Greetings and Salutations,
I bring to you today the distinguished and educationally criticized and condemned topic of great importance and yet little help to our little crusade, the wiki.
Now, I'm sure all of you have us ed a wiki of one form or another during your life time, for who hasn't? There are so many, whether they are semi serious, like wikipedia, have a nonsense attitude like the Encyclopaedia Dramatica, or even the many that are hilariously serious as in Bulbapedia. You may be asking me at this time (or you could be dosing off and not caring) what exactly is a wiki? How did they start? What makes it different from an encyclopedia or dictionary?
Well, a wiki is, as the inventor of them, Ward Cunningham, once said "[a wiki is] the simplest online database that could possibly work." This means that a wiki is a simple, easily accessible online database, which I will expand on a little and say that it is a simple, generally universally accessible online database, sometimes with foci, sometimes without. This makes Wikis very popular as a method of garnering information quickly.
The first wiki was started by Ward Cunningham, as stated above, in 1994, for software developers. He got the name from the Honolulu airport shuttle transportation system, which uses the Hawaiian term "wiki" meaning fast. Then in 2000 the number of wiki spin offs from the original wiki, WikiWikiWeb, or WardsWeb as it came to be called, dramatically increased. This boom lead to the creation of Wikipedia, which today is the largest and most popular wiki around the globe. Or at least that's what they say, I guess I should warn you that although all of this information was double checked, it was gathered from wikis and double checked on other wikis. I'll explain why this merits a warning in a moment.
There are several things which make a wiki very different from an encyclopedia or a dictionary, but I'll start with what they have in common. Both wikis and encyclopedias/dictionaries are relatively easy to use, hold almost all the information we know, and some that we aren't quite sure about, and are compiled by many different people. The differences come in many many different ways, for example, whereas encyclopedias and dictionaries are generally not based in the web, though there are quite a few nowadays that are, wikis are entirely held within the internet, and because of that they can use more intuitive methods to make searching for specific things easier. Also, wikis hold not only the information we know, but they are updated almost every day, and to get an update on an encyclopedia you have to go out and buy the next edition, which brings us to our next difference, which is that almost all wikis are free, whereas encyclopedias can be very expensive to get almost as much information. Finally, the biggest difference is that whereas encyclopedias are compiled by a large amount of paid professionals, a wiki is written and compiled by everybody. This means that anybody can upload a page for the wiki, as well as edit anybody else's pages, sometimes unlimitedly, sometimes with moderators.
So now that you have a great idea of what a wiki is, and have way more information than you probably ever wanted to know about wikis, but in my opinion one should never do something halfway. There are several major wikis and wiki groups, Wikipedia, Uncyclopedia, and Wikia. Wikipedia, the largest and most popular of all wikis, has over three million articles, over twenty two million pages, and over fourteen million authors. It has almost every topic you could possibly imagine, though sometimes not as specific as some of the other wikis. Uncyclopedia, and its similar project Encyclopaedia Dramatica, are both satirical wikis based around the principle of misinformation and sarcasm for humor, they both unfortunately are very very efficient in being like ninjas and hiding all of their statistics on how many pages etc. each has, if you are able to find it, please send it to our email address which you can find on our "Contact Us" page. One note about both Encyclopedia Dramatica and Uncyclopedia: they can both be very not safe for work at times and caution is advised when using them, do not go surfing them for fun, use at your own risk. Wikia is actually a website that hosts wikis of many different kinds, from Memory Alpha, which is about the Star Trek universe, to Tardis Wiki, which is about Doctor Who, to any video game, movie, or basically any subject period you can imagine. Actually, even Uncyclopedia is hosted by Wikia, though I place it differently, because it is based on a different principle from the rest of the wikis. Wikia has over two million authors spanning over one hundred and fifty thousand different wikis.
Some of the rules laid down by the majority of wikis, not including the satirical ones, are demonstrated by Wikipedia's "five pillars" as they call them: It is an online Encyclopedia, has a neutral point of view, is free content, should be bound together through civil and respectful interactions, and then we get to the painful part for our search right now, it has no firm rules. The satirical websites are even worse about this. I now follow with a side note, if you have actually read this far, please send me an email detailing how you like my posts, I am aware of at least one person who believes my posts are too long and doesn't read them because of it, if you like my style, say that, if not, say that as well. I am trying if you can't tell, to make this a good blog for any readers who happened upon it, and not just to those who are really smart like those we currently have, although I refuse to lessen quality for more readers, I believe I have already been over that it in last Wednesday's post. If you actually read this far comment about the weather in your area below inside of the blog, I can't see it if it is on Google Buzz or Facebook or something else. So the main problem with wikis is the best part about them, since it is open source and anybody can use them and they basically have no rules. This means that we unfortunately cannot add any more rules to our list, besides the master rule, the one that refers to all of the internet and should hopefully be followed, but do to the nature of the internet, usually is not. Rule eleven: If you are not at least a semi mature patient person, stop, get off the internet, and go watch MTV.
And with that, I close. Thanks as usual for listening or not, comment if you desire, or not. The rules are being compiled as it goes and will be ready by the end for the final post. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email us at our new address. If you want to make accusations or have any general complaints or see any errors, whether small grammatical errors or large continuity ones, please feel free to let us know.
Farewell and Valedictions,
Eoin Anndra Davis
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Warning! New Challenger Approaching....
Greetings and Salutations,
I will be starting a series of posts devoted to our wonderful video site, Youtube, so that you can experience it for yourselves, in each of these posts I will be giving a short synopsis, without giving anything away, and then post the video below so you can watch it. Once you have watched it, please feel free, in fact, I think it would be awesome if everyone rated the video in the comments below, I believe the usual rating system is a system of five stars.... Anyways, feel free to post about how much something failed or how much it was win, or just comments on the acting, or special effects etc. I'll post five videos, and then on the sixth day I will hold a contest between the five to see which one you liked best, so send me an email or comment below with your vote.
This week's video is the "World's Most Amazing Trick Shot!", a video by user363, about a billiard domino Rube Goldberg trick shot, unfortunately, what little dialog there is is in some unidentifiable language, comment below if you know what language it is!
Another thing I will be adding on Saturdays is the word of the week, read the word and it's definition and try to use it at least once this upcoming week. Please comment below on how you used it or send it in and we will vote at the end of five weeks for both the best word and for the best usage of the words.
The word of the week is:
Indubitably
~Too evident to be doubted
Don't forget to comment below and rate the word and or video, I shall see you shortly, when wednesday comes around again.
Farewells and Valedictions,
Eoin Anndra Davis
I will be starting a series of posts devoted to our wonderful video site, Youtube, so that you can experience it for yourselves, in each of these posts I will be giving a short synopsis, without giving anything away, and then post the video below so you can watch it. Once you have watched it, please feel free, in fact, I think it would be awesome if everyone rated the video in the comments below, I believe the usual rating system is a system of five stars.... Anyways, feel free to post about how much something failed or how much it was win, or just comments on the acting, or special effects etc. I'll post five videos, and then on the sixth day I will hold a contest between the five to see which one you liked best, so send me an email or comment below with your vote.
This week's video is the "World's Most Amazing Trick Shot!", a video by user363, about a billiard domino Rube Goldberg trick shot, unfortunately, what little dialog there is is in some unidentifiable language, comment below if you know what language it is!
Another thing I will be adding on Saturdays is the word of the week, read the word and it's definition and try to use it at least once this upcoming week. Please comment below on how you used it or send it in and we will vote at the end of five weeks for both the best word and for the best usage of the words.
The word of the week is:
Indubitably
~Too evident to be doubted
Don't forget to comment below and rate the word and or video, I shall see you shortly, when wednesday comes around again.
Farewells and Valedictions,
Eoin Anndra Davis
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
This Blog Title is Self Referential.
Greetings and Salutations,
I have received the numbers of votes, and tallied them up, and our schedule for the following few weeks will be the post today, followed by wikis, hacking, pictures, and general failing. Again, if you come up with any new ideas, if I think of any also, then they will be added onto the end. Thanks again for all the votes, it was very helpful in determining this, though I might use this for a different type of post in the future.... be on the lookout for a special series of posts starting this Saturday. Onwards to the remainder of the post!
Today, for those with sub-Sherlock Holmes powers of observation, I provide to you the post on blogging, and how to be polite therein. This is quite an undertaking for a blog, as while I write I am judged to see how good the blog is, and in the end, there will probably be comments about how I left out whatever I perform poorly at so as to look better, but I will continue to do this nonetheless. With any type of blog, no matter the subject or genre or style, there are a few rules that must be followed. As problogger.net, a weblog done by a professional blogger for about 9 years now, says, there are really five main ideals that need to be held for a blog to generally be considered a "great blog."
The first main point they have is that a blog needs transparency, it needs to be true and it needs to simply show its motivations, authors, partners etc. Frankly, if I was reading a blog and no matter how much I liked it, if it talking about Microsoft Office all the time in every one of it's posts and it was a blog about sports, I would not continue reading. Basically, what some blogs will do to get more money besides the standard, acceptable, ads, is they will sell portions of their posts to devote to a business. This is wrong, on this blog and on most other blogs people will occasionally state that some things are better than others, if it is a continuing topic they might repeat it for the duration of the topic, but never will we here at The Consortium stoop to taking money and any other false dealing.
The second point they have is that a blog needs Authenticity, or a real and unique experience. This is probably the most obvious one, because if a blog provides fake information, unless it is attempting humor, or if it covers the same topics or reproduced topics from other blogs, then nobody wants to read it. Likewise, a blog should generally be personal, not this secondary separate part of you that is completely different to yourself ad does not accurately represent your writing style and personality, because that is where your uniqueness comes through a lot of the time.
The third point is a touchy one for some blog authors, as it refers to integrity. I will not talk about this one much because integrity changes between bloggers, and can refer to both dishonesty and honesty, internal fighting and peace, a calm composure and a fighting one, severe rebukes and serene acceptances, and many other things. When a blog compromises it's own integrity for the sake of something else then it has already lost.
The fourth and fifth points are passion and engagement respectively. I put them together here because I believe them to be linked. To write a successful post you must be passionate about what you are writing and actually want to be a part of this, or else it comes out bored. A fellow blogger from TBCRH, The Professor of the Blog, never used a schedule, and I still remember how all of his posts were passionate and influential, he got some of the most comments because of it. With engagement, you really have to remember to post, and comment and reply to emails and more, which if you are passionate about the blog you are doing you will succeed at usually.
While these are great points, as it is a blog it can sometimes be biased, in addition any citation should be followed by more information to back it up, so as to prove that it is not a singular point of view. So for that we turn to Inc., a business magazine founded in 1979 for private businesses and then added on an internet section when internet usage became prevalent. It tends to point out in it's article on blog rules many of the same things as problogger.net does.
One of its' first points is to be transparent and use "a certain amount of candor." Their next two points also overlap with the fourth and fifth points from problogger.net, and they states that it should be updated often as information grows old quickly on the internet and that you should be as interactive as possible with visitors and members. The final one is very important and somewhat parallels the third post from problogger.net, in that it talks not quite about integrity, but staying cool when others are angry, and when you don't quite agree with what people say or think.
Let's look at one more site, a collaborative community organization for scholarly communication: crossref.org, which hosts an open blog basically for standard intellectual communication. They provide a set of strict rules for the blog, asking only for a certain kind of post, and banning any of another kind of post. Some of the things they ban are: "any defamatory, libelous, vulgar, obscene, abusive, profane, threatening, hateful, racially, ethnically, or otherwise offensive or illegal information or material" as well as a full two hundred and seven words more of things not allowed. Obviously this a very extreme case, as it is an incorporated non profit blog, rather than the style of blog hosted by wordpress.com or blogger.com.
Many other blogs don't follow these rules at all and actually are still successful, but they are not targeting the same crowd, but are targeting people more like trolls. In addition, while everything I said above is really a good idea and can be considered a basis for a good blog, but going back to problogger.net, they posted another, somewhat hypocritical, though understandable post much later. In this post they state that although there are many good basic ideas that can be considered rules, the beauty of a blog is that there are really no rules, well, besides standard internet rules.
And with that final thought, I close. Thanks as usual for listening or not, comment if you desire, or not. The rules are being compiled as it goes and will be ready by the end for the final post. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email us at our new address. If you want to make accusations or have any general complaints or see any errors, whether small grammatical errors or large continuity ones, please feel free to let us know.
Farewell and Valedictions,
Eoin Anndra Davis
(Tony Hung, problogger.net <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/09/the-rules-behind-creating-a-great-blog/>)
(Jory Des Jardins, Inc. <http://www.inc.com/magazine/20051101/handson-technology-sidebar.html>)
(Crossref.org <http://www.crossref.org/CrossTech/docs/Blog_terms_1_0.htm>)
(Darren Rowse, problogger.net <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/03/08/the-11-definitive-rules-of-blogging/>)
I have received the numbers of votes, and tallied them up, and our schedule for the following few weeks will be the post today, followed by wikis, hacking, pictures, and general failing. Again, if you come up with any new ideas, if I think of any also, then they will be added onto the end. Thanks again for all the votes, it was very helpful in determining this, though I might use this for a different type of post in the future.... be on the lookout for a special series of posts starting this Saturday. Onwards to the remainder of the post!
Today, for those with sub-Sherlock Holmes powers of observation, I provide to you the post on blogging, and how to be polite therein. This is quite an undertaking for a blog, as while I write I am judged to see how good the blog is, and in the end, there will probably be comments about how I left out whatever I perform poorly at so as to look better, but I will continue to do this nonetheless. With any type of blog, no matter the subject or genre or style, there are a few rules that must be followed. As problogger.net, a weblog done by a professional blogger for about 9 years now, says, there are really five main ideals that need to be held for a blog to generally be considered a "great blog."
The first main point they have is that a blog needs transparency, it needs to be true and it needs to simply show its motivations, authors, partners etc. Frankly, if I was reading a blog and no matter how much I liked it, if it talking about Microsoft Office all the time in every one of it's posts and it was a blog about sports, I would not continue reading. Basically, what some blogs will do to get more money besides the standard, acceptable, ads, is they will sell portions of their posts to devote to a business. This is wrong, on this blog and on most other blogs people will occasionally state that some things are better than others, if it is a continuing topic they might repeat it for the duration of the topic, but never will we here at The Consortium stoop to taking money and any other false dealing.
The second point they have is that a blog needs Authenticity, or a real and unique experience. This is probably the most obvious one, because if a blog provides fake information, unless it is attempting humor, or if it covers the same topics or reproduced topics from other blogs, then nobody wants to read it. Likewise, a blog should generally be personal, not this secondary separate part of you that is completely different to yourself ad does not accurately represent your writing style and personality, because that is where your uniqueness comes through a lot of the time.
The third point is a touchy one for some blog authors, as it refers to integrity. I will not talk about this one much because integrity changes between bloggers, and can refer to both dishonesty and honesty, internal fighting and peace, a calm composure and a fighting one, severe rebukes and serene acceptances, and many other things. When a blog compromises it's own integrity for the sake of something else then it has already lost.
The fourth and fifth points are passion and engagement respectively. I put them together here because I believe them to be linked. To write a successful post you must be passionate about what you are writing and actually want to be a part of this, or else it comes out bored. A fellow blogger from TBCRH, The Professor of the Blog, never used a schedule, and I still remember how all of his posts were passionate and influential, he got some of the most comments because of it. With engagement, you really have to remember to post, and comment and reply to emails and more, which if you are passionate about the blog you are doing you will succeed at usually.
While these are great points, as it is a blog it can sometimes be biased, in addition any citation should be followed by more information to back it up, so as to prove that it is not a singular point of view. So for that we turn to Inc., a business magazine founded in 1979 for private businesses and then added on an internet section when internet usage became prevalent. It tends to point out in it's article on blog rules many of the same things as problogger.net does.
One of its' first points is to be transparent and use "a certain amount of candor." Their next two points also overlap with the fourth and fifth points from problogger.net, and they states that it should be updated often as information grows old quickly on the internet and that you should be as interactive as possible with visitors and members. The final one is very important and somewhat parallels the third post from problogger.net, in that it talks not quite about integrity, but staying cool when others are angry, and when you don't quite agree with what people say or think.
Let's look at one more site, a collaborative community organization for scholarly communication: crossref.org, which hosts an open blog basically for standard intellectual communication. They provide a set of strict rules for the blog, asking only for a certain kind of post, and banning any of another kind of post. Some of the things they ban are: "any defamatory, libelous, vulgar, obscene, abusive, profane, threatening, hateful, racially, ethnically, or otherwise offensive or illegal information or material" as well as a full two hundred and seven words more of things not allowed. Obviously this a very extreme case, as it is an incorporated non profit blog, rather than the style of blog hosted by wordpress.com or blogger.com.
Many other blogs don't follow these rules at all and actually are still successful, but they are not targeting the same crowd, but are targeting people more like trolls. In addition, while everything I said above is really a good idea and can be considered a basis for a good blog, but going back to problogger.net, they posted another, somewhat hypocritical, though understandable post much later. In this post they state that although there are many good basic ideas that can be considered rules, the beauty of a blog is that there are really no rules, well, besides standard internet rules.
And with that final thought, I close. Thanks as usual for listening or not, comment if you desire, or not. The rules are being compiled as it goes and will be ready by the end for the final post. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email us at our new address. If you want to make accusations or have any general complaints or see any errors, whether small grammatical errors or large continuity ones, please feel free to let us know.
Farewell and Valedictions,
Eoin Anndra Davis
(Tony Hung, problogger.net <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/01/09/the-rules-behind-creating-a-great-blog/>)
(Jory Des Jardins, Inc. <http://www.inc.com/magazine/20051101/handson-technology-sidebar.html>)
(Crossref.org <http://www.crossref.org/CrossTech/docs/Blog_terms_1_0.htm>)
(Darren Rowse, problogger.net <http://www.problogger.net/archives/2011/03/08/the-11-definitive-rules-of-blogging/>)
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
....I Will Become More Powerful Than You Could Possibly Imagine
Greetings and Salutations,
Today, I would like to say that for the most part the site development has been completed. If you find any problems with the site please send me an E-mail telling me so I can look into it, also, if you have any ideas for anything please send me an E-mail detailing that as well, maybe when the number of readers increases dramatically I'll create a forum in site, or if you want that now, then.... All of my posts on The Blog of Crazy Random Happenstances have been deleted and are now completely transferred to The Consortium as I shall call it instead of stating the whole name. Well, that is either that or ticnag, all lowercase if it needs to be quick and simple, as in a reply to a comment.
Anyways, feel free to go back to my posts that have been transferred over and point out errors and explain why you think I am wrong on some points, and I will definitely consider your points and contribute my own thoughts, and who knows, I might produce addendums in the future detailing your thoughts. Also, feel free to do this about any posts you think are incorrect, have errors, you see in a different light, etc. I welcome all thoughts and am very objective in my views when corrected about my posts, so feel free to comment and say what you like, I won't hate you for it.
If you will remember, in the previous post, the one on Spam that constitutes the last of the "original" posts, I asked you to send me a message detailing which topic you would like next. As of yet, I have not received any messages, so next Wednesday I might just pick one at random and have it be the one you didn't want to hear, or wanted to hear less. I imagine a lot of this is shock at seeing another post, and other things might be the difficulties involved in switching over to the new blog and such, but who knows, you still have time. The topics are etiquette in regards to:
Today, I would like to say that for the most part the site development has been completed. If you find any problems with the site please send me an E-mail telling me so I can look into it, also, if you have any ideas for anything please send me an E-mail detailing that as well, maybe when the number of readers increases dramatically I'll create a forum in site, or if you want that now, then.... All of my posts on The Blog of Crazy Random Happenstances have been deleted and are now completely transferred to The Consortium as I shall call it instead of stating the whole name. Well, that is either that or ticnag, all lowercase if it needs to be quick and simple, as in a reply to a comment.
Anyways, feel free to go back to my posts that have been transferred over and point out errors and explain why you think I am wrong on some points, and I will definitely consider your points and contribute my own thoughts, and who knows, I might produce addendums in the future detailing your thoughts. Also, feel free to do this about any posts you think are incorrect, have errors, you see in a different light, etc. I welcome all thoughts and am very objective in my views when corrected about my posts, so feel free to comment and say what you like, I won't hate you for it.
If you will remember, in the previous post, the one on Spam that constitutes the last of the "original" posts, I asked you to send me a message detailing which topic you would like next. As of yet, I have not received any messages, so next Wednesday I might just pick one at random and have it be the one you didn't want to hear, or wanted to hear less. I imagine a lot of this is shock at seeing another post, and other things might be the difficulties involved in switching over to the new blog and such, but who knows, you still have time. The topics are etiquette in regards to:
Blogging
Pictures
Wikis
Hacking
General Failing
And of course if you have another idea please send it.
With all of these, if you have a particular portion that you would like covered, let me know and I will do my best, or if you have an anecdote to go with it, I'll try to include that as well.
E-mail all suggestions to <ticnag@gmail.com> and I will choose on Wednesday the 16th.
Pictures
Wikis
Hacking
General Failing
And of course if you have another idea please send it.
With all of these, if you have a particular portion that you would like covered, let me know and I will do my best, or if you have an anecdote to go with it, I'll try to include that as well.
E-mail all suggestions to <ticnag@gmail.com> and I will choose on Wednesday the 16th.
Thanks as usual for listening or not, comment if you desire, or not. The rules are being compiled as it goes and will be ready by the end for the final post. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email us at our new address, maybe you can be the first to email us. If you want to make accusations or have any general complaints or see any errors, whether small grammatical errors or large continuity ones, please feel free to let us know.
Farewell and Valedictions,
Eoin Anndra Davis
Monday, March 7, 2011
::original posts:: If You Strike Me Down......
Greetings and Salutations,
....Where to start, where to start....
There are many excuses I can use, and surprisingly all of them are valid and applicable....
There are many places I can set the blame, many things I can say to validate this loss of time....
But I won't, because that's lame to hear, excuses are stupid, (if you really really want to know then email me at our email address) just suffice it to say that we're back, well, I am back. I will not speak for the others as I feel inside that they are not intending to continue this, though they may wish to prove me wrong. It makes no difference whether they join or not, as I will continue posting, even if this blog so called "dies" again I will revive it, in a shanty in the Himalayas with Sherpas holding up wifi boosters in a line to the nearest city creating a link to the rest of the world. Poor Sherpas....
Anyways, heading straight into topic today, continuing the previous topic even though it is a Sunday.
Spam!
And by Spam I do not mean the delicious meat mixture created before World War Two that hasn't changed a bit since then. Who knows, we are probably eating the same Spam overstock from back then, it'll never go bad so....
I digress, The Spam I discuss tonight is the nasty kind that you get in your inbox or in your special spam file if you have gmail or hotmail (or even some of the lesser E-mail providers, though I don't mean to bash them) that slow down everything or have viruses or have really awkward subjects. This Spam is not tasty, in fact, it is very annoying as it can clog up servers and can be irritating.
First and foremost, I kind of mislead you at the beginning to create a connection and let you understand what spam is, but spam is not only for email. Spam can be found in any form of electronic communication and even can be applied to some other things like search engine spam. So to give the technical definition of Spam: Spam is an unsolicited indiscriminate proliferation of repetitive material. And then the basic one for all of those people out there who haven't read the dictionary (twice) is this: Spam is a bunch of the same stuff everywhere, as in when you are talking on a chat room and someone posts the word/name "Beth" four million times in one post, and then does it again. Does this not annoy you? Or you go to comment on something and you look at it and every other post is the same guy saying "visit my sight at blahblahblah.nobodycares.com" again and again. Or someone does that in a forum, or in a wiki, or has the same post or comment repeated in a blog repetitively. And then you get to the advertisements that are the same on every single site, and you have the same ones posted 8 times on one site. This is Spam too. Even things like repetitive junk faxes and repetitive sites on web searches or multiple instant messages are considered spam. One place I have noticed is a hot spot for spam is Facebook, and how could you not? It's perfect for Spam! covered in ads, requests of all kinds, comments, chats, messages, and more.
Spam can be used positively sometimes though, if there is a cause that needs to be supported, having everyone send the same message to a reporter or congressman etc. is a very effective means of getting heard, but I do not want a million dollars if I click here and I know that I am not the one millionth person on this site so I don't want this seizure inducing ad in my face everywhere.
The main thing to get out of this, and here's where I apply rules and make up new ones.... I mean take them from a very reliable source like W3C.... that's what I said, right? So basically rule eight and nine are the only rules that directly apply, the others of course apply to everything on the internet, but it is really hard to tie in trolling with spam, trust me, the first few drafts of this proved that to me. So because rule eight and nine are the only ones that directly apply, and because you haven't seen them in a post anywhere yet, I will proceed to pronounce them presently (alliteration for the win). Rule nine ties in with the the repetitiveness part of Spam in as much as rule nine states: once is usually enough, twice hammers it in, thrice is the final hit, the fourth time is just obnoxious bashing around. If you ever watch a carpenter at work, and my whole family is populated by them, you will know that it takes approximately three hits to drive in the average nail. One to start, one to sink, and one to make it flush. Anybody that does it more than that is either new and will learn with time and you just have to be patient, or is just obnoxious. Rule eight is that if it hurts anything, don't do it. Spam can both hurt servers, cause seizures, cause headaches, cause simple pure irritation or can even cause people to get hurt. Some times spam is used to lure people down to the docks and other shady places where they get murdered and or mugged by the senders. No, I am not joking. This has actually happened, many times. Don't Spam.
As I begin to wrap up this post, I would like to make a challenge, again. Sometime before March 16th (or 9th if I'm lucky and you don't procrastinate so I can make a subject even sooner) send a message to ticnag@gmail.com about what you would like the next subject to be:
Blogging
Pictures
Wikis
Hacking
General Failing
Or if you can think of anything else please send it to me and I will write about it.
Thanks as usual for listening or not, comment if you desire, or not. The rules are being compiled as it goes and will be ready by the end for the final post. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email us at our new address, maybe you can be the first to email us. If you want to make accusations or have any general complaints or see any errors, whether small grammatical errors or large continuity ones, please feel free to let us know.
Farewell and Valedictions,
The King of the Blog
::original posts:: Agora, Plaza, Amphitheatre, Piazza...
Greetings and Salutations,
Today I am going to discuss chat rooms and forums, if you couldn't tell from above.
So, first, what are chat rooms and forums? Well, I'll start with chat rooms and then go on to the more advanced discussion medium of the forum. So if you don't know already, a chat room is a medium for simultaneous communication via one more methods of communicating. For example, one chat room may enable you to converse textually with many people at the same time, another might let you use a webcam to actually converse vocally and/or use body gestures. Most chat rooms let you converse using text based communication, by itself or in addition to other forms of communication. Take Skype for example, it allows you to converse using any of the three simultaneously, but you don't have to have a webcam or microphone to communicate. Chat rooms are great things for communicating for businesses and gamers and many other groups, but one downside to a chat room is that it's literally like talking to a room, everybody hears what you say, there is limited ways to talk directly to one person or another, which is where the @[insert name here] custom started, and Skype somewhat fixed this by letting you personal message (PM) someone.
Now take forums on the other hand, which are based on the same principles of open communication and discussion. Forums are slightly more constricting in that they are not simultaneous, as it takes a short amount of time to post each response, and in addition it is restricted to only text based communication. One benefit to using a forum is that you don't have to log in to the forum to see the posts, many times you do have to log in for posting, but not for viewing. A contrast between the two is that forums are entirely online when many times chat rooms use software that has to be bought or downloaded to use. In addition, forums can be set up to have each message moderated before it is posted as opposed to messages being removed after they are posted, if they are moderated at all in a chat room. Another contrast is that messages posted in forums are archived and will stay there for a long time, as opposed to a chat room which has everything deleted after every conversation usually.
I have mentioned moderators and moderation several times now, so I will attempt to give a short explanation of them. A moderator is someone who knows and understands all the rules of the forum/chat room/etc. and is usually an officer or an appointed position rather than an earned or elected one. What a moderator does is they examine posts and topics, and if these posts or entire topics do not follow the rules, then they either delete the posts/topics or they drop the mighty banhammer on the poster(s) who are abusing the rules and kick them out.
So chat rooms and forums are great things, right? Well, yes, they can be used to learn or teach incredible things. Teachers sometimes use them in online courses to teach their students. I have used forums many times to find out how to fix computer problems and programming issues. There are many incredible uses for a forum or a chat room, but unfortunately this is where trolls come into the picture.
A troll in reference to online forums and chat rooms is not a Norse mythological beast, nor is it attempting to catch tuna. An internet troll is someone who performs the act of trolling, which is to say or do things to provoke a usually negative reaction from somebody. This should not be done. By being a troll you are pushing people away from each other, being divisive, causing breaks in the system of communication, and to do this you have to ignore many of the rules of internet courtesy anyways. Finally, being a troll is basically like being an anarchist, and if you haven't reasoned it out yet, the only way anarchy will work is if it is tru, and that is only possible in a singular human society. If you can't figure it out for yourself, comment or email us and I will give you a special weekend post this sunday explaining it. Rule number six, don't be a troll. In anything, video games, chat rooms, forums, any medium for conversation, don't be a troll. Nobody loves you if you are a troll. The first and last rule for dealing with trolls is this; rule seven: don't fight a troll, answer a troll once with a clearly defined thought pattern for why you believe what you do or sufficient proof, kindly, to the contrary, and if they still fight back then they truly are a troll, ignore them. Totally ignore them. The moderators will take care of them or they will get bored. if you show that you are annoyed at them then they will never stop and you will have defeated yourself.
well, I am going to skip rules eight and nine today because the work in better with the next few topics, but I am going to give you arguably the most important rule for internet courtesy, which I have already referenced in my past post on video game courtesy, which is this; rule ten: better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt. To be thought a fool is nothing, I have been thought a fool many a time, many of which I truly was, but I know people who do open their mouths and remove all doubt of them being a ignoramus. this should not happen, it's really easy to be quiet.
Of course the previous rules one through five still are important for forums and chat rooms, as are six seven and ten for video games.
Thanks as usual for listening or not, comment if you desire, or not. The rules are being compiled as it goes and will be ready by the end for the final post. If you have any questions, please feel free to comment or email us at our new address, maybe you can be the first to email us.
Farewell and Valedictions,
The King of the Blog
::original posts:: Gaming, Not Always Fun.
Greetings and Salutations,
Today I'm going to talk about gaming courtesy. Pretty straightforward as usual, don't be a jerk, and don't overestimate yourself.
Have you ever been playing a game for a long time and gotten really good at it and then had someone come up and tell you that you are doing everything wrong and that you play horribly? It has happened to me many times and is a blatant violation of basic web courtesy.
First off, no, you should never ever walk up to someone and tell them they are stupid, terrible, ugly, bad, etc. that's rule number one of things not to do ever. Doing so only makes them annoyed, angry, etc. which is just not cool. And even if they are stupid, their character is ugly, they are cussing a lot, they can't play the game well, etc. you still don't say that, because it just feeds them and they cuss at you some more, make some more stupid errors, change their character colors to putrid pink, and attempt to kill you... a lot. I have been made aware of one time my friends were playing a game and someone was making fun of a spell and saying it was worthless, so my friends proceeded to all get said spell and one the game with it. Abraham Lincoln said "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt." Don't be overconfident, yes mages and clerics can be squishy at times, but T100 has made a cleric before that is a tank. Don't make fun of things, you can usually be proved wrong.
Second, if you actually think they are doing something wrong or that there is a better way of doing it, do not attack them for it. Ever. Basic rule number two is to calmly and passively tell someone "you know there is a better way to do 'X'" or "you know, I thought that you weren't supposed to do 'X'" or even "please don't do 'X'" and always follow these up with a 'because...' statement to provide a reason, and not just because it'll influence them more, which it will, but because it will let them continue to think you aren't a complete jerk, and who knows, you may be wrong or that might be their playing style, who knows. For example, I play LoL (league of Legends) a lot with my friends, but haven't been playing quite as long. I can't tell you how many times that I have been caught up in one thing and haven't been able to pay attention to another and so have died. I also cannot count how many times some of my friends have continued on to call me retarded for not paying attention, even if I did manage to kill someone first. Many times have they said "stop doing [insert action here] you can't do that with that character stupid." Imagine hearing this over and over again; it isn't pleasant.
When I play team based games, I usually go for the ranged healing support character, a cleric/ranger hybrid in D&D based games, Soraka and Sivir in LoL, Clerics in most other games as well. So when I play these games with my friends, it surprises me how often they leave me, the squishiest possible character in a game, all alone surrounded by enemies. I die ridiculously often, and then they make fun of me because I did my job and they didn't do theirs. In any team based game, or any team based activity period in life, each person has their own job. I fulfill my job by healing and protecting other characters, and attacking the ones my friends can't get to, many times flawlessly. But if they don't protect my character I die in like three hits. And then they make fun of me. Do not do this, get better friends, point them to this site at least. Rule number three: protect your friends, do your part, that is all.
Finally, unless I forgot something in which case I will update this post and let you know on a Sunday, never make fun of newbies. There is a big difference between a Newb and a Noob. A Newb is someone brand new to a game or to a guild, party, class, etc. someone who is brand new and willing to learn. A Noob on the other hand is someone who has been playing the game for a long time but plays like he is new, and is not willing to take criticism or learn. A noob you can torture until they leave, because they are not doing it right, they are not pushing forward and following the rules because guess what, Rule number four: take criticism and teaching and act on it, if they follow rules one and two, then they really do know generally what they are talking about, and if they don't thank them, provide your reasoning why not, and move along. followed by rule five: don't be a noob, kill noobs if you get a chance, and protect newbs as you would your own friends/clan/guild etc.
Thanks for listening or not, comment if you want or not, Once I'm finished with all of the topics I'll present them to you in a post without any examples for easy reading and copy/pasting. any questions, feel free to comment or email me whenever I get around to posting the address.
Farewell and Valedictions,
The King of the Blog
::original posts:: Just don't be a Jerk.
Greetings and Salutations,
Today I'm going to start a series on internet courtesy and proper conduct therein, ending eventually in trolling, maybe. I'm unfortunately not going to give you any specifics, so this will be a rather short post, but I'll be giving you a clue about what to look forward to, and yes, this is also do to Winter-een-mas, as well as work, school, looking for a car, Christmas, snow, laziness, winter break, and many others. But mostly, this is do to having picked a ridiculously long, and important, topic that I feel I need lots of research to get the importance across. So I intend to find time to discuss blogs, forums, pictures, wikis, spam, hacking, general failing, trolling, and gaming, and if I come up with any more topics or if you personally think of something, please comment with the idea below or email it to the blog when I post the new email address this upcoming Saturday, I promise not to make fun of you for it. The main key overall to be courteous on the internet, is if it has the potential at all to be hurtful, don't do/say it, it's not cool.
Sorry again for the comparably short post, you won't regret the time used for the research, it'll make everything turn out better.
Farewell and Valedictions,
The King of the Blog
::original posts:: Back to Scamming.... Cons....
Greetings and Salutations,
As I'm sure you're aware (if you have at least half a brain) from the title, today I will be continuing to discuss fan conventions and specifically Dragon*Con and similar Split Cons. (if you didn't catch the last one, click here: here )
So I won't be talking about Amalgamated or Single Track Cons, because, in talking about individual tracks of a Split Con you in effect talk about the corresponding Single Track Con. And an Amalgamated Con is pretty straight forward, everything is just in rows and every group is mixed, or sometimes slightly divided, but usually in those things there are enough cross genre types, as in Comic-Con, that everything still seems mixed up. For example, Star Wars could potentially, by someone unintelligent, be placed in the furries section because of wookies... they would be wrong though. And so instead of just not talking about Amalgamated and Single Track Cons I just did, great.
Anyways, Dragon*Con and other Split Track Cons divide up, duh, into different genres or if individual shows are large enough, then shows. For example there is an Anime/Manga Track and a Paranormal Track, which are genres, and there are Star Wars and Star Trek Tracks, which are shows (and books, and movies, and so much more). So if you are going to a Con, where do you go? You liked the first three movies of Star Wars, but you haven't seen the new trilogy yet, do you go walk through the Star Wars track? Are you qualified? Well, the way Cons work is you don't just get put where they think you should be, or where you are "qualified" to be, you go where you will enjoy things. Sure, you won't recognize some people dressed up like Anakin, or Darth Traya etc. but there will be enough things there that you will still enjoy it and have fun. But one important detail: if you see someone dressed up as a character you don't know, don't be an idiot and go up to him and say that it's not canon and isn't in Star Wars or whatever, because then you should die, and possibly will. And you know what? you probably deserve it too. So what if you go somewhere you don't know anything about? will you still have fun? The answer is maybe, I know people who will sometimes walk the Anime/Manga Track and they don't read or watch any of it, but it's just to laugh at all of the costumes and people. But if you want to know who or what someone is dressed up as, this is the only correct way to approach them: "Hi, that's a really cool/interesting/neat/detailed/(insert good compliment here) costume, are you from this track or what?" and if they don't tell you who they are in their answer: "cool! so who are you supposed to be? I am pretty ignorant of that subject." (say this even if you aren't ignorant) If you know who they are, congrats, you can say hi and chat for a bit, but if there's any possibility of confusion play it safe, getting someone confused with someone else is a good way to get nerd bombed.
So basically that's how it works, the main hall and cafeterias are generally melting pots for all the groups, so it's a great place to hang out and enjoy being there, and there are great shops and stuff too, As well as games, shows, talks, movies, food, parades, and more.
I believe I shall follow in Entropy's footsteps and give a challenge to our apparently non conversant readers, tell us about something you did or learned or bought at a fan convention, or ask a question about something you don't understand, or just comment period, or even argue with me over some small or large detail about what I wrote. Just talk, we don't even have trolls in our commenters.... (next week's subject....)
Live long and prosper,
King of the Blog
::original posts:: My life for Aiur!
Greetings and Salutations,
My apologies for not doing a synopsis this past week, it was kindly and efficiently done by the Professor of the Blog. My personal excuse was that I was working all day long, and hadn’t planned ahead like I normally do... but we both just know it was most likely just laziness.
Today I will be mixing things up a bit, because of the magnitude of the Con I have already said I have to give you some background before I can finish the rest, and that will be covered in the second half of this post, as well as a start on talking about the divisions of Nerddom. But in the first half I am going to talk some more about why people persecute us specifically.
Well, I have already talked a lot about the different social groups and one of the base reasons for inter-group persecution (if you missed it click this link: link ) but why do they specifically pick us to do their worst? Well, first let’s think back again to high school. Who was the most likely to get good grades in class? Well, as a nerd, hopefully you were, unless you were really really lazy. Next, good grades means you are doing the best in that area of school, which could be argued is the most important and integral part of actually going to school. So, let’s say you are doing the best on the most important function of school, so who is the most important person in the school? That would be you. Now from their view this means that you are threatening their superiority within the school, and that’s not cool to them, not cool at all. So, they throw you against the wall, close you in lockers, trip you while you walk, etc. because this means that they have the upper hand, i.e. that they are the most important. For girls they can either do the same or spread it around that you are ugly, stupid, unwanted or loved, etc. And this isn’t fun at all, I can assure you.
So that’s high school, college gets a little more relaxed except for the frat boys, but we won’t talk about those today, which leads us into work life. being really intelligent and quick to learn is a surefire way to become management or other high paying jobs. While this is good for you, remember that being in a better position over others is not enjoyed by other more ambitious people. Granted, work life is much better than the angsty suffering of high school and is somewhat more laid back than in college, but people can still ignore you, or “forget” to bring you coffee, or otherwise be jerks. But otherwise, being at work can be great especially if you are in a place where you are surrounded by nerds. Sometimes even then, though, life can be hard.
Now we get into the divisions of Nerddom. I’ve referenced this in a post a long time ago on nerd bombs (again, if you missed it click this link: link ) but only very briefly. I’ve talked about how Nerds have general knowledge of most things, and Geeks have specific knowledge, but many times nerds will specialise as well, as in a computer nerd or a band nerd. yes there is such a thing as a band geek, and a computer geek, but those are different. Being a specific nerd means that you have general knowledge of everything and specific knowledge in one or more things. So basically I know music and computers and video games, and technology and webcomics and Cons etc., but I also know binary and hexadecimal code by heart, can translate music into it’s base mathematical components, etc. that doesn’t mean that I can quote every episode of Star Trek: The Original Series from memory, even though I’ve watched them all, it just means that I am both a nerd, and a geek.
So we have all of these divisions, how is that a problem? well, I’ll mostly be getting into this on the 29th, but each of these divisions tends to be, well, divisive. And because of the divisions we don’t work as well, we can actually have separate cliques inside of Nerddom, which is truly sad. One of the main reasons, probably the most important reasons, why we are persecuted, is that we are the ones most likely to work well together. Our innermost desire is not to be the best, or to finish first etc. It’s to come together and do things for the greater good, for science, for Aiur, for the fun of it. And yes I am going into one of those “united we stand, divided we fall” types of speeches. If we look at the jocks and the cheerleaders for reference, yes, as a whole they want to become the most important, but they also on the individual level want to become most important, and that sets them up already for disaster. Entropy talked about how she misses constantly being with her nerd friends from high school, but she still hangs out with them all the time, talks with them on Skype, plays games with them. The likelihood of a jock desiring at all, period, to come back and wanting to do stuff with their other jock friends is one in a million. And yet we do all the time.
So basically remember, these are your friends, your brothers, and without this brotherhood we will fall, so yes there are differences, I like math a ton, and maybe you don’t, but don’t push people away. That is all.
As always, comment if you want to argue, like if you like, don’t if you don’t. Our posts don’t get better on their own, so make sure to give us ideas if you want, you can email them to me or put them in the comments and we’ll make sure to either completely ignore you as a rule, or to address whatever you have to say and appreciate your help..... maybe.
Word of the week:
hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Translation:
A fear of long words.
Live long and Prosper,
My apologies for not doing a synopsis this past week, it was kindly and efficiently done by the Professor of the Blog. My personal excuse was that I was working all day long, and hadn’t planned ahead like I normally do... but we both just know it was most likely just laziness.
Today I will be mixing things up a bit, because of the magnitude of the Con I have already said I have to give you some background before I can finish the rest, and that will be covered in the second half of this post, as well as a start on talking about the divisions of Nerddom. But in the first half I am going to talk some more about why people persecute us specifically.
Well, I have already talked a lot about the different social groups and one of the base reasons for inter-group persecution (if you missed it click this link: link ) but why do they specifically pick us to do their worst? Well, first let’s think back again to high school. Who was the most likely to get good grades in class? Well, as a nerd, hopefully you were, unless you were really really lazy. Next, good grades means you are doing the best in that area of school, which could be argued is the most important and integral part of actually going to school. So, let’s say you are doing the best on the most important function of school, so who is the most important person in the school? That would be you. Now from their view this means that you are threatening their superiority within the school, and that’s not cool to them, not cool at all. So, they throw you against the wall, close you in lockers, trip you while you walk, etc. because this means that they have the upper hand, i.e. that they are the most important. For girls they can either do the same or spread it around that you are ugly, stupid, unwanted or loved, etc. And this isn’t fun at all, I can assure you.
So that’s high school, college gets a little more relaxed except for the frat boys, but we won’t talk about those today, which leads us into work life. being really intelligent and quick to learn is a surefire way to become management or other high paying jobs. While this is good for you, remember that being in a better position over others is not enjoyed by other more ambitious people. Granted, work life is much better than the angsty suffering of high school and is somewhat more laid back than in college, but people can still ignore you, or “forget” to bring you coffee, or otherwise be jerks. But otherwise, being at work can be great especially if you are in a place where you are surrounded by nerds. Sometimes even then, though, life can be hard.
Now we get into the divisions of Nerddom. I’ve referenced this in a post a long time ago on nerd bombs (again, if you missed it click this link: link ) but only very briefly. I’ve talked about how Nerds have general knowledge of most things, and Geeks have specific knowledge, but many times nerds will specialise as well, as in a computer nerd or a band nerd. yes there is such a thing as a band geek, and a computer geek, but those are different. Being a specific nerd means that you have general knowledge of everything and specific knowledge in one or more things. So basically I know music and computers and video games, and technology and webcomics and Cons etc., but I also know binary and hexadecimal code by heart, can translate music into it’s base mathematical components, etc. that doesn’t mean that I can quote every episode of Star Trek: The Original Series from memory, even though I’ve watched them all, it just means that I am both a nerd, and a geek.
So we have all of these divisions, how is that a problem? well, I’ll mostly be getting into this on the 29th, but each of these divisions tends to be, well, divisive. And because of the divisions we don’t work as well, we can actually have separate cliques inside of Nerddom, which is truly sad. One of the main reasons, probably the most important reasons, why we are persecuted, is that we are the ones most likely to work well together. Our innermost desire is not to be the best, or to finish first etc. It’s to come together and do things for the greater good, for science, for Aiur, for the fun of it. And yes I am going into one of those “united we stand, divided we fall” types of speeches. If we look at the jocks and the cheerleaders for reference, yes, as a whole they want to become the most important, but they also on the individual level want to become most important, and that sets them up already for disaster. Entropy talked about how she misses constantly being with her nerd friends from high school, but she still hangs out with them all the time, talks with them on Skype, plays games with them. The likelihood of a jock desiring at all, period, to come back and wanting to do stuff with their other jock friends is one in a million. And yet we do all the time.
So basically remember, these are your friends, your brothers, and without this brotherhood we will fall, so yes there are differences, I like math a ton, and maybe you don’t, but don’t push people away. That is all.
As always, comment if you want to argue, like if you like, don’t if you don’t. Our posts don’t get better on their own, so make sure to give us ideas if you want, you can email them to me or put them in the comments and we’ll make sure to either completely ignore you as a rule, or to address whatever you have to say and appreciate your help..... maybe.
Word of the week:
hippopotomonstrosesquipedaliophobia.
Translation:
A fear of long words.
Live long and Prosper,
The King of the Blog
::original posts:: Dragon*Con and More
Greetings and Salutations
Today I am going to talk with you about a very special part of being a Nerd, which is going to the Cons. It takes a special type of person to be able to dodge through everybody and fulfill all the requirements to be at one of them, and so today I am going to give you all the information you will need for going to one. Before I start, just know that whenever I say Con, no, I am not scamming you and am not referring to a confidence trick, those aren’t cool at all. In addition I will be giving a word of the week every time I post, which you can attempt to use in your life or just point at and laugh, as in this week’s word.
First off, let me tell you what a Con is. A Con is a convention, hence the Con-vention, it’s just a shortening of the base term. When you talk about a convention, usually you are talking about an industrial convention, where you get together and discuss what is happening in your industrial field, or in your profession. There are also the conventions similar to E3 or the World Fair where everyone interested gets together to show everything new that is being developed. But these are all conventions. what we want to talk about is a Con, which is actually very different. A Con is a multi-genre convention, which means that it doesn’t just rest on one specific subject, as an industrial or professional convention does, and in addition it doesn’t serve as a path to commercial gain, as the World Fair and E3 do. Now I’m sure (actually I’m not) that you’re wondering why I’m going through all this stuff to talk about a simple topic, but it’s actually important information that you should know, or at least I think you should know.
So now that you know the basics, let me tell you about how it works. A Con can either be divided up into several fan tracks, or can be amalgamated out on the floor. Dragon*Con in Atlanta Georgia is an example of a split Con, whereas Comic-Con is an example of a amalgamated Con (there are also a few specific one track Cons, but those are not as well known). So at Comic-Con, you walk in and there are aisles, you walk down each aisle to see whoever you want to see, and then you leave, whereas at Dragon*Con you pick which fan track you want to go on, and walk down each one of those which are secluded from the others, until you finish and leave, or stay around for some of the many guest speeches and new showing or games.
Unfortunately for you, I won’t be discussing fan tracks or the people who go to Cons until the 22nd of December, because I have to give you some background first this upcoming week. But I can, however, tell you that the people who go to Cons are formidably solid in their Nerddom. Going to Cons gives you a great chance to be with people who have the same interests, and to have fun with others like yourself.
I hope after this unfortunately brief discussion, you will think about going to a Con, and if not, maybe I can persuade you later this year when I tell you some more.
Word of the week: Lopadotemakhoselakhogameokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakekhymenokikhlepikossyphophattoperister-alektryonoptokephalliokigklopeleiolagōiosiraiobaphētraganopterýgōn.
Translation: “a dish compounded of all kinds of dainties, fish, flesh, fowl, and sauces”.
Today I am going to talk with you about a very special part of being a Nerd, which is going to the Cons. It takes a special type of person to be able to dodge through everybody and fulfill all the requirements to be at one of them, and so today I am going to give you all the information you will need for going to one. Before I start, just know that whenever I say Con, no, I am not scamming you and am not referring to a confidence trick, those aren’t cool at all. In addition I will be giving a word of the week every time I post, which you can attempt to use in your life or just point at and laugh, as in this week’s word.
First off, let me tell you what a Con is. A Con is a convention, hence the Con-vention, it’s just a shortening of the base term. When you talk about a convention, usually you are talking about an industrial convention, where you get together and discuss what is happening in your industrial field, or in your profession. There are also the conventions similar to E3 or the World Fair where everyone interested gets together to show everything new that is being developed. But these are all conventions. what we want to talk about is a Con, which is actually very different. A Con is a multi-genre convention, which means that it doesn’t just rest on one specific subject, as an industrial or professional convention does, and in addition it doesn’t serve as a path to commercial gain, as the World Fair and E3 do. Now I’m sure (actually I’m not) that you’re wondering why I’m going through all this stuff to talk about a simple topic, but it’s actually important information that you should know, or at least I think you should know.
So now that you know the basics, let me tell you about how it works. A Con can either be divided up into several fan tracks, or can be amalgamated out on the floor. Dragon*Con in Atlanta Georgia is an example of a split Con, whereas Comic-Con is an example of a amalgamated Con (there are also a few specific one track Cons, but those are not as well known). So at Comic-Con, you walk in and there are aisles, you walk down each aisle to see whoever you want to see, and then you leave, whereas at Dragon*Con you pick which fan track you want to go on, and walk down each one of those which are secluded from the others, until you finish and leave, or stay around for some of the many guest speeches and new showing or games.
Unfortunately for you, I won’t be discussing fan tracks or the people who go to Cons until the 22nd of December, because I have to give you some background first this upcoming week. But I can, however, tell you that the people who go to Cons are formidably solid in their Nerddom. Going to Cons gives you a great chance to be with people who have the same interests, and to have fun with others like yourself.
I hope after this unfortunately brief discussion, you will think about going to a Con, and if not, maybe I can persuade you later this year when I tell you some more.
Word of the week: Lopadotemakhoselakhogameokranioleipsanodrimypotrimmatosilphiokarabomelitokatakekhymenokikhlepikossyphophattoperister-alektryonoptokephalliokigklopeleiolagōiosiraiobaphētraganopterýgōn.
Translation: “a dish compounded of all kinds of dainties, fish, flesh, fowl, and sauces”.
Live Long and Prosper,
The King of the Blogv
::original posts:: Irony, very much Irony
Greetings and salutations,
I come bearing interesting, oddly ironic, and informative news. Today’s topic was brought to you at the last minute, with no prior work, because of the many unnecessary things I decide are more important than this whenever I have time to write this. So today I’m gong to discuss the wonderful nuances of laziness, an ironic subject I had put on my schedule to talk about several weeks ago.
So anyways, onto the topic, laziness is a human trait that is very common in the current era. I say the current era because back when you had to work for your living and you weren’t able to just live off of your parents and inherit the fortune your uncle stashed away, if you were lazy, you died. So obviously we can see that times have changed.... a lot.... and so we now have a problem with “kids these days” being really lazy, kinda like me. So I know we all know what laziness is, so I’m just going to give a brief overview and then go on to some reasons for why you should avoid it, and follow up with some methods to avoid being lazy.
Well, laziness as you all know is a lack of a “drive” to keep going, putting other more interesting or less difficult things to do before the less interesting or more difficult things. For instance, one usually does video games instead of doing their homework, because even if the homework is fun, like doing long strings of easy math, or writing a short story, or programming a short game depending on what class or major you are in. This is because of the proven fact that video games are fun, just look at the game sells, and the fact that there are at least 71,905 computer game sites on the Internet: Google data. But there are many other situations similar to this, we could talk about how we’d like to do [insert simple amusing easy fun here] instead of [insert work task here] all day long, and that would definitely make this post easier because then I wouldn’t have to write a whole lot on it, because I assure you, we all have a long list of stuff we’d rather do then other things. And then there’s the next level of laziness, there’s the people who just don’t want to do stuff, they are “not energetic or vigorous” as Merriam-Webster says. these are the people who call you in the middle of the night to go get you something because they don’t want to get up. Also, these are the people who sit on the couches watching television with a beer helmet on so you don’t have to get up to get another one, or even, *gasp* hold the can in your hand and raise it to your lips, because that’s just too much work. And then I guess if you took it a step further, I imagine people laying on their beds getting fed intravenously, having a catheter attached, and having the television mounted on the ceiling so that you don’t have to turn your head to see it. But I don’t know anybody like that, personally that is.... although my friends can be somewhat lazy, and if you are reading this and are feeling guilty.... I mean you. But we’re just going to look at the more common type of laziness, the first I mentioned, because it’s the most common, and hence probably the most relevant to you.
So now we know what laziness is, let’s get into why we should avoid it. Well, I’m sure some of you have experienced the “oh crap, that huge project is due tomorrow” situation at least once, and maybe that influenced you to not be lazy anymore, because it works like that for about half the current population. As well, I know that I’ve been personally punished for not doing chores or turning extracurricular papers or forms in on time, and that’s not fun. Finally on this subject, answer me this: how does it help? All you’ve succeeded in doing is pushing back something that will be required anyways so you will have less time doing it, will get stressed which is actually harmful physically to you. However, if you do it the right way: because of the extra time you have, you are now probably able to turn in a much better piece of work, which gives you a better grade, eventually getting you a better college, for a better degree, and subsequently a better job, a better house, a better car, more money, and if you’re smart and aren’t lazy: an early retirement consisting only of video games or whatever it is you do instead of what you should. For the alternative, take the antonym of every statement in that ridiculous run on sentence and you will figure out what will happen.
So I’ve hopefully given you a reason to not be lazy, so how does this happen? Well, I now give you the easiest and hardest answer in the world: you work. If you actually work on these things then you won’t be behind and can have a happier life, despite what people tell you about work. I can give a hint though on how to help you through this: time management. Which is basically a fancy way of saying, set up a calendar, and get everything done ahead of time. Just don’t ignore the calendar, because then you just set yourself up for a downward spiral. For example you can look at this very blog and see how with no schedule the blog became barren of posts. But now that I added the schedule, you have lots of posts every week. But as with anything, if we don’t follow the schedule we can fall into a downward spiral as well. So I hope you enjoyed the post, make sure to tell us how we do by clicking the little buttons at the bottom or commenting.
Live long and prosper,
The King of the Blog
::original posts:: Swirlies and Other Stories
Greetings and Salutations,
Today I bring to you a long and boring topic that is pretty interesting to me, but it’s pretty much a Schrödinger event whether you like it or not. So here goes:
We have already discussed what the difference between being a nerd and a geek are, but why are they considered distinct social classes? Well, today I’m going to answer that question. So we know that there are several different social groups, because as nerds we have been persecuted as a group, by other groups. So let’s consult the oracle to find out what a social group is: on 11/23/10 at 11:43 Wikipedia said that “a group can be defined as two or more humans who interact with one another, accept expectations and obligations as members of the group, and share a common identity.” Whoopdi do, now what does that mean in layman’s terms? Well, in the most basic terms it means that a social group is comprised of people that do the same things. I play video games and so do you, so we are in a social group together. But then it gets more in depth... I play League of Legends (LoL) and so do you, therefore we are in the same social group, but we don’t play Modern Warfare 2 (MW2) so we aren’t in the same subgroup as those other people that do. And we can even take this a step further! I play LoL really well but you don’t, so we aren’t in the same sub-subgroup. In fact, I play this certain character really well with a certain build on a certain level with a certain type of team around versus a distinct class of enemies at a certain time of the day on LoL, and you don’t so we are in a different sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-subgroup. and now that you are thoroughly confused look at this hexadecachoron for a while:
So now that your brain hurts from looking at the third dimensional reflection of a fourth dimensional object (in this case a Hexadecachoron), I’m going to try and clear up some of this confusion. First off, yes there are an infinite number of groups as long as there are differences between you and other people. If you think of social groups as just a group of friends, you’re good. I enjoy just about the same video games as my friends, I play and listen to about the same music as most of my friends, I read the same books, watch the same movies, and know very similar stuff. We as friends are in what they call a secondary group, which is in reference to non familial relations. But enough about really minuscule groups, lets talk about the important things, like large groups. Now let’s see, think back to when you were in high school or college, what groups were there then. Let’s see, there were the Jocks, the Nerds, the Geeks, the druggies, the “hotties”, and the musicians, also known as band geeks. So along with these memories I’m sure comes a lot of bad memories of getting shoved around and having swirlies by members of other groups, so why? Well, it all comes down to this: we each think we are better than the other groups. The Jocks will always think they are the best because they are the strongest, have the most girls, are the best at a certain sport, etc. The Geeks and Nerds will think they’re the best because they are the smartest, have the most Pokemon cards, are the best at certain games, etc. As well, the hotties think they are the most loved, have the newest fashions, have the most expensive clothes, etc. And then you get the musicians, that group of geeks that are so specialised and large enough that they get their own group, who think they are the best because they do.... basically they think that since their band is so “awesome” and that they play so “well” that they are the best. Part of this is do to the fact that they are drawn together better than many of the other social groups because of the many events they have together which tends to bond them together despite what other groups you may be in.
And that brings us to our next point which is that you can be in several social groups simultaneously. I myself am both a Geek, Nerd, and a musician, among others, because the groups listed above are just the most prevalent. One can be any one of the above groups, or an amalgamation of several, or different aspects of others, etc. Now we get back to the confusion of before, in that anything that you have in common with someone else can put you in a similar class as them. So we have all this info, so if you have someone who plays and is good at Halo 2 and someone who plays and is good at Halo 3, why do they get in fights over who is best and which game is best etc.? (A highly stylised and specific, and probably not very realistic, but still a good way of seeing it, example) Well, basically each group as I said before wants to be thought of as the best. And so they persecute all other groups “below” them. When it comes down to it, there really aren’t any groups better or worse than each other, so the intergroup persecution is basically stupid.
And with that, I finish. Comment if you want to argue, like if you like, don’t if you don’t. Our posts don’t get better on their own, so make sure to give us ideas if you want, you can email them to me or put them in the comments and we’ll make sure to either completely ignore you as a rule, or to address whatever you have to say and appreciate your help..... maybe.
Live long and prosper,
The King of the Blog
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)