordstroms but right at home in a arcade or lazer-tag place. I don't have reading glasses or 'special' cuff links. If you put my in a casino or at a bar, my mind would insist I was doing something very wrong and should leave. My wall has movie posters, not nautical maps or landscape paintings, I've never been to an art museum outside of a field trip. I say 'bro', 'dude', and 'peace'. If needed, I could survive 3 weeks on hot pockets. At a gym, I dont use the elliptical. In front of a skeeball machine, I wont look like a dork.
I am not an adult.
When people call me teenager - that's not right. That label puts me in the same group as fans of Glee and Twilight, eye-rollers who worry about rumors of rumors and what everyone else thinks. I'm not that. So what am I? 'young adult'? - That sounds like your complimenting how nice your 11 year old nephew looks at a wedding. "Mature teenager" doesn't give the pop-listening (and by this label, immature) ones enough credit. They have suffered more relationship drama in 2 weeks than an adults past 3 years. 'college student'? No - to many connected memories to drinking and acting like 6 year olds.
I am in a confusing crossroad of cultural identification. I can't be labeled by any symbolic of sweeping term. So what am I to do?
I don't know. Whatever, I guess. It doesn't really matter what you stereotype, group, label, or call me. I am still an individual.
Today I was called an adult. That's right, someone called me an adult. And not some guy who I held the door open for, an old teacher asked me how adulthood felt like, about college, freedom, the path of my life.
These are not questions I can answer. Fuck no.
Me? An adult? Don't I need a newspaper subscription to be an adult? I don't host dinner parties and I hum a rhyme when I tie my shoes. I take lots of candy whenever a bowl is on a counter. I've never enjoyed wine for fucks sake! I don't give a damn about televised news channels or local elections. I still watch complete episodes of Spongebob Squarepants - and not just when it's on, I netflix that shit.I don't listen to NPR or iron any clothes, ever. I don't own dress shoes or socks (not just dress socks - I don't own any socks). I don't know how voting or taxes work and I have never bought furniture that isn't filled with beans. My savings account has 17 cents in it and a month ago I went 4 days on nothing but 1 box on apple jacks. My resume, entirely hypothetical, boasts that I once stayed awake for 5 days. I have never had kiwi or owned an umbrella. My close has over 40 t-shirts and my one jacket isn't earth tone. I don't know what 401k means. Recently I ate an earthworm because a friend dared me to. When I go to concerts, people stand. My bookshelf is mostly comics. I put clothes in my microwave to dry them. I spray deodorant and my underwear is not white. I read The New Yorker for the cartoons and don't know my relatives birthdays. I have never used a filing cabinet, and I draw on placemats at restaurants. I've never changed the oil in my car or had someone call me "sir". I don't golf or play poker. My bed sheets have rockets on them, and up until 2 days ago I though "Manilla" folders were "Vanilla" folders - due to their color. (Why was I never corrected? Oh, right, I never use them!) I don't watch documentaries, drink out of flutes, or have an insurance card. I still drink chocolate milk for breakfast, every breakfast. I feel uncomfortable in Nordstroms but right at home in a arcade or lazer-tag place. I don't have reading glasses or 'special' cuff links. If you put my in a casino or at a bar, my mind would insist I was doing something very wrong and should leave. My wall has movie posters, not nautical maps or landscape paintings, I've never been to an art museum outside of a field trip. I say 'bro', 'dude', and 'peace'. If needed, I could survive 3 weeks on hot pockets. At a gym, I dont use the elliptical. In front of a skeeball machine, I wont look like a dork.
I am not an adult.
When people call me teenager - that's not right. That label puts me in the same group as fans of Glee and Twilight, eye-rollers who worry about rumors of rumors and what everyone else thinks. I'm not that. So what am I? 'young adult'? - That sounds like your complimenting how nice your 11 year old nephew looks at a wedding. "Mature teenager" doesn't give the pop-listening (and by this label, immature) ones enough credit. They have suffered more relationship drama in 2 weeks than an adults past 3 years. 'college student'? No - to many connected memories to drinking and acting like 6 year olds.
I am in a confusing crossroad of cultural identification. I can't be labeled by any symbolic of sweeping term. So what am I to do?
I don't know. Whatever, I guess. It doesn't really matter what you stereotype, group, label, or call me. I am still an individual.
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
More Juggling Practice Advice
I am working my way up to a 5 ball shower, with the arrival of 5 new dube stage balls (bringing my collection up to 9). Here is my personal roadmap for this:
And some quotes to keep in mind:
quote from this great page
The idea is that setting solid benchmarks will help. I have been doing this to a limited extent in my juggling thus far, mostly I just go for it and try to keep going continuously. I do stop myself when the pattern breaks apart (i'm throwing forwards or backwards, or the timing is off), so I have the same idea of only practicing doing it right (learning correctly!), but with explicit throw number goals, it puts definitions on this ideology of juggling.
Pretty soon (next?) I will be making a post covering my juggling equipment. In other words... Pictures!
(3 ball shower each way)
3 ball snake (follow?)
Flash 3, clap
Continuous 3 flash (clap)
some nice tricks to stay happy (mills!)
-
4 ball fountain
552
5551
-
The actual learning 5 cascade: [start from both sides!]
4 ball throws (in crossing 5 pattern, catching)
5 ball throws (flash) let drop
5 throws, catch them
move up one throw at a time.
6 toss, 7, 8, 9, 10, long as can. (don't always try to keep going continuously)
And some quotes to keep in mind:
Learn juggling with 5 in steps. First learn 5 throws. Then learn 6 throws. Go on to 7, 8, 9, 10. Then try to juggle as long as you can. Don't always try to do endurance runs. Set your goal to perhaps 20 throws and make sure that you can do that really good, and perhaps with a neck catch as finish. - Peter Olin
I found catching the balls rather than trying to go for extra throws was really useful because I didn't have to chase them all over the place. The extra throws just came naturally, and I added them only when I was ready rather than going until the pattern fell apart (thanks to advice from Steve Ragatz on practice style). - Steve Joyce
quote from this great page
The idea is that setting solid benchmarks will help. I have been doing this to a limited extent in my juggling thus far, mostly I just go for it and try to keep going continuously. I do stop myself when the pattern breaks apart (i'm throwing forwards or backwards, or the timing is off), so I have the same idea of only practicing doing it right (learning correctly!), but with explicit throw number goals, it puts definitions on this ideology of juggling.
Pretty soon (next?) I will be making a post covering my juggling equipment. In other words... Pictures!
Sunday, October 2, 2011
Unicycle / Juggling act in Depauws Talent Show
Here is my act from the talent show I was in last night.
Some things to learn:
- Get the audience laughing, they won't expect skill. Surprise them.
- If you drop on stage (mess up), just laugh it off.
- When doing a routine to music, make sure it's dead solid. A mistake throws you off, because the music doesn't stop!
- I didn't ride the giraffe because backstage, I didn't have enough headroom. I couldn't fit through the door. Because I still can not free-mount the giraffe, I would (should?) have played it over-the-top difficult. Get some assistants in hard hats to hold a latter, draw out getting on the thing, be funny.
- Funny is good
- Rings are awesome for stage performance. I was juggling rings on stage beforehand, and they are large, visual, high, lots of fun.
- At least have a general idea of what you are going to do. The entire club part of the act was improvised, I wish I at least thought of some tricks to do ahead of time, practiced them.
- Just because something is difficult does not mean the audience will appreciate it. When I did 'factory' I got a huge reaction, but the mill's mess/pistons combinations were confusing. (although I did get comments on that trick after the show). Flashy is good, difficult does not = good. What I am saying is juggle for an audience, not for personal skill or other jugglers. There is a reason why taking a bite out of an apple (maybe the 2 trick I learned) is so popular.
- Be personal with the audience, casual. This may not work for everyone, but I like being really relaxed and loose, doing a trick like i'm showing the audience some cool secret. Drop a few times, they are with me trying to succeed. When I do, all the better.
Saturday, October 1, 2011
On the Future of Comics and Technology Memo
Comics are a visual medium, and they are printed on paper. Here is the strange part: they no longer need to be printed on paper. Monitors are the new paper, computers, the internet, and other electronic mass communication technology is surpassing printed issues as a means of distribution. Comics are trying hard to stay away from the hellhole that newspapers have trapped themselves in, most notably, how to sell papers and compete digitally. Comics have one thing on their side that will keep people coming into stores and buying well arranged ink on paper: They are made for paper. Newspaper columns, for example, are text. Text can be transposed from one medium to another easier than any other. Comics can not traverse well.
Painting and technology is tricky. Because many paintings can't be digital, they stay away from being trapped in the ridiculously widespread (and socioeconomically speaking: interesting, but not what I am going to talk about) Internet mindset of 'open source" (free stuff is good). There is a problem when people make Digital Paintings (woo wacom!). Most artists just post these things online for free, without fear of theft of appropriation of their work. Why? Another interesting issue, but I want to stay clear of Internet societal reasoning's. I will say this: Posting something online ensures it will get stolen, kind of. Most people who steal things do not claim it as their own, this is very rare. What they do do, is steal it and punish it. The problem is not with intellectual property theft, but rather with content distribution rights. I have written a lot about this, and how to fix it elsewhere, and I think I am supposed to be talking about comics. Right then: Comics! When one thinks of comics and the Internet, usually we think of things like XKCD. Strip comics, the digital alternative to the funny papers. What I want to address is not webcomic issues, but the transition of Graphic Novels to THE COMPUTER.
In particular, the use of an infinite canvas. Comics on paper are bound to have borders, and to be read more-or-less like a book. (zag down a page, turn it, etc). When companies like Graphic.ly, Marvel, or other distributors scan their comics (not scan, as they have probably been created digitally anyway) and place them online, (behind a pay-wall, perhaps?), the transition of form is rather ugly. The comics do not read easily, and one is forced to turn digital pages as they read a paper comic that is plastered to a screen. It doesn’t work well. Now, it can work on things like tablets (Ipad) or touch screen displays, which add a level of control over viewing that is closer to that of paper. Tablet’s are still in their infancy, and most touchscreen smart phone’s just are not big enough to read comics easily on. So what does one do? How do comic creators contort their form to fit the new screen? Having the screen zoom in and follow a pre-set path (where the eye did this work before/on paper). Letterbox away and focus on one panel at a time? Tricks like these may make comics more applicable to a digital presentation, but one is ignoring the real problem: we are trying to put paper on screens. Screens have always worked better as a small view window into a larger canvas (think scroll bars and text/web site design), as opposed to a complete paginated/tabbed representation of the content. (we like scrolling over click-next-page-ing. Graphic storytelling (comic) artists have to take advantage of this property of screens. Make a comic like one could on a giant piece of paper, stretching the boundaries of what is possible in this new medium. Comics displayed on a computer are still in their infancy, which means that analysts’, reviewers, critiques, and formstudy-ers should stay the f*ck out of this medium. But we invite experimental artists to enter, and play around with creating forms and techniques, from there other artists can build on them and the medium can develop. Let Cayetano Garza, Patrick Farley, Dresden Codak, Daniel Goodbrey, Scott McCloud, and many others experiment and create in form, and other less creative adventurous can use their work as a base. (Defiantly check out http://e-merl.com [tagline: New experiments in fiction].
I am personally playing around with different experimental things to use with an infinite canvas, And I am curious if I could do something like this for the Final project in this class.
Some Ideas I am playing around with
- Choose your own adventure comic
- Time is x axis, character moods are y
- literally parallel, crossing, circular stories
- Separate stories share same environment
- Pacing and timing can be made with physical space
- Panel layout can have more meaning: a stories L-R path changes suddenly, (start reading down or up) as plot changes
- Stories themselves can be more interesting, veritably looping, etc.
The point of this memo is not to explore the new way graphic stories could be told with a digital medium, but rather point out that this is a very necessary change, and that it’s past time for experimental artists to break some boundaries and preconceived notions of the comic environment. Thusly: It’s past time for experimental artists to break some boundaries and preconceived notions of the comic environment.
Friday, September 23, 2011
Wikipedia
I donated to Wikpedia. Read my post on communication here. Lets go people! Wikipedia is too awesome for us not to contribute in some way.
Monday, September 19, 2011
Monday, September 12, 2011
SigFig practice
Check out this little sigfig test that a friend of mine put together: http://alecgorge.github.com/sigfig-practice/
the reason it looks so damn pretty is because he used Bootstap. It is very pretty, and simple, and all javascript. Neato!
the reason it looks so damn pretty is because he used Bootstap. It is very pretty, and simple, and all javascript. Neato!
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
College Story Round Up #1
Story Round up taken from a letter I wrote. Names have been changed.
The last few weeks have been pretty hectic. As you probably know, orientation is a pain in the ass. We want to get past the ‘freshman-who-does-not-know-what-he-is-doing’ stage as quickly as possible, but the 4 day long orientation forcefully dragged it out. Having come here early, I already had a group of similar-interest/like-minded/interesting/funny/cool/fun to hang out with friends, but I could not hang out with them, I had to go to meetings with my mentor group. At one point, I was holding hands with some sweaty people, with my arms wrapped around 3 others, and somebody stuck between my legs. They called it ‘the human knot’ and the goal was to free ourselves into a circle. It took my group and hour and a half. While invading an impressive number of peoples personal spaces simultaneously, I was able to watch a few good friends (some from high school) have an awesome time jumping rope with the president of the school, playing a giant game of ninja, and haveing a watermelon eating contest. Out group was veritably the lame one.
A girl (the same one who’s cousins house I am writing this in) has a sister. Her sister turned 15 on Saturday. She came to visit her sister and... let’s call them Jill for the girl and Meagan for the sister? OK, where was I: Meagan turns 15 on Saturday and is visiting/sleeping over with Jill. After they ate dinner, myself and Hank met up with Jill and Meagan, and with some other irrelevant people, made a night of it. It started with an 80’s themed dance, where only 3 songs that were in any conceivable way connected to the 80’s were played (I did a pretty sweet MJ dance, moonwalk ftw). At one point, while running away from Hank (he was made I was introducing him as ‘hank’), out of the tent the dance was set up in, around the open campus lawn section-y area. We laugh it off and run back and I realize my Leatherman (big muilti-tool with knifes and such) is missing. Clark/Hank helps me try and find it, and I do, 30 minutes later. It had opened up and some particularly nasty blades were open, and on the ground. Did i mention the Leatherman is black? It could have ended badly. After we get tired of listening to LMFAO, we all head back to one of the dorms, to chill in the lobby area. We weaved a 15 year old (who has already witnesses some questionable content a la dance) around 2 seperate drunkenly passed out people who were more in than on the sidewalk, As it turns out, a drunk passed out guy marks an excellent location for people to gather and chat, and we had to stop and talk over the hopefully-not-choking-on-vomit guy for a bit. Did I mention 15 year old? We get back to the dorm, and talk/play pool for a few hours. Twice police officers and ambulance(s) are called to cart away somebody (right past us) with alcohol poisoning. Some facts worth noting: 15 year old. Depauw is #15 top party school in country. (down from #10). It was the greatest birthday ever!
My parents have not heard much of me. . . Mostly to the fact that I have made virtually no attempts at communicating with them. Some advice: Email. You can stay in touch without having to have personal or timely responses.
I was able to have a 6 day Wal-Mart visit streak. I am probably the only student in the history of Depauw to show up to an English class without paper. Or Pens. I barely had clothes.
Laundry! More advice: Don’t wait as long as possible, because doing one load is easier than doing two. Now you, like me, grew up in a household with parents. This means we do not know how to do laundry.
Ok, here we go. I walked into the laundry room with an overstuffed bag of clothes and dreams of cleanliness. I walked out with an impressively diminished sense of self-esteem. I confused the Washer with the Dryer and started loading up clothes in the dryer. My friend decided to stop me as I was about to toss in the detergent. These are what good friends I have. So Laundry done, I suppose my clothes are clean enough, but I am as of yet unable to master the ability to keep them wrinkle-free. I will be that freshman.
I have not yet locked myself out on accident, but a suitemate did. I come home and he is sleeping in the suite area, which was reaaaallly funny, and I woke him up laughing.
The last few weeks have been pretty hectic. As you probably know, orientation is a pain in the ass. We want to get past the ‘freshman-who-does-not-know-what-he-is-doing’ stage as quickly as possible, but the 4 day long orientation forcefully dragged it out. Having come here early, I already had a group of similar-interest/like-minded/interesting/funny/cool/fun to hang out with friends, but I could not hang out with them, I had to go to meetings with my mentor group. At one point, I was holding hands with some sweaty people, with my arms wrapped around 3 others, and somebody stuck between my legs. They called it ‘the human knot’ and the goal was to free ourselves into a circle. It took my group and hour and a half. While invading an impressive number of peoples personal spaces simultaneously, I was able to watch a few good friends (some from high school) have an awesome time jumping rope with the president of the school, playing a giant game of ninja, and haveing a watermelon eating contest. Out group was veritably the lame one.
A girl (the same one who’s cousins house I am writing this in) has a sister. Her sister turned 15 on Saturday. She came to visit her sister and... let’s call them Jill for the girl and Meagan for the sister? OK, where was I: Meagan turns 15 on Saturday and is visiting/sleeping over with Jill. After they ate dinner, myself and Hank met up with Jill and Meagan, and with some other irrelevant people, made a night of it. It started with an 80’s themed dance, where only 3 songs that were in any conceivable way connected to the 80’s were played (I did a pretty sweet MJ dance, moonwalk ftw). At one point, while running away from Hank (he was made I was introducing him as ‘hank’), out of the tent the dance was set up in, around the open campus lawn section-y area. We laugh it off and run back and I realize my Leatherman (big muilti-tool with knifes and such) is missing. Clark/Hank helps me try and find it, and I do, 30 minutes later. It had opened up and some particularly nasty blades were open, and on the ground. Did i mention the Leatherman is black? It could have ended badly. After we get tired of listening to LMFAO, we all head back to one of the dorms, to chill in the lobby area. We weaved a 15 year old (who has already witnesses some questionable content a la dance) around 2 seperate drunkenly passed out people who were more in than on the sidewalk, As it turns out, a drunk passed out guy marks an excellent location for people to gather and chat, and we had to stop and talk over the hopefully-not-choking-on-vomit guy for a bit. Did I mention 15 year old? We get back to the dorm, and talk/play pool for a few hours. Twice police officers and ambulance(s) are called to cart away somebody (right past us) with alcohol poisoning. Some facts worth noting: 15 year old. Depauw is #15 top party school in country. (down from #10). It was the greatest birthday ever!
My parents have not heard much of me. . . Mostly to the fact that I have made virtually no attempts at communicating with them. Some advice: Email. You can stay in touch without having to have personal or timely responses.
I was able to have a 6 day Wal-Mart visit streak. I am probably the only student in the history of Depauw to show up to an English class without paper. Or Pens. I barely had clothes.
Laundry! More advice: Don’t wait as long as possible, because doing one load is easier than doing two. Now you, like me, grew up in a household with parents. This means we do not know how to do laundry.
Ok, here we go. I walked into the laundry room with an overstuffed bag of clothes and dreams of cleanliness. I walked out with an impressively diminished sense of self-esteem. I confused the Washer with the Dryer and started loading up clothes in the dryer. My friend decided to stop me as I was about to toss in the detergent. These are what good friends I have. So Laundry done, I suppose my clothes are clean enough, but I am as of yet unable to master the ability to keep them wrinkle-free. I will be that freshman.
I have not yet locked myself out on accident, but a suitemate did. I come home and he is sleeping in the suite area, which was reaaaallly funny, and I woke him up laughing.
Monday, August 29, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Four is cosmic
Five is four and four is cosmic. Ever heard this? It's a riddle, where you have to figure out why four is cosmic, and how any integer (right?) can be traced back to four. Some hints:
9 is 4 and 4 is cosmic
10 is 3 and 3 is 5 and 5 is 4 and 4 is cosmic.
9 is 4 and 4 is cosmic
10 is 3 and 3 is 5 and 5 is 4 and 4 is cosmic.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
College degrees and an educated future.
How needed is a college degree? With knowledge taking a move to be open and accessable in today's society of techophiles and wizkids, the level of education one can achieve without college is ever rising.
What I predict: Not the vanishing of college's or an anti college movement, but rather, the bar of "jobs above this need a college degree" is going to rise. People won't need a degree. Having a degree will no longer be a status of education, a trophy to say "I am smart" with. You will go to college to learn your subject, and not to achieve this signed piece of paper that allows you to work. A coworker may have a degree and you may not. This is my prediction as information and the ability to learn it - really learn it - increases.
On the similar subject of available knowledge, people (yes, those people) are saying that all this newfangled wikipedia and open information is making us tech generation's less intelligent. I disagree, its only shifting the focus. No longer will the smartest students be the ones who can memorize the best, but the smartest student will be the critical thinker, one who can analyze information for its integrity, understand concepts over techniques and who can engineer his way around a concept, with deep multi-angle analyzation. An adaptable student.
"Booksmarts" will no longer prevail. Its replacement: crticial thinkers.
Technology is not bad, stop saying that. We have to use it right and take advantage of the good (information) while learning how to defeat the bad (distraction).
What I predict: Not the vanishing of college's or an anti college movement, but rather, the bar of "jobs above this need a college degree" is going to rise. People won't need a degree. Having a degree will no longer be a status of education, a trophy to say "I am smart" with. You will go to college to learn your subject, and not to achieve this signed piece of paper that allows you to work. A coworker may have a degree and you may not. This is my prediction as information and the ability to learn it - really learn it - increases.
On the similar subject of available knowledge, people (yes, those people) are saying that all this newfangled wikipedia and open information is making us tech generation's less intelligent. I disagree, its only shifting the focus. No longer will the smartest students be the ones who can memorize the best, but the smartest student will be the critical thinker, one who can analyze information for its integrity, understand concepts over techniques and who can engineer his way around a concept, with deep multi-angle analyzation. An adaptable student.
"Booksmarts" will no longer prevail. Its replacement: crticial thinkers.
Technology is not bad, stop saying that. We have to use it right and take advantage of the good (information) while learning how to defeat the bad (distraction).
Monday, August 15, 2011
Off to College
I am off to college tomorrow, entering the graduating class of 2015. And how do I feel? In a word: Unprepared.
Not just emotionally, not-ready-to-say-goodbye, unprepared. I mean: I still need to pack!
Not just emotionally, not-ready-to-say-goodbye, unprepared. I mean: I still need to pack!
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Look forward to commercials
OK, so the most expensive TV advertising slot is the superbowl. This is because it has the most views. It, by popular opinion, also had the best commercials. It also has the funniest commercials which people are looking forward to. "I watch Superbowl for commercials" while sad, is a popular quote. Therefore the best commercials are the funniest ones. Therefore regular commercials should be funny, and I should kook forward to them.
TV industry, get on that.
Sunday, August 7, 2011
This Years GenCon Loot
- Cthulhu Poster
- 1955: The war of esppionage
- The Red Dragon inn 3
- Castle Panic
- Quarriors
- Onirim
- Guillotine
- Treasures & Traps (and expansion: Expanded Realms)
- Dominion: Intrigue
- Node
- Faceeater
- The Resistance
- Innovation (actually bought last year, but learned how to play this year)
- Scavengers
- 2 nice metal d6's
- Sixes
- Repurchase of We Didn't Playtest this at all (and it's expansion) (old copy got rained on)
- Whack a Catgirl
- CD: Hard times by Water Street Brigade
Thursday, August 4, 2011
Spending at GenCon
Or how I am managing my spending inside what is essentially a giant store filled with stuff I want.
Its pretty simple, I bring no money with me for the first two days. I go around and visit every game developer/publisher/distributor I can find and demo their games. I try and sit down with the designer of the game, as they are usually more enthusiastic. I am also picking their brains about how they got into the industry, designing games and whatnot. I play the games and if I want to buy it, I write down the game name and its price in my notebook. On saturday I am going to prioritize all of these games and buy them in order. I will leave money for Sunday for the games I only kind of want, and if they are on sale then, then sweet. But this way I ensure getting the games I want to play and not the games I don't.
I hope this works. There are so many games I want to buy.
Its pretty simple, I bring no money with me for the first two days. I go around and visit every game developer/publisher/distributor I can find and demo their games. I try and sit down with the designer of the game, as they are usually more enthusiastic. I am also picking their brains about how they got into the industry, designing games and whatnot. I play the games and if I want to buy it, I write down the game name and its price in my notebook. On saturday I am going to prioritize all of these games and buy them in order. I will leave money for Sunday for the games I only kind of want, and if they are on sale then, then sweet. But this way I ensure getting the games I want to play and not the games I don't.
I hope this works. There are so many games I want to buy.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Practice Advice (for juggling)
Just some various pieces of advice.
Practice juggling in two ways. In sessions and in bursts. Sessions are blocks of time where you go "I will juggle for an hour". Think of sessions like practice of anything else. bursts are just grabbing balls (or clubs or rings, etc), and juggling for a bit during a commercial break or waiting for bread to toast or just walking around your house.
One three hour block of practice a week is good, but 30 minutes every day is better. Both is best. Practice more often, [probably] in smaller bursts.
Bursts are good for routine practice, by routine practice, I mean something you will stand in front of somebody else and do. You won't be dropping much. You got the tricks 'down' but are getting them perfect. Also work on transitions, and just playing around with new things you have never done before. Try and invent a trick. I usually dont come up with tricks during sessions, only when I am just messing around.
Sessions are more rigged. Start with a warm up. Stretch if you need too. Treat it like a burst, mess around a bit, get used to the equipment in your hands. Have some fun. Then, look at your Juggle Book (I will get there), and pick a trick from it. Spend a Min of 5 minutes on the trick, after 5-10 minutes, if you are not feeling it, move on (try something else), but if you think you may be getting somewhere, keep going. If you have moved on from one trick for a long while, either keep trudging through it (knowing that your brain is slowly training your muscle memory and after a night of sleep you may just get it the next day), or move on to a similar trick, maybe breaking it back down into pieces or a certain type of throw from the trick. The goal is to work on things you are learning, not things you have mastered or things you simply cannot do. This is the main segment of my practice session.
After I move on from that, I find something I have never done before, and try it. I might watch a video of something, and just start trying it, making sure I understand how to do the trick mentally. From there its just training my hands. I write the name of the trick down in my JuggleBook.y
The JuggleBook is a list of tricks you want to learn. Mine is in 2 places, one: a simplenote and I keep it filled only with the things I want to learn how to do (understand, etc), and two a notebook filled with all tricks I can do/have come up with.
This all applies to how I learn how to juggle, and planning a routine is different, it involves getting tricks one has nailed and putting them together, practicing them together, remembering the order of the tricks, doing it to music, things like that.
Various bits:
Practice juggling in two ways. In sessions and in bursts. Sessions are blocks of time where you go "I will juggle for an hour". Think of sessions like practice of anything else. bursts are just grabbing balls (or clubs or rings, etc), and juggling for a bit during a commercial break or waiting for bread to toast or just walking around your house.
One three hour block of practice a week is good, but 30 minutes every day is better. Both is best. Practice more often, [probably] in smaller bursts.
Bursts are good for routine practice, by routine practice, I mean something you will stand in front of somebody else and do. You won't be dropping much. You got the tricks 'down' but are getting them perfect. Also work on transitions, and just playing around with new things you have never done before. Try and invent a trick. I usually dont come up with tricks during sessions, only when I am just messing around.
Sessions are more rigged. Start with a warm up. Stretch if you need too. Treat it like a burst, mess around a bit, get used to the equipment in your hands. Have some fun. Then, look at your Juggle Book (I will get there), and pick a trick from it. Spend a Min of 5 minutes on the trick, after 5-10 minutes, if you are not feeling it, move on (try something else), but if you think you may be getting somewhere, keep going. If you have moved on from one trick for a long while, either keep trudging through it (knowing that your brain is slowly training your muscle memory and after a night of sleep you may just get it the next day), or move on to a similar trick, maybe breaking it back down into pieces or a certain type of throw from the trick. The goal is to work on things you are learning, not things you have mastered or things you simply cannot do. This is the main segment of my practice session.
After I move on from that, I find something I have never done before, and try it. I might watch a video of something, and just start trying it, making sure I understand how to do the trick mentally. From there its just training my hands. I write the name of the trick down in my JuggleBook.y
The JuggleBook is a list of tricks you want to learn. Mine is in 2 places, one: a simplenote and I keep it filled only with the things I want to learn how to do (understand, etc), and two a notebook filled with all tricks I can do/have come up with.
This all applies to how I learn how to juggle, and planning a routine is different, it involves getting tricks one has nailed and putting them together, practicing them together, remembering the order of the tricks, doing it to music, things like that.
Various bits:
- I listen to music when I juggle, I dont think it hurts. I often use songs as motivation: "I will juggle mills mess until this song is over". I have recently started listening to classical music. Don't hate.
- I use the same trick I use on essays to get motivated to practice. I tell myself I can do 10 minutes. Then I do 10 minutes. After, If I feel like I am not getting anywhere, or still dont want to, I quit - just not happening. But usually after 5 minutes I am in the zone and forgot about my self-promise, I am juggling now.
- Let people watch you juggle. (Practice like you perform!). Don't make excuses when you drop other than 'practicing'
- Try and move around with your bursts. Go ahead and have a certain area to practice for learning, but when just messing around, go all over your house, different lighting conditions, things like that
- Remember to watch your stance. Seriously, learn how to throw proper!
- Don't be afraid of the impossible.
- Understand it wont happen in a day. If you are failing, sleep on something, and come back. Your brain has been busy while you were asleep, and you have gotten better at the trick.
- Practicing is the art of doing what you cannot. You will drop. If you stop dropping, you are not practicing, you are refining. That has its place too (routines) but keep an eye on yourself. I like to always have at least one trick I just can't do lodged away in brain. At the time of typing its multiplex club throws.
- The internet is a great resource for jugglers, many more have talked about practice, and their advice is great, and this is not everything you need to know, just some stuff I would like to reiterate.
- there is no one correct way to do it. There are better and worse ways, but its all better than channel flipping pointlessly.
Saturday, July 23, 2011
I am a Google Reader Monster
That's Right! I am a winner! I would like to note that I first opened Google Reader in 2007, but did not start using it until early 2010 or late 2009.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Web Lockers VS. Streaming VS. Sync
There are some pretty new-age ways to get our music now a days. You might hear terms like 'cloud' and 'streaming' thrown around, but what does this all really mean, anyway?
First off, I need to define 'the cloud'. There are tons of clouds, all 'the cloud' refers too is non-local storage. Instead of reading off of your disk, the data is read through an internet connection off of some server bank somewhere. Ubuntu one, Amazon CloudDrive, Google Docs, iCloud, and many more services exist that take advantage of the non-local philosophy. Music services is one of them.
Here is a breakdown of the different service types.
Sync - This is what we are all used to. Essentially, its file management. This is having one computer/drive which acts as the hub. This hub is where new music is added, say - ripped from a CD. You synchronize this hub with your external devices, such as your phone or MP3 player (IPod). This can be a hassle when DRM, or filetypes get in your way of having your music in all the places you want it. Itunes locks your music in DRM, and you can only play it on authorized Apple devices. This has caused a lot of pain all around, and I feel DRM should be gotten rid of, but this is a post for another time. Sync is no internet, just moving files around to all of your devices.
Lockers - This is the most similar to Syncing you music, because all of the music you listen still is all of the music in your library, the stuff you own. The locker is a place on the web where you upload your library of songs, and then you can, later, listen to it anywhere that it streams to (other computers, smartphones, etc). The Locker is another device you sync to, in a way, but it replaces everything else. My android phone can only store so much on it, but with an online locker I can bring my entire collection with me anywhere there is an internet connection. The two most popular services are Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music (beta). I am using both, and I plan to write up a comparison in the future. These services are free for a certain amount of space, and you pay for more. They act as good backups too.
Streaming - This is Spotify, and (kinda) Grooveshark. Essentially, you pay these services to give you access to their locker. Their online library of music which, through deals with record companies, they are allowed to serve to you. It is like an online locker, except you don't own the music. There are going to be a lot more songs available (a whole lot), but there will always be gaps. artists you enjoy that just wont let you stream them. Like the Beatles. The payments also will be recurring, which means you lose your music if you stop paying. Unlike lockers, you can't download the music wherever you want for offline listening.
Internet Radio - This is Pandora, and last.fm (although last.fm is more than just radio) Really this is more about music discovery, artists let services like pandora play their music in the hopes that it will let users discover them, and buy them down the road. If pandora is the only service you use, you are probably like a lot of artists, but have heard very little of their full albums. I personally don't like pandora, this is because I listen to music by the album, not the song. Also worth mentioning is that SiriusXM offers an streaming service, bringing XM radio to any computer and smartphone. I use SiriusXM for internet radio-ing, but for most it is probably too expensive.
What I use:
I still find a need to purchase all of my music, DRM free, and own/backup all of my copies. I have all of my music in one place on my RAID 1 drives, on my backup internal drive, on a music external backup drive. This is the file management part of my music, which I RIP Losslessly from CD's or buy from Amazon MP3. I have my entire library uploaded in both google music and amazon mp3, although i use Google Music (beta) because it supports my lossless file type (WMA, not FLAC, but i really should use FLAC) (ok, it converts them, but still). Amazon cloudplayer I like better because it works right with amazon mp3 store, music immediately saved in the cloud. If I buy music on the road on my phone, I can listen to it instantly. I also currently trying out spotify, but I doubt I will keep paying for it, It's useful for listening to music before I buy an album. SiriusXM is usually playing over my house speakers, or while I am doing some work/practicing juggling. The fact that is it a true radio (read: lack of choice over music) keeps me from getting distracted while I work (need to change the song!).
But that is just me.
First off, I need to define 'the cloud'. There are tons of clouds, all 'the cloud' refers too is non-local storage. Instead of reading off of your disk, the data is read through an internet connection off of some server bank somewhere. Ubuntu one, Amazon CloudDrive, Google Docs, iCloud, and many more services exist that take advantage of the non-local philosophy. Music services is one of them.
Here is a breakdown of the different service types.
Sync - This is what we are all used to. Essentially, its file management. This is having one computer/drive which acts as the hub. This hub is where new music is added, say - ripped from a CD. You synchronize this hub with your external devices, such as your phone or MP3 player (IPod). This can be a hassle when DRM, or filetypes get in your way of having your music in all the places you want it. Itunes locks your music in DRM, and you can only play it on authorized Apple devices. This has caused a lot of pain all around, and I feel DRM should be gotten rid of, but this is a post for another time. Sync is no internet, just moving files around to all of your devices.
Lockers - This is the most similar to Syncing you music, because all of the music you listen still is all of the music in your library, the stuff you own. The locker is a place on the web where you upload your library of songs, and then you can, later, listen to it anywhere that it streams to (other computers, smartphones, etc). The Locker is another device you sync to, in a way, but it replaces everything else. My android phone can only store so much on it, but with an online locker I can bring my entire collection with me anywhere there is an internet connection. The two most popular services are Amazon Cloud Player and Google Music (beta). I am using both, and I plan to write up a comparison in the future. These services are free for a certain amount of space, and you pay for more. They act as good backups too.
Streaming - This is Spotify, and (kinda) Grooveshark. Essentially, you pay these services to give you access to their locker. Their online library of music which, through deals with record companies, they are allowed to serve to you. It is like an online locker, except you don't own the music. There are going to be a lot more songs available (a whole lot), but there will always be gaps. artists you enjoy that just wont let you stream them. Like the Beatles. The payments also will be recurring, which means you lose your music if you stop paying. Unlike lockers, you can't download the music wherever you want for offline listening.
Internet Radio - This is Pandora, and last.fm (although last.fm is more than just radio) Really this is more about music discovery, artists let services like pandora play their music in the hopes that it will let users discover them, and buy them down the road. If pandora is the only service you use, you are probably like a lot of artists, but have heard very little of their full albums. I personally don't like pandora, this is because I listen to music by the album, not the song. Also worth mentioning is that SiriusXM offers an streaming service, bringing XM radio to any computer and smartphone. I use SiriusXM for internet radio-ing, but for most it is probably too expensive.
What I use:
I still find a need to purchase all of my music, DRM free, and own/backup all of my copies. I have all of my music in one place on my RAID 1 drives, on my backup internal drive, on a music external backup drive. This is the file management part of my music, which I RIP Losslessly from CD's or buy from Amazon MP3. I have my entire library uploaded in both google music and amazon mp3, although i use Google Music (beta) because it supports my lossless file type (WMA, not FLAC, but i really should use FLAC) (ok, it converts them, but still). Amazon cloudplayer I like better because it works right with amazon mp3 store, music immediately saved in the cloud. If I buy music on the road on my phone, I can listen to it instantly. I also currently trying out spotify, but I doubt I will keep paying for it, It's useful for listening to music before I buy an album. SiriusXM is usually playing over my house speakers, or while I am doing some work/practicing juggling. The fact that is it a true radio (read: lack of choice over music) keeps me from getting distracted while I work (need to change the song!).
But that is just me.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Switching Away from GoDaddy
Finally! I have been stuffing up with GoDaddy's poor customer service, and especially awful control panel for far too long. My logic has always been on the lines of 'but it's cheap!' and not much else. I was pointed out to, by a friend, that 1&1 will not only be cheaper, but also not GoDaddy. That was enough for me. If a few of my websites go down, it is only temporary, and part of the hiccups of transferring everything over. I probably just forgot to transfer a MySQL table or 5.
It feels good to be free!
It feels good to be free!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Sandwich making guide
My step by step sandwich making guide for people who can't make sandwiches and don't care about flavor and are very hungry and just want to be not hungry (possibly because they forgot to eat), and possibly are wandering into the kitchen in the middle of the night looking for some food. In other words: people like me
1. Find bread. The less shit all peppered in the bread, the better. Rye bread bad, wonder bread good.
2. Put in toaster. Set the toaster to a middle-ish setting. Just don't burn it.
3. Take everything in meat/cheese lockers of the fridge out, and place them on the counter.
4. Take out white colored spreadable such as Mayo, Ranch, marshmillow fluff, etc). When I say 'spreadable' I mean food that comes in a bottle or jar.
5. Find other color spreadable (ketchup, mustard, dressing, peanut butter, hot sauce. Actually, just go for the hot sauce)
6. Browse pantry for something to eat on the side, like chips or pop tarts. You are not going to find anything, but it doesn't matter, you are just wasting your time until the toaster finishes toasting.
7. Pick three meats and three cheese's. It doesn't matter what ones. don't be afraid of shredded cheese, or things you can't pronounce. It doesnt matter. find up to three of each. If you don't have three of something, it doesnt matter. Just use more of whatever looks more processed.
8. Spread the spreadables, one on each piece of bread. If you have a question on this step, the answer is "whatever, it doesn't matter".
9. Layer the meat and cheese, alternating meat and cheese. If you have sliced meat, fold it over.
10. Put other piece of bread on top. Spread side down.
11. Do not cut in half. Just Fucking eat it. Whatever.
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Spotify
I am currently tryout Google Music, Which I will for another week or so before writing a comparison of it and Amazon Cloud Player, which I have been using for some time. I am also trying Spotify. Look up what it is at that link, here are my opinions of what needs to change:
- No webapp, so Grooveshark beats it there. I use a chromebook, so I need a webapp!
- No mobile without paying $10 a month, a bit pricey IMHO
- One can argue its cheaper than buying music, but that is only true if all of your music is inside of spotify, and you don't own the music, you just rent the ability to listen to it. I will keep purchasing music I like with Amazon MP3, or (oh shit) buying CD's.
- The interface seriously looks like it is trying to be Itunes. Sure, people are used to the itunes UI, but c'mon, a little discression?
- Please stop trying to shove facebook connect down my throught. Attention everyone: I should not have to have a facebook account to get the full features out of your software.
- The largest gripe is that not everything is available on it. This will always be the problem with any service similar to this one.
- For a service that is streaming music, I would like some place where I can view the internet connection it is using, as well as the quality of music being streamed
- I wish the player was more customization. I may be skewed coming from foobar2000, But this doesn't have a mini mode, and the menu's are sparse.
What is nice:
- http://open.spotify.com/track/7fhgNyacoy4Vr4xGgW3ZQG Quick links to share music
- quality seems pretty top notch for streaming, but i doubt it can match my lossless files.
- I am listening to music I do not otherwise own
- It does a great job doing what it is supposed to do - find and stream music
What I cannot comment on:
- The free (commercials included) plan
- The android app
Conclusion:
It does a great job doing what it is trying to do, but I have too many devices to restrict myself to the one computer I own that can use it. My chromebook and Android phone can not play music through it, and they can through Google Music or Amazon Cloud Player (which I am testing out currently). It is not right for me, I feel like I would like to own my music, but if I ever strike it rich, I would easily consider paying for the premium service, and getting the android app. It is pretty great. Not what I need right now, but pretty damn easy to use.
The Books
If you have not checked out the artist The Books, I highly recommend you find them and give them a listen! They are fantastic. (link to amazon page). The Lemon Of Pink is their best album, in my opinion, but the best way to listen to them is chronologically.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Hot Sauce
I just had some of Dave's Gourmet Ultimate Insanity Sauce. Before actually putting it on my firehouse steak and cheese, I tried to smell some. I couldn't really smell anything, as my nose is disfunctional. I ended up getting a small hitler-mustache of the stuff on my upper lip without realizing it. I could not smell it, but I felt it burning my skin a few minutes later. The actual taste was pretty good, I had one largish drop (cm wide) on the sandwich, and it was, for lack of a better word, spicty. Very spicy. Burning the insides of my mouth spicy. But before that kicked in, It actually tasted pretty good I give the sauce a painfully delicious thumbs up, and I will be trying it again.
Also, I have to remember not to rub my eyes.
Also, I have to remember not to rub my eyes.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Simplenote is awesome
Go check out simplenoteapp.com and check it out. I carry notebooks with me at all times, but they are specialized: One notebook for sketch comedy ideas, another notebook for general all-capture. The general all-capture one is good for remembering songs i want to listen too, writing down phone numbers, ideas i have had. But it is not good for planning things. I can't write out an idea for a webapp on paper, because it is a computer-related idea. Simplenote stores my todo list, my projects list, and detailed information about specific projects. (as well as TV to watch, and date ideas, it is primary a reference point for projects (which could be webapp, a book, an article, redesign of the hdyar.com website, etc) My notebook is fore ideas and notes, and capture when I am away from keyboard or away from phone.
In other words, I have fallen in love with simplenote and i urge you to check it out. Creating a list of all of my projects is the greatest idea I have had all summer.
http://www.simplenoteapp.com
In other words, I have fallen in love with simplenote and i urge you to check it out. Creating a list of all of my projects is the greatest idea I have had all summer.
http://www.simplenoteapp.com
Monday, July 4, 2011
Dibs!
I called dibs on the legs of chicken from KFC. IT was brought up, 'what does that word mean, anyway?'. I did some serious internet searching (wikipedia, mostly), and found out there is no one source of the word. Humanity has a disagreement. Read more here:
Sunday, July 3, 2011
5 things you could be doing instead of reading this
5 things you could be doing instead of reading this
- Rolling a hula hoop then jumping through it
- Learning how to juggle
- Eating a really good Grilled Cheese, with bacon and tomato.
- Doing some pushup's or jumping jacks or something
- Hanging out with people of the opposite sex (Or of the same sex. you know, whatever)
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Things I will name that book I will eventually write
Kinda working on two books right now. One the humor one, the other a secret project. That got me thinking
Possible Book Titles:
Possible Book Titles:
- "The next great american novel" Yeah mom. I wrote that.
- "Guilty" Judged by its cover
- "If I see you reading this book I will give you a high five"
- "Hunter Dyar" by "book title". Wait I messed that up.
- "Magniloquent The Book." It stops at the title
- "Who The F*** Wrote This?" By Hunter Dyar. Oh hey, there's the author name right below the title.
- "Look out behind you! No, Seriously!"
- "This book can not be used as a flotation device"
- "Please Don't Steal This" Also my album name
- "Go Read This In Public"
- "Give whoever is reading this a high five"
- "This Book will make you a better person. No seriously, I swear"
- "READ THIS OR DONT" Taking a stand here.
Friday, July 1, 2011
Practice is easy
Really easy. And it's crazy how much time people spend practicing wrong. Not all practice is made the same. For acquiring skills, the goal is to do what you can't. Because drop the juggling ball enough, and eventually you wont. But if I keep juggling the same pattern, will I get that down? I'll get it down solid! and I will be a master of that pattern, but it will take me much longer, I will be wasting my time!
Practice is doing what you can't do.
Practice is doing what you can't do.
Anti-aliasing
What does it mean?
Well, first off I am referring to anti-aliasing as it pertains to image rendering on computers, particularly with fonts and video games. If you want more information on aliasing in general, this link should suffice.
So what is Anti-Aliasing anyway? Its easier to explain with images than in text. Aliasing happens when converting from analog to digital signals. "What?" you say. Don't worry, I am going somewhere. An analog source is of perfect quality. The file does not have a format, it is merely the same as the source. It is analogous to the source. For example, when recording audio, the variances in electrical signal would be the same as variances in air pressure from the sound itself. Digital files can not do this. There is currently no such thing as a vector (math) audio file. (There should be!). It is easier to think of digital files with video. It is not continuous, but rather sequential frames. The same for audio, an audio file is not collections of waves, but rather point samples of the wave. Just as videos are cut up into frames, audio is cut up into frames. Well, not 'frames'. I believe we (techies) call them samples. The more of these samples one takes per second, the higher quality audio file (well, one aspect of audio files). Aliasing is what happens when not enough of these samples are being taken, and the analog wave can not be constructed. It is a type of distortion in audio files.
Look into more: Nyquist rate, Digital Audio Files, Vector Graphics (all Wikipedia links)
When we switch from talking about audio to talking about actual pixels, or images, the problem we see is pixelation. It doesn't necessarily occur from not enough sampling, but rather from the fact that pixels are big and are square. Big? Yeah big. Scientists, computer geeks, and image professionals are making them as small as possible, because of one reason: You cant draw a circle with a square. Or rather, with a bunch of squares. Go draw a circle (or any curved line) in MSPaint. Now zoom in a lot. You see pixels!
Here is my research, it's worth reading into more, in my opinion.
Well, first off I am referring to anti-aliasing as it pertains to image rendering on computers, particularly with fonts and video games. If you want more information on aliasing in general, this link should suffice.
Look into more: Nyquist rate, Digital Audio Files, Vector Graphics (all Wikipedia links)
When we switch from talking about audio to talking about actual pixels, or images, the problem we see is pixelation. It doesn't necessarily occur from not enough sampling, but rather from the fact that pixels are big and are square. Big? Yeah big. Scientists, computer geeks, and image professionals are making them as small as possible, because of one reason: You cant draw a circle with a square. Or rather, with a bunch of squares. Go draw a circle (or any curved line) in MSPaint. Now zoom in a lot. You see pixels!
This is aliasing distortion in images. But as you can see above, there is a solution. The solution is called (you guessed it) anti-aliasing. It works by tricking our eyes. The human eye does not see as precisely as you think. What our mind does a lot of filtering, editing, and converting of what are two eyes send us to what it thinks it is seeing. Most optical illusions work by messing with out sense of perception of distance. (Creating a false perspective that changes the sizes of things in our mind: Closer thing is bigger thing. But I am not here to talk about optical illusions). Anti-aliasing blurs the curve (jagged edge) by coloring in the image a bit. That bit is generally who much of the curve would cut through the pixel. (if the line would go through 40% of the pixel, it will become 40% darker (40% more the color of the curve)). Generally. Different Anti-aliasing algorithms work in different ways, but that is the technique used. Shade nearby pixels (creating a blur) that our mind puts together as a sharp, clean, curve. Some Anti-Aliasing algorithms, such as Microsoft's ClearType (which is making this text look better right now! Probably!) actually adds color into the b/w mix. The reason that works is more complicated. A tad too complicated for me to get into or bother researching to a level of understanding high enough that I could present it succinctly.
Anti-aliasing is the process of making pixelated and jagged images look smooth and crisp.
Generally, digital designers like anti-aliasing because it makes images look better, and un-jagged, while print designers don't because nobody wants to print a blurry image.
If you stumbled onto this article because you are curious about your video game settings, just remember that the lower the resolution, the higher the need for anti-aliasing. And pixelation/aliasing is not the game developers fault, it's the way computers work.
Here is my research, it's worth reading into more, in my opinion.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Funny Chat Log Of the Day
Alec Gorge: need moar epic music
Hunter Dyar: i got you covered
*** Call to Alec Gorge ***
Alec Gorge: OH GOD MY EARS
*** Call ended, duration 00:37 ***
Alec Gorge: that was suboptimal
It was bad because the mic was all static, but the log turned out pretty funny.
Hunter Dyar: i got you covered
*** Call to Alec Gorge ***
Alec Gorge: OH GOD MY EARS
*** Call ended, duration 00:37 ***
Alec Gorge: that was suboptimal
It was bad because the mic was all static, but the log turned out pretty funny.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Clubs are getting fun
I am not juggling enough. Only getting in 15 min or so a day, and I am pretty disappointed in that. I am telling myself I will ramp it up, get back to how I was doing with ball juggling, with at least an hour a day. Also, All of my juggling balls are busted, and it forces Clubs to be my only option. Which is good – forces me to use clubs, but bad in that I am not practicing balls.
Anyway, I am just starting to hit the point where it’s getting worth it. That point when you do something, and you start getting good. It starts becoming habitual. You start to not think about it. The best way to describe it is that you enter “The Zone”. The zone is different for people, just ask athletes, but for me –juggling- it’s when I enter complete concentration. I am not thinking about anything else. I am not thinking about juggling, or about the text message I just received and haven't checked. I am not thinking. I am just doing. It’s the zone, and it’s a wonderful place to realize you were in. (You don’t know it at the time, that’s pretty much the whole point).
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
This is why we cant play L4D2
See me? On the right? I'm dead. My friend? He is at shooting gallery. Entirely Unhelpful. My friends and I suck at this game
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Damn friends
All of my friends are asleep, so I let myself be dropped off at the darien public library. This is the second time I have been in the new one, and it kicks serious ass. I wish I had my chromebook, yet to be purchased, so I could write on a legitimate keyboard. My phone is not decent enough, and I am going to atop writing this post. Because I am lazy.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
On Link Shortening Services OR Spammers Are Winning
I am mostly finished with my new website shortenthatreallylongurlintosomethingsimpleandeasytoshare.info, a satirical (but working) URL shortening service. I was looking into how to design the site, and found something interesting.
The spammers are winning:
- http://pnt.me/
- http://eepurl.com/
- http://u.nu/unu-discontinued
- http://1u.ro/ (temporary, it seems)
- http://eezurl.com/welcome.php
- http://fhurl.com
- http://www.hurl.ws/
- http://kl.am/
- http://lurl.no/
- http://ncane.com/
- http://shrinkster.com/
- http://urlborg.com/a/ (Login created)
- http://ye-s.com/ (my favorite heads up message)
- http://zz.gd/
- http://hao.jp/
- http://idek.net/
Huge Note: Lots, at least 30 of the services I checked out were down/gone/something else. The ones listed are ones that had an actual announcement about spammers. Tons of services have started putting in Turing (captcha) tests. Many have started checking their links against those in http://www.surbl.org/ or http://www.spamhaus.org/dbl/ or http://code.google.com/apis/safebrowsing/ or http://www.malware.com.br/ or other similar services, presumably some cron jobs that scans entries regularly. They have started preventing search engine robots from following, which helps prevent people from gaining link reputation illicitly.
Many sites have been acquired by other sites. (http://makeashorterlink.com/)
Articles about spammers and/or URL shortening services worth a read:
- http://www.certmag.com/read.php?in=3863
- http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/07/bitly-eclipses-tinyurl-on-twitter/
- http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6947344.ece
- http://www.economist.com/node/17249654
- http://blog.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2006/06/spam_spotted_using_tinyurl.html
- http://www.stopthehacker.com/2010/02/19/analyzing-url-shorteners/
- http://joshua.schachter.org/2009/04/on-url-shorteners.html
- http://searchengineland.com/analysis-which-url-shortening-service-should-you-use-17204
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL_shortening (yes, really)
- Lists of Services
My favorite Services for whatever reason
- http://tinyarrows.com/ – takes advantage of Unicode cleverly.
- http://omf.gd/ – amusing site, ambiguous countdown. Little explanation
- http://chilp.it/ – I have a thing for minimalism.
- http://rickroll.it/ – beautiful! Rick Rolled!
- http://tr.im/ - modest, insults bit.ly
- http://safe.mn/ – focused on security and transparency
So what Security Measures/Features should a good URL shortening service use?
- Be Transparent - http://ur1.ca/ Lets their database be known publicly and forfeits its own rights, and this is what the other services should do too.
- Provide API’s for both shortening and longer-ing. Let sites like http://untiny.me/ unshorten your site. I have programmed a link unshorten-er before, and trust me. API’s are easier than trying to figure out the redirect. (also: http://www.rexswain.com/httpview.html)
- Provide a preview option. http://tinyurl.com/preview.php has a cookie services, and a few other services let the subdomain (http://peek.snipurl.com/) how a preview, not just redirect.
- Rate Limiting – A Spam prevention technique.
- Turing Test. If you are serious about getting rid of spam, force users to enter captcha to shorten a link. Many, many, sites such as http://ow.ly/ do this.
- Registration. If users register once (with captcha), and are remembered thru cookies, the hassle is not too great. If users links are detected as SPAM, its easy to delete ALL of the links that they have submitted
- Spam Site Checking. Scan the database for known spam links. (four services listed above). Delete them. If you have a user, or IP, you can block and delete similar, probably spam, links to for terms-of-use abuse.
- Prevent Double Dipping – Do not let already short URL’s from shortened sites be shortened. This is a way the spammers are getting around malware link detection. They use an untrusted redirect site (the many we saw being taken down) that is then put in a popular shortening service that people, because they are idiots, trust.
- Use a 301 Redirect, not a 302.
- Allow custom (vanity) URL’s. Not security, just a nice touch.
- If you have users/registration, let the users delete their URL’s.
- Don’t use a “frame bar”. See http://searchengineland.com/the-growth-of-framebars-kevin-rose-on-the-diggbar-17416
- List of links? http://crum.pl/multi has a place where you put a list of links into a site. I cant say I would use this, and can’t recommend, but it’s a useful feature to be available to the user. For me, this would be using my http://pinboard.in/u:squirrel tag, or date, collection, and linking to that.
Monday, June 13, 2011
The wonderful world of ebay
Turning 18 has giving me many privileges with account creation on the internet. Sites require I be 18, and now I am. Of course I am talking about eBay. I just got my eBay accout (hdyar) and am about to take the internet by storm. My first purchase? Some aviator sunglasses. I lost the old ones (not true, I know where they are, a diner in white plains, NY). NY first bid is on some 3D printed parts for reprap 3D printers. I plan to get some summer cash by selling things on ebay. Ill use this blog to post updates on both projects
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
I like cold
I can't do hot. The current temperature is 95, and its been above 93 all week. I am dying. I can't handle the heat. All winter long, I would walk outside with Isaiah Clark. He would put on a fourth layer, I would remain in my T-shirt, and we would exchange equevalent glances: really?
Hockey conditioned me for cold. After you have showered in below freezing water- literally forming Ice by the drain - after doing that somewhat regularly, nothing else seems cold. Sure, I may shiver or get goosebumbps or chatter my teeth, but you wont hear my complain about it! Because it could always be colder. I'm just used to it.
But ... Its fucking hot!
Monday, June 6, 2011
How Windows UAC should work
It should not give you pop-ups if you are already on an administrator account, only if you are on a non-administrator account should that popup exist, and then the kid can call over the adult, have them look at that the kid is trying to do, then type password and let them install whatever.
Just saying, redundancy is good, but not if it doesn’t actually do anything. We aren’t re-entering our password on popups (some don’t have one), we are just clicking a box that makes my graphics and giant monitor go black for a bit. Poopy!
On a side note, I plan to buy a chromebook when they are released and use to take notes when in college, dropbox sync to main machine. Portability acquired. With the cloud.
Yesterday's todo list
Wake up
remember to eat breakfast
Play tf2, finally hit 100 hours of gameplay time
Get rid of extra shampoo bottles in shower
Graduate high school
Brainstorm and write sketches
Don't forget dinner
Reminder: pulp fiction now Streaming on Netflix
As a side note, I did not eat lunch. Forgot.
Friday, June 3, 2011
My life is practice
What I do is not entertain, not write, not juggle, not tell stories, not play music, not write code. I don't do any of that. I practice them. For every minute I am juggling in front of somebody, I am spending 8 hours practicing. I sent such a rediculus amount of time practicing, it entirely dwarfs nearly everything else I do. Therefore: my life is practice.
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
College. Uhhhh.... yeah
Huh school is done with, except for graduation ceremony and all that good Stuff. I've applied housing preferences at depauw but little else. My sister, purdue, is getting back housing info and such. ITAP honors program has me go on campus a few days early, but I don't have any info. I have no I to for anything, and don't know what I should be doing.
So I am going to ignore the problem, naturally, and enjoy my summer and these 8000 open houses.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Story Project Introduction
This is the Story Project: Collect, Record, and Archive stories told by various people. Get them on video, or audio, of them telling a story. Right now I am collecting the stories on my Flip camera.
This was something I wrote a while back when I still wanted to publish the stories in a book. It was too be an introduction to the book, and also I could go back and remind my self of my goal. Right now my aim is to get video of the people telling the stories themselves, and publish them on the internet, but I will present the introduction I wrote for the book here in its original form.
The idea behind this entered my mind when I was in middle school. I realized how much of what I do revolved around stories. We read them, study them, analyze them, write them. All of this is during school; Almost all of my classes revolve around stories -- English and Social Studies in particular, but every class contained stories, even math (that may have just been my teacher).
But stories exist on more then just an education side. They are social. The oral story, the oldest form of the story, is arguably the most popular. Even if people do not realize it, they tell stories all of the time. Stories are most often only a few sentences long. A popular website, FMyLife.com allows users to submit their anecdotes and stories of day-to-day crap. They are hilarious. Other websites like OneScentence and PostSecret also allow submission on what is, in essence, a story. (PostSecret has plenty exceptions, but you get the idea). If you start paying attention, you can catch yourself telling people stories all the time. Whenever you talk about what you did last night, or how bad that test was, you are telling a story. Congratulations! You are a storyteller!
Stories are a cultures attempt at self preservation. They are memories. Preservation. Archiving. A lot of what I want to do with this story project is for the sake of not losing stories. Even fictional stories paint a picture of a real culture, or mindset, or situation. Some story may occur in space, but it’s message is about sanity and self realization. OK, Lets stick to nonfiction for the time being. Stories are a form of communication. You can tell someone you are doing ‘fine’, or you can tell them what you did in your day as a way to communicate how your day went. You want someone else to know how something went? Tell a story. Want to entertain someone? Tell them a story. Show them a story. Let them play a story. What are many video games but playable stories? Stories are the meat of a culture. The less stories there are, the less culture there is. Or at least less evidence of a culture. Stories influence. They bring people to realization and understanding. Stories teach. They teach morals and they teach guidance and they teach you how stuff works. The bible is a collection of stories.
I noticed stories from a young age, having the revelation in middle school, and I would always save my favorites, and re tell them. A lot involved “A friend”, but more often they could only be told well in First Person. So I would start the story with a censor, explaining it wasn’t mine, but rather a friends, and I am telling it in first person for the sake of the story. After a while, my friends understood this, so when they asked me to Tell them a story (or usually, that story -- wanting to re-hear a specific one), I would just pick one out of my bank and tell it. Other people, who did not understand the ownership, would overhear them and I became a curious entity, a not-so-unpeculiar person with a massive amount of fantastic stories. Some friends got mad that I ‘stole’ their story. When I realized what was happening, I stopped telling stories that were not mine (I always felt bad for ‘stealing’ them anyway). I only tell other peoples stories with permission now. Anyway, The stories here are (probably) presented in First Person, as they were told in first person. I give credit unless the person doesn’t wants credit. The tellers know they are being recorded, and that the recordings may be published in text or audio. I may do minor editing for clarity/understanding purposes. Some of the stories are mine. Sometimes I record without them knowing, then ask them if I can publish the story. (They can listen to it, choose to have bits [names] edited and changed). This way the person tells the story without worrying about the recorder, which I quickly noticed discerned people. Stage fright maybe, or the stress of having the story they are telling be ‘The Official Version’. Anyway, everyone involved knows about the stories, and I have not stolen any. In fact, a few fantastic ones I was not allowed to publish. Darn.
I need to thank again everyone who has told me stories, whether or not they made it into this book. Selecting specific stories to publish is hard, but in the the spreading of stories is all worth it.
Some of the stories do not have names, If so, they are referred to by the chapter, or story number.
I need a synonym to story, because I have typed that word way too many times in this introduction.
The idea behind this entered my mind when I was in middle school. I realized how much of what I do revolved around stories. We read them, study them, analyze them, write them. All of this is during school; Almost all of my classes revolve around stories -- English and Social Studies in particular, but every class contained stories, even math (that may have just been my teacher).
But stories exist on more then just an education side. They are social. The oral story, the oldest form of the story, is arguably the most popular. Even if people do not realize it, they tell stories all of the time. Stories are most often only a few sentences long. A popular website, FMyLife.com allows users to submit their anecdotes and stories of day-to-day crap. They are hilarious. Other websites like OneScentence and PostSecret also allow submission on what is, in essence, a story. (PostSecret has plenty exceptions, but you get the idea). If you start paying attention, you can catch yourself telling people stories all the time. Whenever you talk about what you did last night, or how bad that test was, you are telling a story. Congratulations! You are a storyteller!
Stories are a cultures attempt at self preservation. They are memories. Preservation. Archiving. A lot of what I want to do with this story project is for the sake of not losing stories. Even fictional stories paint a picture of a real culture, or mindset, or situation. Some story may occur in space, but it’s message is about sanity and self realization. OK, Lets stick to nonfiction for the time being. Stories are a form of communication. You can tell someone you are doing ‘fine’, or you can tell them what you did in your day as a way to communicate how your day went. You want someone else to know how something went? Tell a story. Want to entertain someone? Tell them a story. Show them a story. Let them play a story. What are many video games but playable stories? Stories are the meat of a culture. The less stories there are, the less culture there is. Or at least less evidence of a culture. Stories influence. They bring people to realization and understanding. Stories teach. They teach morals and they teach guidance and they teach you how stuff works. The bible is a collection of stories.
I noticed stories from a young age, having the revelation in middle school, and I would always save my favorites, and re tell them. A lot involved “A friend”, but more often they could only be told well in First Person. So I would start the story with a censor, explaining it wasn’t mine, but rather a friends, and I am telling it in first person for the sake of the story. After a while, my friends understood this, so when they asked me to Tell them a story (or usually, that story -- wanting to re-hear a specific one), I would just pick one out of my bank and tell it. Other people, who did not understand the ownership, would overhear them and I became a curious entity, a not-so-unpeculiar person with a massive amount of fantastic stories. Some friends got mad that I ‘stole’ their story. When I realized what was happening, I stopped telling stories that were not mine (I always felt bad for ‘stealing’ them anyway). I only tell other peoples stories with permission now. Anyway, The stories here are (probably) presented in First Person, as they were told in first person. I give credit unless the person doesn’t wants credit. The tellers know they are being recorded, and that the recordings may be published in text or audio. I may do minor editing for clarity/understanding purposes. Some of the stories are mine. Sometimes I record without them knowing, then ask them if I can publish the story. (They can listen to it, choose to have bits [names] edited and changed). This way the person tells the story without worrying about the recorder, which I quickly noticed discerned people. Stage fright maybe, or the stress of having the story they are telling be ‘The Official Version’. Anyway, everyone involved knows about the stories, and I have not stolen any. In fact, a few fantastic ones I was not allowed to publish. Darn.
I need to thank again everyone who has told me stories, whether or not they made it into this book. Selecting specific stories to publish is hard, but in the the spreading of stories is all worth it.
Some of the stories do not have names, If so, they are referred to by the chapter, or story number.
I need a synonym to story, because I have typed that word way too many times in this introduction.
Story Harvesting
I was talking to some friends the other day when one of them remarked on how easy it was to tell stories
with me. I smiled, I had been caught! I explained that I had been doing my damn best to drive the conversation towards storytelling. I have written about how awesome stories are before, I will post that here once I find the piece and edit it a bit. Anyway, He asked me how I was able to get people telling me stories, when they otherwise would be too shy or quiet. I didn't really have an answer. I knew I was consciously making an effort to get stories to be told, but when I say that... it's not quite right. It's not being subvert and hidden, secretly manipulating people to tell me stories in order for me to satisfy a disturbing fetish like itch, a quest for, a need for stories. Yeah, it isn't that. What it is, is just having a conversation with people. Conversations with me tend to have more stories being told, if it is that type of conversation. Making sense? Other types of conversation may be trying to figure something out, helping someone with a problem, discussing events. My favorite type of conversation is the one that occurs at get together's and reunions. They occur at Stake n' Shakes at 2am. People passing stories around a table. Someone tells something about a teacher, and that reminds someone else of something that happened, and stories are flying back and forth. The conversation just happens, I don't manipulate it into happening. Every once in a while, I just give it a shove or boost along. I guide it lackadaisically, and with little conscious thought in the effort. Everyone else is guiding it to, its how social interaction works.
I guess what I am saying is that when I socially interact, I am prone to move conversations towards storytelling. Other people (or other times I) may move them towards productivity, or learning something new. Get what I am saying?
All of that said, how do you guide a story conversation along? Well. I don't really know. But If I did know, I would say to tell stories yourself, relax, and have a good time. Unlike other conversations, such as trying to get advice for something, you are not in control. Nobody is in control. Do not try to control, it is the worst thing you can do. Just let the stories happen, and soak in the goodness.
with me. I smiled, I had been caught! I explained that I had been doing my damn best to drive the conversation towards storytelling. I have written about how awesome stories are before, I will post that here once I find the piece and edit it a bit. Anyway, He asked me how I was able to get people telling me stories, when they otherwise would be too shy or quiet. I didn't really have an answer. I knew I was consciously making an effort to get stories to be told, but when I say that... it's not quite right. It's not being subvert and hidden, secretly manipulating people to tell me stories in order for me to satisfy a disturbing fetish like itch, a quest for, a need for stories. Yeah, it isn't that. What it is, is just having a conversation with people. Conversations with me tend to have more stories being told, if it is that type of conversation. Making sense? Other types of conversation may be trying to figure something out, helping someone with a problem, discussing events. My favorite type of conversation is the one that occurs at get together's and reunions. They occur at Stake n' Shakes at 2am. People passing stories around a table. Someone tells something about a teacher, and that reminds someone else of something that happened, and stories are flying back and forth. The conversation just happens, I don't manipulate it into happening. Every once in a while, I just give it a shove or boost along. I guide it lackadaisically, and with little conscious thought in the effort. Everyone else is guiding it to, its how social interaction works.
I guess what I am saying is that when I socially interact, I am prone to move conversations towards storytelling. Other people (or other times I) may move them towards productivity, or learning something new. Get what I am saying?
All of that said, how do you guide a story conversation along? Well. I don't really know. But If I did know, I would say to tell stories yourself, relax, and have a good time. Unlike other conversations, such as trying to get advice for something, you are not in control. Nobody is in control. Do not try to control, it is the worst thing you can do. Just let the stories happen, and soak in the goodness.
Friday, May 27, 2011
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