“Absence sharpens love, presence strengthens it.”
-Benjamin Franklin
photo by Eduardo Amarim
Hot movies to see this summer
The line-up for this summer’s blockbusters is looking really good…if you’re a male geek.
Here’s my top 11 (w/ trailers and release dates)
Harry Potter – the final movie
Cowboys and Aliens
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Super 8
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Captain America
Winnie the Pooh
TrollHunter
Mr. Popper’s Penguin
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Green Lantern
Release Dates
Opening Jun 10
Super 8
TrollHunter
Jun 17
Green Lantern
Mr. Popper’s Penguin
Jun 24
Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop
Jul 1
Transformers: Dark of the Moon
Jul 15
Harry Potter – the final movie
Winnie the Pooh
Jul 22
Captain America
Jul 29
Cowboys and Aliens
Aug 5
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
A bunch of nerdy interviews
Are you a nerd?
It’s okay don’t answer. No need.
We control the internets and establish what is cool. No matter what everyone else thinks. Let’s just develop, design, and build away. Bit by bit we take over the world.
To help us along there is this really interesting site called the The Setup (aka usesthis.com). It features “a collection of nerdy interviews, asking people from all walks of life about the software and hardware they use.”
It should +1 your skills or at least give you a connection to the vast world of nerds out there. Like Ben Kamens the lead developer of the famous Khan Academy, Keven Kelly the cofounder of Wired magazine, Anil Dash, a million others, and not to mention Wiley Wiggins who smokes blindfolded.
Where have all the women with gray hair gone?
I miss my grandmas. I was lucky and I had two wonderful women. Neither was perfect but they loved me and taught me so much.
Now I look around and wonder, where have all the mature women gone?
Is there a role in our society for them. Or, does every women have to a seductress with perfect features. Maybe they can only exist as extensions of the family, as moms or grandmas.
Everyday I look I look for something more and don’t find it. It’s as if strong mature women have vanished from my life and possibly society as a whole. I can’t remember the last time I saw a woman under the age of 80 with gray hair.
What do you think happened to them. Am I just wailing about my own loss or living in the wrong area.
Are there others out there without this problem?
It doesn’t seem so. The problems evident at so many levels of society and in my own life cry out for a mature woman. All my experiences with my grandmas remind me of this.
They provided the glue that kept many things together. The advice in the face of foolhardiness. Love instead of fighting. And the memory of good times and bad that bind us together.
I don’t see a whole lot of that in America these days.
Who knows…maybe I’m crazy and the feminists have got it all figured out. They know what they’re doing. Shatter those glass ceilings and prove to the world what you’re capable of.
X-Men: First Class – hotness
All I needed to hear was that Kevin Bacon is in the movie. He’s playing against the two most powerful characters in the X-Men world (Professor Xavier, Magneto) as Sebastian Shaw. A world-class tycoon and his power is an ability to absorb and then use any sort of unleashed energy (any energy, even a nuclear bomb).
Sounds like a perfect plot, mutants and superheros pitched against Kevin Bacon. What more could you ask for?
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Just so you know why I’m all Kevin Bacon, take a look at this story from the LA Times:
“A couple of years ago, Kevin Bacon needed a few degrees of separation from his fame…he went to a Hollywood makeup specialist…paid the $500 and then, with an anxious glee, he took his new rubber face…to experience an afternoon without autographs.
“You wouldn’t have recognized me if I was standing next to you,” Bacon said with a faraway expression. “It was really bizarre and I didn’t really like it. I didn’t like it at all. People cut in front of you and when you’re at a check-out counter it’s just … different. People weren’t all that nice to me. I’m just not used to it.”
Sitting in a quiet corner of a Brentwood restaurant, the actor shook his head, perhaps surprised at his own candor and then laughed at himself. “I can’t imagine life without it,” he added, referring to fame…”
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The preview is pretty good too 🙂
Kanji and the art of calligraphy
The Japanese name for calligraphy is sho do, which most directly translates as “way of writing”.
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I really want to go to Japan but not because I want to go on vacation. I want to go for the Imperial Gardens and the tasty noodles. You could say that I am utterly fascinated with this country and its culture.
Which is sad because it seems to be ultra trendy right now. As if Japan is so huge in America (not, I’m so huge in Japan). I guess this makes me a yuppster (hipster, yuppy) or just a really big dork.
Either way, I’m going full bore into the hole starting with learning the language. Having recently become bilingual (english/spanish) I’m feeling very haughty right now. It feels like any language no matter how complicated is within my grasp.
They key is knowing how to get into it. In high school they figured this was memorizing the alphabet and taking lots of vocab tests. Which failed even after 5+ years of Spanish classes. In the end what worked for me, believe it or not, was reading the newspaper out loud.
For about 6 months I read two newspapers from Spain that I subscribed to on my Kindle. In the beginning my comprehension was so limited that I barely knew the topic of each article. Then I started reading each one out loud and it clicked.
I suddenly began thinking in Spanish and my comprehension shot through the roof. In fact, it reached a tipping point where I just know Spanish and its not like how they say that if you don’t practice you lose it. Spanish is a part of me and I occaisonally do random things, like daydream in Spanish or randomly converse with people in Spanish.
This was pretty funny at first because I didn’t know I was doing it and I would get all embarrassed. Then I got into it and just went with it. It really is cool to have folks think you are a foreigner, or escape American drudgery by randomly talking with someone in Spanish.
With this newfound success I’m attacking Japanese and the key is calligraphy. The ancient art of writing things down. For some reason the Chinese and Japanese elevated writing to a high art form and they get all crazy about it. The book I ordered is teaching me about the “Four Treasures” and the cheap calligraphy set I ordered has meticulous detail on every piece.
In some ways it feels like painting, you know that feeling you get when focusing intently on making something beautiful envelops your mind pushing out all other distractions. But, there is no color and it’s all about technique. Hold the brush vertical, descend onto the paper at a 45 degree angle, slightly turn the brush, and lift off.
That makes a dot. A simple dot (called a ten). It’s the most basic of all moves and it requires four steps, a degree change, and a turn. Complicated but not hard. It’s more like an entry into a world of perfection where the goal is not to get it done but to marvel in the mastery of even the simplest move.
I have to say I love it. All throughout the book are the words: meditation, peace, zen, focus, perfection. I get to take a break from computers and websites by banishing all from my mind except the ten.
All the way I am learning Japanese. I have these dreams now of visiting Japan and being able to read street signs and store fronts. For some reason it awes me to simply be able to read Japanese street signs…so weird.
No matter though, I am learning a language through enjoyment and fun. I have found my key.
calligraphy papers (photo at top) by matsuyuki
2 Very Strong Words for Peter Corbett
After attending Thursday night’s 7th Ignite DC, I have two very strong words for Peter Corbett:
THANK YOU.
Closing the evening as the final talk, Peter reminded me and the other 300-some tech and innovation enthusiasts in the room that while DC may be, in Peter’s words, “the scrappiest mother fucking town,” we get shit done…we make things happen. It was one one of those talks that left you thinking, “I’ll have what he’s having.” It was inspiring.
Did he drink a Red Bull? Or chug a can of lentil soup? Who knows. If you weren’t there, you’ll have to wait until the talk is posted to understand (although you can check out the slides now). But even then, you might not understand, because Peter’s talk really wasn’t about what he was saying or how he was saying it, but who he was saying it to…a room, and more importantly, a community of people doing great things. Inspiring things. Things that are changing the world.
What Peter didn’t mention, although I know he knows exactly what I’m talking about, is success doesn’t happen over night. The road to it, in fact, is paved with No’s. And whole lot of blood, sweat and tears.
Sometimes it’s easy to give heed to the naysayers and the status-quo’ters. Sometime it feels like those chains aren’t moving fast enough. Sometimes doubt rears its ugly head at the most pivotal points in time.
And that’s when we need a jolt of enthusiasm, a shot of energy, a 5-minute talk of evangelism to remind us, we’re not crazy. Because the things we are facing as a community and more importantly as a society and civilization are going to require some big, crazy solutions and a lot of community support and action.
Peter’s talk was a much needed reminder that if others don’t think we’re crazy for doing what we’re doing, we’re not thinking big enough. The things that need to happen in the world require each of us doing our biggest, our best, our craziest…together.
So DC: What will you do? What are you waiting for? Who will tell your story?
And Peter, THANK YOU.
Swiss Design WordPress Theme
Both Amy and I think it’s beautiful.
I was searching for a new design that has one long text column and cool layout for the rest. It also has links for social media and a decent post layout.
Definitely using this for an upcoming project. Check out Smashing Magazine for this free theme and three others by designer Marios Lublinsky.
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Check out Marios help video as well (what a great idea!)
Wikipedia: Gateway Platform to More Girls in Tech?
Ever since the Wikimedia Foundation announced its goal to raise the share of female contributors to Wikipedia 25 percent by 2015, I’ve had it in my head to make sure my 11-year old niece is adding her voice to the collective knowledge of the world.
It was with this goal of lighting the next generation’s torch that I ventured over to my brother’s house to hang out with the little genius who happened to be working on a homework assignment on her computer when I arrived. The assignment was to research and write a report on an invasive species – and she had selected the “mitten crab” – a species introduced to the Chesapeake Bay in 2005 and is currently being evaluated for its impact on the native Chesapeake Blue Crab.
As she was searching and culling the internet for information, I asked if she was allowed to use Wikipedia – she said yes. Then I asked if she had ever edited Wikipedia – she said no. That’s when I gave her her first lesson in editing Wikipedia. We had fun, for over an hour, and it went off exactly how I first learned to edit Wikipedia back in 2006 when I was an instructor for Intellipedia.
The mitten crab Wikipedia page was the perfect page to launch her learning. Why? Because the number one reason people avoid contributing to Wikipedia is the feeling that they don’t have anything or enough information to contribute (per the 2010 survey conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation).
My niece and I quickly noticed we had something to add. The Smithsonian Environmental Research Center just announced it’s seeking reports of mitten crab sighting and collections. But this wasn’t mentioned anywhere in Wikipedia article – and we believed it belonged there.
To get her going I started with the basics – how to edit sections (versus the entire page), wiki-markup for things like links, bullet points, and bold text, the importance of including an edit summary. She picked it up effortlessly like the little sponge-brain she is.
In fact, her hand was on the mouse clicking “edit” faster than I could say “Whoa, Tonto!” First thing the following morning, she was reporting on the status of the page. It had been edited by a “crustacean nerd” (my niece’s words, not mine) but the bulk of our contribution was still there, including the line we added in the first sentence: named for its furry claws that look like mittens.
I don’t think doubling the number of females contributing to Wikipedia by 2015 is a difficult mark to hit. In fact, I think it should be much higher since the barriers to contributing are pretty easy to address. My experience this weekend proved just how easy it can be.
While wiki markup is just a syntax (similar to using Word), I can’t help but think that learning it could encourage girls to learn to program – as a gateway language so to speak – by showing them how fun it is to build and create something, moving them from consumers of information, to creators and builders.
If every Wikipedian took just one hour of their life to teach a girl how to contribute, the future of Wikipedia would be forever changed. Diversity is the key to survival and Wikipedia needs more of it – not simply to survive, but to thrive. Maybe there should be a pledge to sign – teach a girl to wiki. Or free classes led by Wikipedian volunteers. I don’t know, but I don’t think females aren’t contributing to Wikipedia because they lack desire or don’t have the time. I think there’s a barrier (albeit a small one) in education and awareness that once addressed will create a stronger, better Wikipedia, and in the process, perhaps will create a more technologically capable generation of women who can build the future they want to live in.
How to get a job in gaming
Since I have a little background in gaming folks are always asking me, “How do I get in?”
Which is usually followed by, “Is it worth it?”
First of all, it is. Definitely.
It’s all that you think it is and more. The best part being that all your colleagues are huge fans so it’s like one big gaming fest.
The worst part is working long, and I mean long days. I’m talking about seven days a week for months, no days off. Hours are such that you sleep in the office.
Which is like saying you’re forcing a dolphin to swim. I’ve seen colleagues working 18 days in a row, sick with the flu, on no sleep, and gleeful with joy.
Of course, there are companies with content farms that expect code monkeys, but they don’t dominate the industry.
So if you love gaming, you really love it, then go for it.
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Okay, here is the harsh reality: you will start at the bottom. Until you have shipped your first title then you’re out.
Remember, the gaming industry is larger than Hollywood and acts a lot like it. Each game is a project with its own producers, directors, writers, coders, artists, etc.
When forming a new project companies will only hire existing talent, i.e. folks with previous titles shipped (popular resume buzzword). After that they will promote from within. Like moving up assistants to leads and pulling from other departments to be replace those assistants.
Rarely do they bring in talent from other industries. This is because, like the movie business, one flop can ruin the whole company. To make a game it requires all up front capital investment, sometimes tens of millions of dollars. All in the hopes that after they’ve spent this money the game will actually sell (and sell well enough to recover costs). Sometimes if they are lucky the game will go nuclear and then they will actually see profits.
You can see why most companies are hesitant to hire even the most talented coder/writer/artist who has no gaming experience. There is very little room for error.
For this reason I think that, to get in, it’s not who you know but what you have done. If you can’t say you’ve shipped at least one title then you’re out, and reasonably so. Shipping a game is tougher than you think it is.
Most overcome this problem by becoming a bug tester. Which is possibly the most fun and cool low paying job you can find. Companies are always hiring for them, especially around releases. This easily gets you in the door, but you may have to move to where the jobs are and this technically doesn’t count as credit for shipping a title.
The good news is that most bug testers are there for fun and so talent is quickly promoted to lead/manager. From there its just a matter of biding your time, learning the ropes, networking with folks on the project, and proving yourself.
It’s a clear path into the industry but it usually turns most people off. I mean moving a to a new city to become a game tester getting paid slightly above minimum wage!
Sounds ridiculous but like the movie industry where actors are waiters, it does work. In my time I helped four people get promoted from the customer service department right into the game. Within weeks thousands of players were touching what they created.
One was an artist, two were coders, and another was a story writer. Each one was incredibly talented but with no previous game experience. So, they took a job getting paid nothing and bided their time. All the while relentlessly in honing their skills and portfolios. As openings came up they applied and eventually got selected for one.
It didn’t take them long (most under 2 years) but they did get over the problem of how to get in. So, if you love games and are willing to do whatever to get in then here is your roadmap.