Creativity often seems to be as much a product of a vibrant communities as the contribution of any particularly great individuals. There are many examples - the technology explosion from Silicon Valley, Florence during the Renaissance, European political theory in the 1700’s, Seattle’s music scene in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Pittsburgh’s robotics because of Carnegie Mellon. The list goes on and on. Once a community reaches critical mass, not only do its members spark ideas in each other, but the community itself naturally attracts talent from a wider and wider range as it gains a reputation for success.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past year, its that you don’t need to be great to start doing great things. You just need to do something. If you’re surrounded by a group of people who bring their own ideas and thoughts and inspiration, refining your ideas becomes a very rewarding part of the process in its own right. Let greatness happen later. I know too many people who seem to be stymied by perfection.
I was thinking of this based on a conversation I had with a friend the other day over dinner. My friends and I have been playing games our whole lives. I’ve started making my own. It’s a great group of people, because we have a solid mix of men and women. We also have a wide range of backgrounds from software to art, business, parenting and social work. All of us enjoy the playing games though, so it really helps get a broad perspective for what people really like about games.
My creation has also helped inspire some of the other people to get back into their development. We all sort of gave it a go a couple of years ago, made a lot of mistakes and got quagmire in details. I would love to see one of my other friends show off a game they’ve made sometime soon. Its wonderful to be in a creative community that’s capable of generating good ideas. I’m excited for the next step where I show these games off to strangers.
- Jake
Saturday, January 28, 2006
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
From the random link dept.
I found this on Penny Arcade - it's Brad Wardell's notes as he tests the AI for Galactic Civilizations II. Really good stuff.
Monday, January 09, 2006
SuperCharged Web Surfing
I remember ten years ago going to AltaVista and searching for stuff. I would scrounge through a shoddily list of results until I eventually found a decent site. Then about four years ago Google came along, and suddenly the results of what I searched were exactly what I was looking for. But there was still a problem -- I had to know what to look for. In other words, I had to know what I wanted to find before I found it. I was constantly in a rut of checking the same five or six sites that rarely had an update I wanted to read.
That’s all changed over the last year or so. With sites like delicious, MetaFilter, a real explosion of quality blogs, such as Science Blog, and the spread of RSS feeds, I am now satisfied. I don’t have to know where to look anymore. Other people find good things and tell other people about it. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire. The group knows the gist of what I want to read about before I do. All I have to do is screen the top 50 or so headlines for what really catches my attention and I'm set.
Some of my friends seem to be constantly surprised with all the stuff that I find on the internet. I tell them, “I don’t actually find anything, I just know how to look.” It’s like the difference between panning for gold in a stream and having someone bring gold bars to your house. It takes pretty much no effort. I just set up a dozen RSS feeds off of aggregator sites, and the rest is reading headlines and following stories that are able to immediately catch my attention. There are so many interesting things that I never, ever have time to read them all.
You might think that I am missing things, by just going along with what everyone else out there is reading. But I don’t think that’s the case. I never found this much good information before I used aggregators. The trick now is to know when to stop.
That’s all changed over the last year or so. With sites like delicious, MetaFilter, a real explosion of quality blogs, such as Science Blog, and the spread of RSS feeds, I am now satisfied. I don’t have to know where to look anymore. Other people find good things and tell other people about it. Word of mouth spreads like wildfire. The group knows the gist of what I want to read about before I do. All I have to do is screen the top 50 or so headlines for what really catches my attention and I'm set.
Some of my friends seem to be constantly surprised with all the stuff that I find on the internet. I tell them, “I don’t actually find anything, I just know how to look.” It’s like the difference between panning for gold in a stream and having someone bring gold bars to your house. It takes pretty much no effort. I just set up a dozen RSS feeds off of aggregator sites, and the rest is reading headlines and following stories that are able to immediately catch my attention. There are so many interesting things that I never, ever have time to read them all.
You might think that I am missing things, by just going along with what everyone else out there is reading. But I don’t think that’s the case. I never found this much good information before I used aggregators. The trick now is to know when to stop.
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Michelle Ramin, Artist
A very talented and good friend of mine from college has launched a website to showcase her artwork. Its interesting to me to see her artwork, knowing her so well, because its obvious that it genuinely comes from her soul.
Please take a look if you are interested.
http://www.michelleramin.com
Please take a look if you are interested.
http://www.michelleramin.com
Monday, November 14, 2005
Do you take WiFi with your coffee?
Disclaimer: Obligatory "homework" post ahead. 'Sup Cindy. :)
So... I've been reading Common Times lately for my news. Today they ran this story about the growing rate of prevalence of communication technology. It got me thinking about this post from Rich at Aldo Coffee, about the business risks of being a free WiFi hot spot.
I agree somewhat with the points he makes - a small business owner can't afford to take the liability of an attack based from their network as an origination point. The costs tripling bit surprised me somewhat - either Telerama is heavily subsidizing their WiFi business, pillaging their commercial broadband customers, or both. A decent speed dedicated business line shouldn't be going for more than $80/mo. Granted, his post was from 9 months ago, and costs have definitely dropped since then.
So I wondered if a technical solution would exist that might help regulate traffic for someone in the position to offer free wireless. Because, reading that story, it seems to me that in the near future, not having it is going to become the greater liability. The stuff Nintendo is doing with the DS indicates to me pretty clearly that localized, spontaneous use of networking capability is going to rapidly become the norm. And what better way to attract customers than to be a servicer of that need (as well as slinging some mean Joe to boot)?
The first time I read Rich's post, I'd envisioned a completely different set of problems; the largest being loitering. How would you mitigate the exploitation of your generosity? Also, how do you stop someone from hogging all the free 'width, slowing everyone else to a trickle?
The solution I had in mind would be a modified standard access point with some additional web interface. It would implement a ticketing system that could optionally be integrated with a cash register or credit card reader. So - user buys a latte, user gets a ticket. The ticket is good for 1 hour at a rated speed, at which point the subscription expires. But by then he's thirsty again anyway. You can't "combine" tickets (ie, get your friends to hook you up) because they're tied to a specific IP address assigned by the AP. You could make the subscription speed or length vary based on the purchase. You could also configure it to work like a debit card, which might help solve the hacker problem. Instead of a subscription you get X megabits of up/down traffic, and once you've used it it's gone.
I'd be astonished if a product with these or similar features is not available today. I'm inclined to believe that there is some sort of indemnity or insurance available as well. I don't hear about libraries being spammer dens or hacker havens, so somebody's on to something. All that leaves for Rich to figure out is how to cover the expense.
Hey, did I mention I have some ideas about that, too?
So... I've been reading Common Times lately for my news. Today they ran this story about the growing rate of prevalence of communication technology. It got me thinking about this post from Rich at Aldo Coffee, about the business risks of being a free WiFi hot spot.
I agree somewhat with the points he makes - a small business owner can't afford to take the liability of an attack based from their network as an origination point. The costs tripling bit surprised me somewhat - either Telerama is heavily subsidizing their WiFi business, pillaging their commercial broadband customers, or both. A decent speed dedicated business line shouldn't be going for more than $80/mo. Granted, his post was from 9 months ago, and costs have definitely dropped since then.
So I wondered if a technical solution would exist that might help regulate traffic for someone in the position to offer free wireless. Because, reading that story, it seems to me that in the near future, not having it is going to become the greater liability. The stuff Nintendo is doing with the DS indicates to me pretty clearly that localized, spontaneous use of networking capability is going to rapidly become the norm. And what better way to attract customers than to be a servicer of that need (as well as slinging some mean Joe to boot)?
The first time I read Rich's post, I'd envisioned a completely different set of problems; the largest being loitering. How would you mitigate the exploitation of your generosity? Also, how do you stop someone from hogging all the free 'width, slowing everyone else to a trickle?
The solution I had in mind would be a modified standard access point with some additional web interface. It would implement a ticketing system that could optionally be integrated with a cash register or credit card reader. So - user buys a latte, user gets a ticket. The ticket is good for 1 hour at a rated speed, at which point the subscription expires. But by then he's thirsty again anyway. You can't "combine" tickets (ie, get your friends to hook you up) because they're tied to a specific IP address assigned by the AP. You could make the subscription speed or length vary based on the purchase. You could also configure it to work like a debit card, which might help solve the hacker problem. Instead of a subscription you get X megabits of up/down traffic, and once you've used it it's gone.
I'd be astonished if a product with these or similar features is not available today. I'm inclined to believe that there is some sort of indemnity or insurance available as well. I don't hear about libraries being spammer dens or hacker havens, so somebody's on to something. All that leaves for Rich to figure out is how to cover the expense.
Hey, did I mention I have some ideas about that, too?
On light bulbs, contests, and other miscellany
So, given that I have this new house and all, I've had a prime opportunity to implement a migration from incandescents to the new hotness. Care to guess how many bulbs it took? So far I'm at 24 and I could easily go another half-dozen. Thanks to Home Depot though, it hasn't cost a whole lot to do. They're currently selling six-packs of the 14 Watt (60W equivalent) bulbs for $9.97. That, in layman's terms, is what they call a really sweet deal. Considering they sell a single bulb, same rating, for $5; that's 66% off. (In fact, I told the Home Depot guy as much while I was making my purchase. Got to spread the cult of CFL ya know...)
But, you say, that seemingly shameless plug for the luminous wares of the Commercial Electric corporation wasn't enough? Well then, I shall tell you, on top of the price, EnergyStar is offering a chance to pay your energy bill for a year! Which brings me to the point of this post.
Inside the six-pack of bulbs is a scratch off ticket with your id number. You can take it to this page and find out if you won. Except, with the four packs I bought, each ticket had the exact same id number. Is that legit? D08469. You too?
It got me wondering if, for these kind of promos, it's easier to print one whole big batch of "unique" identical loser numbers, and then run off the 100 odd winners as actually unique prints. Seems pretty cheap, but maybe they figured no one would catch on? I mean, how many people would buy 24 CF lightbulbs at a go, right?
But, you say, that seemingly shameless plug for the luminous wares of the Commercial Electric corporation wasn't enough? Well then, I shall tell you, on top of the price, EnergyStar is offering a chance to pay your energy bill for a year! Which brings me to the point of this post.
Inside the six-pack of bulbs is a scratch off ticket with your id number. You can take it to this page and find out if you won. Except, with the four packs I bought, each ticket had the exact same id number. Is that legit? D08469. You too?
It got me wondering if, for these kind of promos, it's easier to print one whole big batch of "unique" identical loser numbers, and then run off the 100 odd winners as actually unique prints. Seems pretty cheap, but maybe they figured no one would catch on? I mean, how many people would buy 24 CF lightbulbs at a go, right?
Return of the Matt
Hey gang.
So you may have been wondering where I've been the past couple of months. All two of you. Well, my sincere and heartfelt thanks for your concern. In fact, over the last few weeks I've bought a new house, renovated my old house, hosted several odd birthday parties and get togethers, pushed two application releases to production (one as I post!), and otherwise encountered a large number of non-blog-oriented forms of distraction.
So, when I showed up at the Pittsburgh Blogfest IV last Wednesday, feeling oddly postless and with a faint sense of déja vu, I realized I'd best get my posting keister in gear. Prepare to be post-blasted.
If it's any consolation, I have 100+ unread emails in my work inbox. You still love me, right?
So you may have been wondering where I've been the past couple of months. All two of you. Well, my sincere and heartfelt thanks for your concern. In fact, over the last few weeks I've bought a new house, renovated my old house, hosted several odd birthday parties and get togethers, pushed two application releases to production (one as I post!), and otherwise encountered a large number of non-blog-oriented forms of distraction.
So, when I showed up at the Pittsburgh Blogfest IV last Wednesday, feeling oddly postless and with a faint sense of déja vu, I realized I'd best get my posting keister in gear. Prepare to be post-blasted.
If it's any consolation, I have 100+ unread emails in my work inbox. You still love me, right?
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