#I plan on 3d printing him about a million times thank you

[motherlyra]

3D Hissi

Look at my son who I made at 5am. Please love him

[punkiesocialonline]

Hey! Can you do a Host x Dark fic? Like a Platonic/ sorta romantic one where Dark finds theses little printed notes throughout his office with inspirational quotes and stuff! Thanks Squib!

I’m so sorry this is like super duper late! I’ve been off of tumblr for months now trying to get things situated in my home life, but I’m back and better than ever! So, here is the long awaited fic, Anon!

Pairing: Darkiplier x Host

TW:None; Fluff

Dark’s head was throbbing. He had not slept a full nights rest in days. He was too caught up in schemes and plans, along with his additional work of running the office and keeping his fellow egos alive. The latter was much harder than it sounded. 

With Wilford always pointing waving his gun around and Yan leaving their knives in places where knives should not be, the work load was more than it should be for a house full of adults. All the Ipliers had been getting on Dark’s nerves lately, except for Host. Host had always been the more quieter egos, but unlike Eric or Dr.Iplier, he was not scared nor wary of the dark ego. 

No, Host treated Dark the way he treated everyone. Or, at least, that’s what Dark thought. 

It had taken Dark a few moments to process what Wilford had asked him, and even then, he did not fully understand the question.

“I’m not sure I know what you mean, Wil.”

The pink ego rolled his eyes, his smirk hidden under his pink mustache. 

“Of course you don’t, you oblivious bully! Honestly, I thought you were smarter than this, Darkipoo. I asked how do you make Host smile like that? He’s usually so cold and...what’s the word, hmmm...” Wilford trailed off in thought.

Dark sighed and rubbed his temple. He did not want to deal with Wilford’s...Wilfordness today. He already had enough on his plate as it was, he  did not need anything else to over think.

“Wil, my friend, perhaps we can talk about this another-” he was cut off by a finger similar to his own pressed against his lips.

“Distant! That’s the word!” Wilford exclaimed, removing his finger from Dark’s mouth and cocking his eye brow. “How do you get Hosty open up like you do?”

The older ego thought on that. He had never thought about it before, but he had noticed how Host’s mannerisms changed when speaking with him. Dark always thought it was a show of respect, but the more he thought the more he saw the signals. The problem was, thinking made his head hurt worse. 

He dismissed the question with a wave off his hand and hurried off, almost able to hear Willford’s eyebrows raise. He scrambled to his office, his safe place. There, he sat in his desk and put his head down on the desk with a groan. Another annoyed noise escaped him when he heard his email beep. 

“I swear, if it is the infuriating Bingiplier I’m gonna-” 

Darkiplier was stuck in his tracks once more. There, sitting plain as day, was a yellow stick note on his computer monitor. He did not even need to pick up the paper to see what the messy writing said. 

‘Remember to take a break, you keep over working yourself.’ 

Written next to it, though it seemed as if whoever wrote this tried to erase the shape, was an uneven heart.

Dark knew who had wrote this, for he could tell that handwriting from a mile away. With a shaky hand and his aura flickering, he took the note and stuffed it into his suit’s pocket. Before his mind could go on another journey down the rabbit hole, Dark was out of his seat and on a mission to find the blind man. 

Unfortunately, the 3D demon could not find his future seeing counterpart, and the smirk that Warfstache had given him had discourage any further attempts for the night. He watched as the clock ticked from his bed, lost in thought for what had to be the hundredth time that day. 

Dark once again, had another sleepless night. 

This cat and mouse game of their continued on for a few weeks, with Host leaving sweet little notes in Dark’s office, only to disappear for the rest of the day when Dark finds them. Sometimes he would leave Dark a cup of coffee, or medicine for his headaches. 

The notes were simple, but blunt. A sweet, ‘Have a nice day at work.’ Or a caring, ‘Make sure to eat lunch today.’ And Dark’s personal favorite, ‘Your red aura has been stronger than your blue, make sure to be taking care of them for me.’ 

Now, the two parts of Dark were conflicted. Damian, the hopeless romantic he was, found it endearing and cute, and insisted on keeping every little sticky note Dark found. Celine, on the other, was still heart broken by what happened, all those years ago, with William and Mark. She thought it would be best to just let this pass, and pretend that it was nothing out of the ordinary. 

What both broken souls could agree on was this, they did miss seeing Host. They both missed the late night book readings in the library, and early morning conversations, ones where Host would read Dark’s future for the day and with a small smile, send him on his way with a cup of black coffee. They missed the way he would rant about certain books he had read before recommending them to Dark, his smile wide and pure. They especially missed his voice. So soothing that it could calm the two frantic souls with just a few words. So quiet and sweet that it could rid Dark of almost any headache. 

Dark missed Host. 

About a month into the routine of finding and chasing, Dark found another note, with Host stuck to it. His breathe caught in his throat when he saw the two toned man putting the note on his desk, along with a single rose. 

Dark focused all his energy on Damian, stopping the soul inside him from grabbing Host then and there. 

Host was not in a much better position. He looked up at the demon, his bandages obviously new and clean, starting to collect blood from his eye sockets.

It was silent for a long moment, the two both trying to figure out what to do next.

Finally, Host mumbles something just loud enough for Dark to hear.

“The Host knew that he should’ve looked into the future today.”

Dark chuckled at this, finally able to move again. He made his way to the younger ego, his steps less confident then usual.

Host sighed, stopping Dark in his tracks again. 

“The Host would like to apologize. The Host knows that he must’ve overstepped his boundaries.”

Dark opened his mouth to speak, only to shut it again when he saw the note. From where he stood, he could not see what was written on the yellow sticky, but the thought of what it might say made his heart, that he seemed to have forgotten he had, skip a beat. 

Host must’ve sensed where Dark’s eyes were and stiffened.

“The Host will stop leaving the notes if Dark wishes,” the blind man almost whimpered, his face red from embarrassment.

Dark had never seen him like this, so flustered and nervous. This was not the level-headed man he had known for years. He could not believe he had this effect on the Host. The new information of this cemented his decision. 

“Host, I would like for you to stop leaving these notes,” he said, trying his best to keep his voice leveled.

The Host’s shoulders slumped. He gripped the rose and sticky note close to his chest, the blood from his eyes running down his check. 

Dark looked down, guilty. He did not like that look on his beloved Host.

“I would rather you tell me what’s on your mind in person.”

The male seer glanced up at the dark ego, despite his lack of sight, with his mouth slightly agape. He was afraid that he was misunderstanding the older man. He hoped that was not the case. 

Dark glanced the flower and note still clutched tightly in the anxious hands of Host. 

“What does that one say?” He asked, reach his hand out. 

Host awkwardly offered the rose to Dark, smiling softly when his fingers brushed the other’s. With a nervous gulp of air, he stared at Dark head on, again, despite his lack of vision.

Even so, Dark knew deep down that Host must’ve been staring into his soul. Or, souls in his case.

“Darkiplier,” Host said, his narrating at a halt. “’I hope you have a lovely day. Make sure to take a break. I care deeply about you and only wish for you to be taken care of.’”

He took another deep breathe, he looked towards his feet.

“I want to make sure you’re taken care of...and loved...”

Dark could not contain his smile or aura. He reached out once again, this time for the Host’s hand.

“All of that was on the small piece of paper?” He asked, jokingly when Host’s hand was in his. 

“The Host may have improvised at the end,” Host chuckled lightly, caressing Dark’s knuckles with his thumb.

They stood there in silence once more, each man with a smile on his face and a million thoughts in their heads. They did not care about the time, or about the fact that they both had work to get doing. Even the lost souls, who were always shouting and arguing in Dark’s head, were quiet, just enjoying the cute moment.

“Let me take you to dinner tonight,” Dark finally spoke up, pulling Host closer to him.

“A date?” Host mumbled, his mind still obviously at work.

“If you’d like to call it that.”

Host smiled wider, squeezing his demon counter part’s hand.

“The Host-...I would like that, very much.” 

Neither of them spoke again as Host stuck the sticky note onto Dark’s suit jacket and trying to release his hand. In retaliation, Dark squeezed his hand harder. Host chuckled, settling for leading Dark to his office door. There, Dark finally let go of Host’s hand. 

Host waved as he walked out, his smile still imprinted on his face. Dark waved back, his smile just as fond and evident.

“See you tonight, Host,” Dark called after him, quietly. 

“You know where to find me,” was the response he received.

When Host was out of sight, Dark closed his office door, his heart still beating quickly. He found himself walking past his desk with his newest note in hand. Right behind the desk was a bulletin board filled with pages of work. Slightly pushing past those papers of numbers and reports, Dark revealed his collection of messy written notes, all on yellow sticky note paper. He added his latest reason to smile before producing another sticky note from his pocket. This one was a bright pink, and it’s handwriting was much neater and easier to read.

‘Host wakes up early to leave those notes in your office before disappearing to the Septic’s for the rest of the day to rant to Jamison about you. You should catch him in your office @ 7:30. 

Love, Wilford.’

With a deep chuckle, Dark added that note to his board as well, before turning to his work, finally. His red aura was flickering wildly, meaning Celine was either angry or excited.

But Dark felt no anger, only bliss.

“Thanks, Wil.”

Authors Note: This Is a good sized fic if i do say so myself. Again, I am so sorry that it took so long. I honestly love this pair and kinda wanna make Host’s POV. You all should let me know if that would be something you’d be interested in. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this! Thank you for taking the time to read it!

[genius11rare]

Chit Chat 111620   11-16-20

Chitchat 111620 with Jack Michael Jeremys Chair and the disembodied voice of alfredo (no he left after set up immediately , never heard him) id put “keep reading” if i knew how for this sorry

Jack: hi im jack with my friends michael and Spearow the dragon (jeremys not here , theres a spyro … pillow i think on his chair).. So we made the mistake of doing 2 minecrafts backtoback  and it ended like 20 minutes ago then like “oh yeah we have other stuff we need to set up before”… Michael:  yeah this isnt so much a chitchat it is just a chit not really time for a chat. Jack: how about we chit about recapping extralife?  It went really well thank you everyone who watched and contributed, trying to get chat up right now…. Cuz we got Chit trying to get the Chat as well… this is the 4th year in a row we raised over 1 million$ , and were having some auctions for charity. Up for auction: 3D printed gen lock heads , pictures of the Spooky Hour (Gen Notes i thought they were done with that?) , the jon risinger bob ross segment painting , some f*face hats , some wood and glass sculptures (jeremy comes back during around this) … and gratz to jeremy for urinating and coming back *on time*  Jeremy: hey my bathroom is a few steps from here… that whole time was spent peeing Oooohhhh better. Jack: michael , jeremy got anything to say about whats happened recently. Michael: no uh…. Just recovering… Jeremy: oh that was hard to watch michael. Jack: oh i have this picture i posted on twitter of fiona milking gavin…. Spraying milk into his eyes , sounds weird when i phrase it like that see if i can post it. Fiona somehow got both eyes in one shot , none in the mouth (the goal) just eyes. If you don't know the context it looks like hes spraying milk from his head like some kind of anime demon… then the paintballs happened…. Usually with paintballs theyve been going a while and theyve calmed down , that time it was new compressors and we JUST started using them for michael and gavin (Michael: “they” as in the paintballs themselves , theyve calmed down) yeah so that time they still had a lot of OOMPF and it was like getting kicked in the head over and over. Michael: no that's good , kick me in the head all you want. I went second just so i could tell how bad it hurt , so i knew where to hit gavin to make it hurt the most… immediately flipped on it like “he doesnt deserve this” and shot the face (which hurt the least) as much to spare him… i did do a few tummy shots but still. Jack: the crotch was also a good spot cuz of the cockblocker… problem is if you missed they go left or right into your thigh Michael: the thigh and stomach hurt the most … our thighs are black Jeremy: were also doing the vinyl  Jack: oh yeah we reached our goal and putting AH the musical on a vinyl , plus a new song with Fiona ive been working with her trying to get the tone and everything (Gen notes im gonna guess its there so Still in the Air isnt…) … Jeremy wanna say what you offered up? Jeremy: yeah were doing the AH rap version 2 (Gen notes either A. a version with the rest of  “The B Team” to have verses , or B. redoing it without HIM) , been working on a beat for it … ive written one verse mine so far (Gen notes , think its option B then) but i feel like its a little TOO mean so i may dial it back down a bit … the plan is shorter verses but more people , so hopefully Myself , michael gavin , Jack , Fiona , the twins , Matt , Lindsay and MAYBE a verse where the  support room jump in one bar at a time , still in the works. Jack: yeah you guys DEMOLISHED goals, chads daughter she is so sweet… she saved up chore money and wanted to donate it all of her own , she wasn't convinced to she just wanted to donate 20$ which just broke everyone - well chad and i , caiti held it together, so we asked the audience to match her 20$...  over the course of 10 minutes that 20$ became 65000$... we broke extralife we legit broke their intake of donations. We also had 2 people there who if we needed to hand something to someone wed give it to them , theyd “baptize” it as covid precaution then give it to whoever. Michael: except cloth they were like “you touch cloth you own it” … was like i could walk away with a lot of things right here , this towel? This towels done (Jack: you just going around grabbing curtains) … (start paraphrasing)  we always want extralife to be like the best show ever cuz its for a good cause , but then this year we were like “how would we even pull it off”... i don't think 2020 extralife couldve gone better given everything (end paraphrasing) “fave extralife 2020 moment” Jack: my thing… Chad James is a freaking beast and towards the end the last segment we did was called the sweet and sour hour where caiti would do something nice and chad would get punished … it ended up getting stacked so we started doing some at once. At one point Chad is on the pummelhorse which is an elastic band that hits you in the undercarriage , chelsea was there with a leg wax remover , then we had cody from code 4 which is our compliance officer with hand sanitizer. So Blaine pummelhorses chad , chelsea leg waxes him and then cody sprays him with the antiseptic (michael: in his eyes… Gen Notes i mean hes probably kidding but idk it seems possible) … chads on the pummelhorse weeping and Blaines ALREADY spinning the wheel. Michael: its funny , theres so much stuff that happened and not just the segments i was there for , but a simple delight getting chad to eat that whole pickle … he was just saying “i cant do it ill throw up” and i just kept repeating “youu can dooooo iit...”... gave me some enjoyment since i was there basically to get slapped around , but in between i made chad eat a pickle Jack: so jeremy you have a fave moment? I know you were there for the solo stream section - oh i forgot about DJ JAAWNK how could i that was a blast Jeremy: yeah i was listening to most of the solo streamer section , i know Kdin had a thing where she gathered a bunch of people to do among us and it was fun…. For a certain donation amount they would just launch john mace into space , theyd just call a meeting and get him… Matt joined me playing spyro and i had the Gold Chonky spyro mods on , and if people donated enough wed spin a wheel that me or him would have to do.. We had to spin it like 15 times , and alot of them were “have to hold the controller upsidedown” which is a monstrosity… and twice it was me put a blindfold on and matt would have to direct me through the level. I panicked A LOT cuz you could HEAR the enemies shooting at and coming at you   but i didn't know where … it was like a live Matt and Jeremy do something - your welcome sarah! (Michael: you did do something… Spearow… Spearowmint gum)  so first were doing SPiderman Miles Morales PS4 edition cuz i don't have a PS5! Everyones talking about how they're sold out so the most ive done was when i was shopping for ovens i was like “lemme peruse the playstation aisle” didn't see one and went guess im not getting one… Jack: are they even selling them in person or is it just online… Michael: i know game stop is selling them , they're sold out but i know they were selling them.... Think most stores waiting for black friday to get them in store… i want one but im not going to a store on black friday , ill play fall guys if i want to get trampled Jack: oh yeah someone mentioned the ChungeScwa heist is coming we reached that goal Michael: fiona said i could be there, i asked can i help and she said something like “plz help , cuz otherwise it wont happen.” ive also offered doing a 50 turn mario party even though it wasn't a goal cuz we didn't even do last years so now wed owe 2 for 2021 assuming we can make that happen. Jack: cant you do a 100 turn mario party is that a thing? Michael: no 50 is the most , ive contemplated maybe we combine them into one game and scores carry over but it might be upsetting if im ahead by 9 stars after 50 turns and then it just becomes a 4 hour victory lap so its probably better to do 2 of them… we were about to do one in april we were planning on shooting it in april but then SOMETHING came up idk what it was … it just kept coming up for 7 months… Jeremy: and they don't stop coming and they don't stop coming… oh if were going to show my PS4 screen lemme show how much a  loser i am…. Jack: you got a platinum in bug snax?!?!? Jeremy: yuuuppppp!!!

[kriscynical]

Retropalooza 2018

So as already stated, Bree and I went to Retropalooza this weekend and had an absolute blast as always. This was our third year to go, and we love this con to bits. It’s practically in my backyard, only 20 minutes away from my house. It’s big enough to have good guests and a sizable dealer’s room, but still small enough to be fun. I dread the day when that happy medium finally gets tipped because of growth. You always want a con to be successful but... you know. 

As a side note, if the con you are running is for retro gaming and started out as a swap meet, if you’re suddenly going to ban screwdrivers at the door, perhaps you should mention that on your website beforehand? Seeing as how screwdrivers are... you know... the only way to definitely check the authenticity of retro game carts? That way your attendees won’t have to sprint back out to their cars in 10000% humidity in end-of-September-in-Texas heat. Just a suggestion, guys. 

But anyway.

I don’t talk about it much on this blog, but I follow a lot of gaming YouTubers. I’m not as religious about it as some people are, but I enjoy listening to gaming content while I’m working, especially letsplays. Retropalooza always has several YouTubers I follow as guests, which adds to the fun factor. This year’s guests that Bree and I were into were Jirard and Alex of Super Beard Bros and The Completionist, Norman Caruso of The Gaming Historian, James Rolfe of The Angry Video Game Nerd, and Arlo. Every single one of them are super nice, although AVGN being there this year caused a bit of bullshit to happen which I’ll detail in a little bit.

I have a little third party NES/SNES console, the RetroDuo, which I’ve had my favorite YouTubers sign for the last three years, all at this con. It’s usually displayed on one of the bookshelves in my studio. This year’s additions were Arlo and James Rolfe. It’s pretty full now:

This is long because of several photos from meet and greets as well as my Zelda haul from the dealer’s room, so...

Arlo! I just discovered his channel over the spring and this was conveniently the first year for him to be at Retropalooza. His content is really fun, and I always look forward to his reactions and discussions to Nintendo Directs and E3. His reaction to the E3 Metroid Prime 4 teaser reveal in particular was priceless.

I’ve met Norman in years past, so we just went to his panel this year. His panels are usually a live version of a Gaming Historian episode along with some Q&A and a little game show based on information from his videos. His live episode was on Punch-Out. He usually does Jeopardy! as the game format, but this time he changed it up to Who Wants to be a Millionaire?... and the lady he picked out of the audience to participate didn’t know the answer to a single damn question. I don’t know why she even raised her hand, because it wasn’t like he even asked anything difficult in the first few questions! If you watched his videos even once you’d know the answers. Bree and I were frustrated because we probably could have gotten to the million dollar question. >:\

Later in the day was AVGN’s panel, and that’s where the bullshit comes in. From the time we first got to the con on Saturday Bree and I noticed that it was way more crowded than usual, enough to get her anxiety going. AVGN doesn’t make a whole lot of convention appearances, so obviously the uptick in attendance was due to him. The people who run this con know gaming, particularly on YouTube since all of their guests are YouTubers. They should have known AVGN was going to attract hoards of people. Did they prepare for that? Of course not. 

Bree and I go to the panel room he’s scheduled to be in 15 minutes before the previous panel ends, and we get our seats. Jirard’s Completionist panel is scheduled right after AVGN in the same room, so we plan to camp out for a little while. 

Right as the previous panel is ending con staff announces that AVGN has been moved to main events, and everybody exits in one mass trying to get over to main events as quickly as possible. We ended up stuck in a massive line that snaked down the hallway and back, and before we know it it’s 1:15... 15 minutes past when the panel was supposed to start. So now we know that if we get IN to this panel, we’re going to have to miss a good chunk of it because for both of us it’s more important to see Jirard’s panel than AVGN. We’re also afraid that AVGN’s panel running over is just going to decimate Jirard’s numbers. 

Con staff comes back and says there won’t be enough chairs for everyone but there’s basically unlimited standing room, which isn’t great for me or my back. They then ask if anybody has a condition that won’t allow them to stand for an entire panel, and I raise my hand. I tell them I had back surgery a few months ago and they say okay, we’ll get you a chair. Which they did. Once they started letting people in they pulled Bree and I out of line and escorted us to two chairs behind the back row, one for me and one for her since she was with me. 

She proceeds to post this to her Snapchat:

This was what the room looked like when the panel started, at 1:25:

We still can’t believe the con didn’t anticipate this. This was the dealer’s room. Meaning the acoustics sucked ass. We couldn’t understand a single thing that was being asked or answered, nor could most of the people in the back of the room. As a result, several people left within the first 10 minutes (and the overall crowds at the con dropped like a ROCK after that panel was over, thank god!). At about 1:45 we gave up and left, too, to go grab seats for Jirard’s Completionist panel, which worked out well because we got front row. Thankfully the room was mostly full by the time the panel started, too.

The Completionist panel was the best of the weekend that we attended, imo. Bree and I were smiling and laughing through the whole thing because it was just that much fun. He had nothing planned because he’d been in Japan until a couple days before that, so it was just a laid back Q&A. He called on both of us to ask questions, and my question (“Given what you just said about Sleepy Jirard, would you say it’s a cure for Jirard Syndrome?”) got quite a bit of an audience reaction as well as a reaction from him, followed by “That was a good question.” with a laugh after he answered. Bree and I hope we can find video of this panel on YouTube soon.

After his panel we went back to the dealer’s room and found him and Alex at their guest table, they recognized us from years past (“Oh hey, guys!”), we chatted for a bit, took pictures, and I gave both of them some little goodies I’d made based on the Kaizo episodes of Super Beard Bros:

These are buttons Bree wanted of the designs I made. I gave both Alex and Jirard keychains of “Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bullet”, then gave Alex “The Goochy” and Jirard “This is not how I end”. They both liked them a LOT and Alex said he was going to put the bullet on his keys, which made me ridiculously happy. These will be available at next year’s A-Kon. 

Before we left for the day on Saturday we saw that the line for AVGN wasn’t too bad, so we decided to give it a shot for autographs and pictures. Thankfully it only took about ten minutes to get through the line, and even though the con had fucked up his panel royally, James was super nice when we got to meet him.

I didn’t realize he had made that face until I saw the picture afterwords. If I had known, I would have made a face, too, dammit! >:\

On Sunday we brought along my mom so she could 1) see what a retro gaming con was like since she’d only been to anime cons, and 2) see the Beard Bros panel/meet them because I had gotten her into their channel over the summer via the Kaizo videos. I introduced her to them separately since they were each talking to different people, and when I said “I recently got her into Super Beard Bros” both of them independently said “I’m sorry” as a response without having heard the other do so. lol 

I’m posting this picture again because I love it. Y’all can deal with it. You’ve read this far.

I had printed out a shot of the Beard Bros title card so my mom could get it signed, and she did. She said she thoroughly enjoyed herself at the con, and I’m hoping she can come out on Sunday next year, too. She bought an NES cart of Classic Concentration, a game that she and I played together on my NES all the time when I was a kid. I wish they’d bring it back on TV because it was a good game show, dammit. 

My Zelda Haul:

The three game box covers are mounted on 1/2″ foam core and I plan to hang them over the TV in my studio since that’s where all of my retro gaming stuff is set up. The BotW box art is layered 3D cutout in a shadow box frame. The Hylian Shield is a new pillow to add to my gaming chair. Not pictured: a Sheik Amiibo that the seller gave me a good price on after some haggling, and a replacement gold Wii remote to replace the one the batteries destroyed a couple months ago. I got that for a really good price, too, from a different seller. He was selling it as a bundle with Skyward Sword, and I of course didn’t need the game. 

“Will you sell this by itself?”

“I was selling it as a bundle, but sure.”

“How much?”

“What will you offer me?”

“Uh... I dunno? I don’t know what it’s going for online right now.”

Bree said, “I’ll check.” and pulled out her phone. I had only seen it in one game shop here in Arlington for $80 and hadn’t tried looking online yet. She turned her phone to the guy and said “On eBay it’s going for anywhere from $45 to $82.”

So then the guy says to me again, “Okay. So what will you offer me?”

“$50?”

“Cash?”

“Yep.”

“Done.”

Yaaaaaaas.

THIS THING is the crown jewel of my haul and I love it to pieces. Guh. I picked it up on Saturday.

Just LOOK AT IT. I bought it from the same seller as the Sheik Amiibo, and I referred to it as “my baby” for the rest of the day and carried it in front of me in its box quite proudly. I had several people tell me it was badass and that was satisfying. Every time I had to get into my backpack for something I told Bree, “Hold my baby.” before handing it over. 

I think I got him for a great price, too. After reaching a deal on Sheik I asked the guy how much the figure was, and he said $100 but asked what I would offer for it. He’d had it up on eBay but pulled it after a week because it wasn’t selling. I’ve only seen it for $110-120+ online, but I went ahead and tried to haggle some more because why the hell not. I asked if he’d do $80, then he asked if I’d do $90 because he gave me a good deal on Sheik (he really did... $10 off of his asking price which was almost a third total!), and I agreed. He said that made him happy because he’d rather the figure go to me “because it looks like you’ll take care of the box” to which I told him yes, of course, I keep all of my boxes in a safe place, and his buddy said “That’s the way to do it!!”. 

And that’s that. I spent the most money this year of any year before now, but I don’t regret a cent of it. Especially on my baby. Bree and I already can’t wait for next year!

[douchebagbrainwaves]

WHY I'M SMARTER THAN HEROIC

Notes Sullivan actually said form ever follows function, what they meant was, form should follow function. If you can work out a preliminary answer on the fly; use footnotes to contain digressions; use anaphora to knit sentences together; read your essays out loud to your friends; in practice that didn't work. Computers would be just as well if you were hired at some big company becomes aware of it. A comparatively safe and prosperous career with some automatic baseline prestige is dangerously tempting to someone young, who hasn't thought much about what they plan to have kids running around loose. If you build the simple, inexpensive option, you'll not only get market price for you. The prices of gene sequencing and 3D printing are both experiencing Moore's Law-like declines. There is also the same: aim small. Politicians are caught between a rock and a hard place here, however: make the best surgeons operate with their left hands, force popular actors to overeat, and so far is nothing compared to what's coming.

Their bonuses depend on this sort of disobedience shows signs of becoming rampant. And it's free, but because it's stealing. Mistake number one. So we should expect to take heroic measures at first. On my list I put words like Lisp and also my zipcode, so that in retrospect it was exactly the right place. And I found that what the teacher wanted us to do was sit and look attentive. But Google pushed this idea further than anyone had before. A rounds. 1 x probs One question that arises in practice is to make them take off. But what he means by long shots are people whose willfulness is crushed down by excessive discipline, and who instead let themselves be swept into the intake ducts of big companies. Young hackers can start viable companies. Let me see and decide for themselves how valuable your technology was.

A lot of incoming students are interested in startups. This kind of judgement is not really a lie because it's told with a wink, to the frightening lies told by older siblings. If he was bad at extracting money from people who chose the wrong ISP. The more extreme recipes aim to break down, so at the end of which, if you're not sure. There need to be in as good physical shape as Olympic athletes, for example. If they didn't know what they'd be like. Here's a test for deciding whether a VC's response was yes or no, and then iterate; that startups required resilience because they were ambivalent about being in business at all; many companies can buy you, and they're going to invest your time in something with a keyboard, a screen, and a pen. If PR didn't work, the number at Harvard is significantly lower, about 28%.

Summer Founders Program has just finished. If there were a word that meant the opposite of what they wanted to use our software to make online stores, some said no, but they'd be dwarfed by the number of new users was a function of other investors' interest in you is a dick move that should be short. Do startups that want to get rich by not letting your company die. If the Chinese economy blows up tomorrow, all bets are off. Good design resembles nature. That about sums up my experience of graduate school. Indeed, one quality all the founders who fail don't seem to be the ones to look to for new ideas, you have to assume that whatever inborn ability Leonardo and Michelangelo had, there were actually support people telling users to restart their browsers, and so far no spam that does. Thanks to Sam Altman, Trevor Blackwell, Ross Boucher, Aaron Iba, Jessica Livingston, and Geoff Ralston for reading drafts of this. And though you can't see it himself. This was another one lots of people want a small amount of damage to the environment. The catch is that this custom reflects the way investors like to collude when they can see their reputation in the eyes of phone companies gleaming in the early 1980s that the term ramen profitable has become widespread, I ought to explain precisely what the idea entails.

They're not what you need to simplify and clarify, and the best way to come up with an idea for a startup to be developing it for people like you. You can't directly control where your thoughts drift. The potential of a new type of company designed to grow fast. Your watch? They can practically read one another's minds. You couldn't just do what they want. Notes On the verge of the Industrial Revolution was one in a magazine, or because they know what they're thinking. One is that investors need to get 10 more next week to grow 10% a week. Whatever gets you your target growth rate. Who wants this so much that there's no market for startup ideas they didn't see this one, because unconsciously they shrank from having to deal with existing code, and often require you to figure out how we use the phrase ramen profitable to describe the worst thing a company can do much better than me.

The VCs who say they're going to do this well. One of the less imaginative ones, who had been ambassador to Venice, told him his motto should be i pensieri stretti & il viso sciolto. If it turns out, humans are not created by God in his own image; they're just one species among many, descended not merely from apes, but from reading the paper I see five things that probably account for the difference is embodied in the name of each person with an MBA, you'll learn things you couldn't say anywhere else, and you didn't fail out of laziness or incurable stupidity. I wanted was security. But don't spend more than you wanted to hear from them. The mediocrity of American public schools has worse consequences than just making kids unhappy for six years. Tim Cook doesn't send you a hand-written thank you note. That's where the name incubator comes from. In other fields, companies regularly sue competitors for patent infringement.

And what getting a job will this be something I use constantly? Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Marc Hedlund, Jessica Livingston, Jackie McDonough, Robert Morris, Tim O'Reilly. Most new businesses are service businesses and except in rare cases even millions. They don't want to be considered from the start, at least one customer wants. It's because liberal cities tolerate odd ideas, and then for all their talk about the meaning of quickly, it could hose the whole fund. There have always been destroyed by growth when always equals 20 instances. If an ordinary employee were asked to do something people want applies to us too. If you quit now, you'll be in a random corporate job. Even if they were executing a program written in two languages, and the super-angels or the VCs? There are very, very old.

[lunaschild2016]

Life As We Know It - Chapter 4

Rating: M (Smut, Language, Violence, Adult Themes)

Romance/Tragedy

Their lives seemed to be steeped in tragedy. Through it all they had each other until wrong choice brought it all crashing down. Eric had never been able to make up for the mistake he made, but he never stopped trying. Once again tragedy strikes turning everything upside down. Now, for little Ava they will have to come together once more. AU Eric/OC M No War No Divergent Hunts

A/N: This is a completed story that I have posted on another site as well. But thought I would add it here since I just started this account. I hope you enjoy.

@kenzieam @ericdauntless @jojuarez26@jaihardy@iammarylastar@captstefanbrandt @captainviolets@badassbaker@readsalot73@fuckthatfeeling @dani5102@beltz2016@beautifulramblingbrains@affabletimelady @irasancti@meganbee15@pathybo  @lauraaan182​

********************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Chapter 4

To say that Max and Daria were floored by the proposal and suggestion would be an understatement. All four ended up almost giddy with the possibilities this idea presented for Dauntless. In the end Max and Daria had spent almost all the night with Eric and Kira. Planning and hashing out details that would need to be addressed to present to the rest of leadership and the Dauntless planning committee.

When Kira had pulled up blueprint after blueprint of living quarters suggestion, pushed the lists of the surplus items they knew to be available as well as all the numbers of items Dauntless actually purchased from Erudite to what could be dangled in front of them. It left Max with a wide eyed look of disbelief and awe.

Eric nods at Max’s look of disbelief. “I know believe me, I know. It sounds so logical that I am kicking myself wondering why I never thought of any of this. I knew about the surplus because I came from Erudite too. It never crossed my mind to use it to our advantage to get us better equipment much less to use for trading. The 3D printer or machining our own parts didn’t cross my mind in the way she is thinking. It had crossed my mind as far as it would be good for Tate when he has to fix a Humvee and needs a part. I would think, well wouldn’t that be nice if we could just machine that in house. We still can do it if we get only one but if we had several it would go beyond that. We could machine parts for repairs on a million things here in the compound. The uses would be too many to list right now.”

Max looks to Eric seriously. “What would be the chances that leadership at Erudite would go for any of that?”

Eric scratched his chin in thought. “Like Kira said they are still recovering from the scandal with Jeanine and Alistair. The actual investigation started over 3 years ago but to those in our city and Erudite it is still recent because those involved didn’t get sentenced and tried until about a year ago. Financially Erudite is hurting enough that if we get the proposal right, and the right leader in Erudite signs off on it and presents it to the others, it could very well be accepted easily. The two top leaders right now are Jonathan and Silvia. They are pretty fair and are headed the right direction with Erudite. He would be the one to approach with the idea.”

Max and Daria nod and he chews his lip in thought. “It goes without saying that this will be your baby, Kira. I also want this separate from the project you are currently working on. They are both big projects and you will be overseeing both but….”

Eric nods in agreement as Max trails off. “There will need to be two whole new departments set up just to handle everything that will come about from the both of them.”

Daria nods and she adds to the conversation. “You of course will be sponsoring this new one Eric, if you would like to. If not, I am sure Tris or I wouldn’t mind to sign off on it.”

Eric scowled at her and tensed. “Hell yeah, I am going to want to sponsor this Daria so don’t even think about that. Erudite is going to try and wiggle out of everything they can and Tris isn’t cut throat enough to even begin to handle their shit. Not to mention I just want to.”

Daria shrugs with a smirk. “I had to offer Eric.” She takes a sip of her wine to hide her smile when Eric rolls his eyes at her.

“Yeah well thanks but no thanks for the offer. I’ll be working with Kira on this for sure.” He takes his own glass and looks over at Kira who was distracted by something on her laptop and had only been half listening with a smile on her lips.

“What are you plotting now, Kira?” He asks after he puts his wine glass down. He frowns when he realizes they had gone through about three bottles so far. Then he shrugs and tilts his head waiting for her to answer.

Kira leans more to her laptop and her hands are flying across the keys again. Eric growls in impatience and without thinking gets up, moves over to her and picks her up before sitting down with her in his lap.

Kira squeaks and whips her head around to him. “What?”

Eric laughs and points to the laptop. “You were sucked into the vortex of your own thoughts and not sharing Kira. So again. What are you plotting now?”

Kira smiles a little sheepishly. The wine for sure making her more mellow about his sudden invasion into her space than she would normally be. “Ok. So I was looking over all of our sector blueprints and I found something.”

She leans back into his chest without knowing and looks to Max and Daria then frowns. “This isn’t going to work. We all need to see the screen. Eric we need to borrow your vid screen.”

With that she pops up, grabs her laptop and bolts over to the living room. She starts to fiddle with the vid screen as the others chuckle and move over to the couch. Max and Daria move everything over to the couch area along with Eric.

Eric sets the wine and both his and Kira’s glass on his table and waits for her to move over to sit. He fully intends to have her sit by him again but he doesn’t need to worry about pulling her or leading her. She just does it automatically.

Part of him wishes Max and Daria weren’t there at the moment because when she does sit she moves into the crook of his side, pressing up against him. He just internally sighs and enjoys this moment of openness and closeness with her.

“Ok here we go.” Kira says and not even realizing that she has allowed her body to place her where it wants to be while her mind is otherwise occupied so it can’t counteract that normal override she has. Her hands move over her laptop as she makes a secure connection to the vid screen network and links the files she is wanting to display.

She starts to zoom in over the different sectors and stops at the one she had in mind. Eric, Max and Daria look on with a slight frown wondering what she could want with that building.

Eric is the first to get it and he looks over to her. “Are you thinking what I think you are thinking Kira?” His tone is playful and only half references an old pre-war cartoon they had both loved.

She smirks and says cheekily. “I don’t know Pinky. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

He laughs squeezing her hips with his hands before gesturing at the screen. “Fair enough Brain. Tell me your idea.”

Kira sighs and points to the screen. “This looks like it used to hold lots more shops at one point and it could be a real profit maker.  Free trade weekends are once a month and during bad weather they don’t happen at all. So that means there are months out of the year there is no trading available. We could set this up and lease the spaces to retailers from all Factions. Make it a weekend type of deal or even every day. Amity could run food and other product stores, Erudite could sell surplus or take individual orders. Dauntless can provide space, security and other services as well. It has possibilities you have to admit.”

Eric smiles at her and nodded. “Pretty much what I was thinking. We would need to get with Tate about inspections. Max and Daria, we would want to tour this along with the other buildings we are looking to set up as living quarters.”

Max nodded with a smile. “We will need to arrange it soon, because I am sure that with the combined votes of leadership and the committee this shit will be approved.”

Kira nodded with a smile but then frowned. “I still want living quarters to be a priority. Those members without families that are being forced to share quarters or to live in what should be temporary patrol barracks shouldn’t have to do so. We are getting more initiates every year and the next year of cadets graduating is projected to be pretty major. Our housing needs just won’t make that stretch.”

Daria sighed and nodded. “I agree that housing will need to be a priority but I can already guarantee that the committee is going to go revenue focus once you submit this. Be prepared to be put under immense pressure Kira.”

Eric scowled knowing that she was right but not seeing a way out of it either. Dauntless needed the revenue too badly. His thoughts were interrupted by Kira though.

“What if I had a co-head for the project? I don’t care about the credit guys, that was never my goal for these projects. What I care about is getting my Dauntless family taken care of and making us strong.” Kira’s voice was firm and determined. She would do whatever it took to see that this project was put into place and that it succeeded. Even if it meant working in close quarters for even longer with Eric. Because that is the only person she could see helping to make this work.

Eric didn’t catch that train of thought from her. All he heard was co-head and his scowl deepened because he didn’t want anyone else working with her on this much less the time it would take the two of them.

“Who would you suggest Kira?” Max asked as he went over the printed lists in his hand. He was distracted by the best way to make sure the rest of leadership could control the committee from becoming a pack of wild dogs over a bone.

“Eric of course. He helped to hash this out. He knows Erudite even better than me. And he can help me to make sure that this is done with only Dauntless in mind and not some almighty bottom line. Numbers will be important of course but only insomuch as it will provide us with the shit that we need to function and then to make us stronger. Also if we do go ahead with the trade aspect with Amity it will take either the Senior Leader or the Second in Command to make any verbal authorizations. Johana and Eric have a pretty good relationship and he doesn’t treat her like Amity is an ant under his boot. That is where most of Amities issues with the other factions comes from. They hate being treated as less than just as much as we do.” Kira mused as she flitted through the lists and started compiling things.

Eric tried with all of his fucking might not to get a shit eating grin at the fact that there was no other option or thought of anyone else for her for the project. He desperately tried to hide it and failed hard. Max and Daria didn’t even hide their chuckles at his expression which caused Kira to look up confused.

Kira caught sight of Eric’s face, rolled her eyes and laughed. “You can deflate that head now Eric.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about Thrace.” Eric said with a chuckle but then turned serious when he looked to her. “I would be honored to stand beside you on this project Kira. This could mean more than just homes for Dauntless.”

Their eyes hold for a minute. She can see the pride there and that he truly meant what he was saying. Max looked to Daria and the two of them stood. “Well you two may still be young enough to not need sleep, but I am afraid the missus and I aren’t exactly up to that challenge. Do try and get some sleep though guys.” He ordered his most stubborn leader and the other that wasn’t that far fucking off from her either.

Shaking his head he chuckled to himself that at one time Eric would have been under the label of his most stubborn leader. Those two were really made for each other.

Daria nodded to the two of them. “I left food and coffee in the cabinets and refrigerator for in the morning if you don’t make it to the dining hall or if you are up so long you get hungry again. Do try and rest some, tomorrow will be a long day but at least it is the weekend.”

Kira smiles softly and Daria and Max as they leave. Eric walks them to the door and locks it once they leave. Once they are gone he feels a bit awkward and doesn’t know if he should sit somewhere else or go back to where he was like he wants to so badly.

He doesn’t even make the decision as he moves forward because his body does it for him. He plops back down beside her, pulls his own laptop to him and sighs as he looks over to her.

Kira scoots back into him. Once again her mind is too occupied so her traitor body is taking full advantage of that. Eric leans into her and closes his eyes. His body relaxes from a tension that he hadn’t known had built up over the years she has been gone from his life.

She had always had this effect on him. She could drive him crazy like no other person could or ever would. She could make him full of a lust and desire he had never known for anyone else. She could also ease his soul and body with a simple look or touch and they were both soaking her up like they had been starving for years. In a way they and he had been.

He couldn’t fuck this up.

So, as much as he might want to pull her to him he knew he couldn’t.

She meant more than getting some release and he just fucking wished he had realized that years ago. He couldn’t change the past but he could change how he handled things in the future.

His arm was wrapped around her and he gave a light squeeze before he sighed when she looked at him with a question in her eyes. “I think we have enough to go on for the proposals. We need to get those put in and worded the way we want. We can’t let them try and get a toe in on trying to run or oversee the projects at all.”

Kira nodded and looked at the lists of known surplus again. “I was thinking about the remodels and I think I have something that could sweeten our offer for Erudite.”

Eric nodded and motioned to go ahead. Kira went back to pull up the blueprints. “The lower quarters have no place for food preparation, no real food storage cold or otherwise to speak of and their heating for the depths that they are at is pretty horrible. They also don’t have the room to be outfitted with full size accommodations.”

She highlighted the areas that would make the most logical sense to put a kitchenette in the units and Eric nodded. “They wouldn’t which would mean that if we wanted to put anything in we would need to take up more than necessary living space for a kitchen, do basic demolish of all the units and rebuild how we need them or just forget it all together.”

Eric scowls at the thought of those options. Kira shakes her head and reaches for the free hand of his that is clenching in building anger, knowing he is feeling helpless and like they are back at square one. They both feel jolts of warmth and pleasure before they both relax even more into each other.

“Not true Eric. I thought of something. We design something that meets our needs completely and then we use this as bait for Erudite. If they accommodate us with the surplus and printers then we will have this big ticket item for them to make for us.” Kira smiles a bit of a wicked smile and sees it registering with Eric as he calculates everything as she is speaking.

“Jesus, that could fucking work Kira. We would just need to make sure they don’t try and bankrupt us for that purchase.” Eric grumbled with a frown.

Kira nodded with her own and sat chewing on her lip for a second. “Can you pass me a pen and paper Eric?”

With a quirked eyebrow Eric reaches forward and grabs a notepad and pen then hands it to her. When Kira has it she closes her eyes and envisions what might work for their needs. Once she opens them she starts to draw out the plans, description and general dimensions. Eric watches her, not what she is doing, and is smiling at how she thinks and operates. She got more fierce and intelligent over the years.

“Ok here is a general idea of what we could do. We use Erudites need to mass produce everything to our advantage. The design I made is one whole unit that can be broken into four parts for easy installation. The idea in general is make sure it is cost effective for us to get the items but also during remodel. This serves that purpose. The measurements might not be spot on but we can check those and change them when we get to production stages. The countertops will be stainless steel, along with the sink and the small cabinets. That would be two of the main components. The other two are the small refrigerator and the small oven/stove combination. They would both be compact and slide into the spaces I have built into the unit. For upper cabinets I think we can forgo those and go for a style that I am going to be using myself in my own apartment. We can use open shelving made from pipes and steel or wood. Most likely steel but those we can fabricate all in house. Other than that this gives our members in those units that can’t support full kitchens the ability to have access to something. The other buildings that I have looked at that are made for families have either full kitchens already or communal areas with kitchen areas built in.” Kira finishes after bringing up the appropriate areas of the blueprints to pair with her illustration.

Eric nods but internally he is trying to fight with himself to not do what he wants to do and just start kissing her right now. How can he not want to after all that, after this whole night? He clears his throat and hopes it doesn’t sound too strained. “Sounds good and the fact that they can mass produce it will also help in cost too.”

She nods happily and doesn’t seem to notice the desire and strain in his voice. Rather she does, she just ignores it and how she is feeling too. They both ignore it and focus on finishing out the work.

He does end up moving away from her to clean up from dinner and grab them some snacks and waters when a few hours later they are still working. She is fading as she curls up on one side of his couch. He is leaned forward, his head furrowed and furiously working on some wording of the contracts he wants to propose to Erudite.

The next time he looks over, Kira has completely passed out on his couch. With a soft smile as he looks at her he runs a hand over his face and looks at his watch. If he heads to bed now he can get about two or three hours of sleep if he has them skip the early morning run they had been doing.

Deciding that would be best considering the day they have planned and the lateness they worked he sighs and puts everything away as quietly as he can. When he has both of their things packed into their bags he moves to get ready for bed. He heads back into the living room and frowns at Kira. He hates leaving her all scrunched up on the couch but he doesn’t know if he should move her not.

“Fuck it! She can kick my ass tomorrow if she doesn’t like it.” He grumbles and moves to lift her up. She sighs and rolls into his arms burying her nose in his chest.

His nostrils flare and he wonders if he just made a mistake but scolds himself. “You will shove that shit down Coulter.”

He gets her slid into bed, her shoes off and then knowing he shouldn’t but not caring, slides into the other side of bed beside her. He does restrain himself from pulling her to him though and just rolls over to look at her.

It doesn’t take long for him to be pulled under for sleep and then neither notice that they moved towards the warmth each was putting off. They didn’t notice until their alarms went off and they woke up to being wrapped in each other’s arms.

Neither spoke but neither moved either. Both were afraid to even breathe. They laid there like that for minutes upon minutes, wrapped around each other and staring into each other’s eyes. It had to end sometime and Eric did one thing that he knew was a risk. He leaned forward slightly and pressed his lips to her forehead softly.

It wasn’t her lips which he almost ached with every part of his being to press his against. It was no less electrifying in the pulses it sent through him. From her gasp and the way she clung to him he could only guess and hope she felt it too. He pulled her tighter to him and breathed her in, his arms tightening around her.

He didn’t want to let go, he didn’t want to speak but he didn’t know what he should do next. He was saved from deciding when she spoke first.

“I missed you Eric.” Kira’s voice was almost small. Not weak but as if she was barely allowing herself to let that admission out.

Eric’s heart was both full and hurting because he could hear her pain. “Gods I missed you too Kira.”

She nodded into chest and breathed him in too. A little more was healing inside of her. She knew though that she couldn’t go back to what they had been heading to. She had barely survived the loss of him then. He might not have meant to wound her as deep as he had, but he did and she could never allow someone...or him, to do that again.

“Eric...I can’t…” She stops and he tenses, ready for her to push him away completely again. “I can’t go back to what we were….not that way. But maybe…” she closed her eyes and hoped he wouldn’t hurt her by rejecting her and this “...maybe friends?”

Eric closed his eyes and felt relief flood him. She wasn’t pushing him away or rejecting him. It wasn’t what he would love for it to be, what he could only dream about now. But friends was good. Friends was a start and better than the hole her absence left.

He brushed his lips against her forehead and tightened his hold on her. “Friends is good Kira.” He said simply but in his mind he finished that it was a start.

[cryingdoves]

Change is the only constant.

On the 17th of December 2018, there was a big fire in Sungei Kadut, Singapore. One of the victims of that fire was our business, KBA Design Pte Ltd. Most of the inside of the workshop burnt to the ground (it was all a wood structure), most of our stones were badly charred (but having survived millions of years of heat and pressure, i’m sure they could have been easily salvaged) and most of our equipment was damaged but repairable (except for our forklift which was unscathed).

KBA Design was previously Leng Hua Sandblasting and Stone Engraving. I bought over the business in December of 2016 and together with one staff at that time (his name is Dippu), we had grand plans to grow the business in the sandblasting and stone engraving industry (most of the business involved supplying and building muslim grave monuments as you see below).

We both worked hard and our efforts paid off. We were able to grow revenue from $10000/month to upwards of $30000/month. We improved processes, introduced efficiencies, made less of a mess and most of the time, Dippu and I had a lot of fun doing it.

We hired another person to take over a large part of my job with the design and we were off. I spent most of my time drumming up more business and concentrating on my wife, my family and myself. I dreamt up new schemes to grow our empire and I did my best to look after the people around me. In my mind, i was ready to retire (not from all work, but from back-breaking work).

December 17th 2018 changed it all -  a hundred thousand dollars worth of infrastructure, equipment and stock went up in smoke. The landlord had failed to pay his bills (land leases) to JTC (the granddaddy of landlords in Singapore) and was in arrears of about $200000. He had no plans to repay them or repay us. Communications with him have thinned out and there really isn’t much that one can do. I have spoken to lawyers, the police and all the other “authorities” in Singapore. JTC have cleared out all of the things, including stones and other equipment. There was a chance to salvage, repair and restart but that’s all gone now. 

You just have to learn and move on (I’ll probably share what I have learnt in another post).

What happened to the workers? While i can say that I did my best to deal with it, I think they would disagree. And that’s ok, I can’t please everyone and I won’t try to. 

I will still be building grave monuments (dapur kubors) for people that approach me personally. I can’t really let go of it fully yet - It was a business started on a very personal note. 

Now, there are other opportunities in my life. I still have Meka 3D Printing which has been growing even without any staff and very little input from me (not sure how this is happening, but it is a product of our time). I have ideas and I am building my skills in execution. I don’t think i will ever be able to just be a “one business” guy, my mind is too much of a monkey for that. 

Here are some ideas i explored:

1. a Robotic Process Automation agency  - I went for an RPA course to learn the basics and I realised that agency work for this would be insufficient, most companies would do it in-house.

2. a healthcare institution focusing on prevention rather than cure - still exploring in some aspects. 

3. web and mobile development agency working to bring businesses online - i’ve always enjoyed this part of building the other businesses and I always get asked to help, so why not? - Meka Design is now in this business.

4. Drop-shipping - no brainer really. I know e-commerce and I hate the logistics of it. 

5. Starting a farm and selling Black Soldier Fly Larvae in Bangladesh - the country had just banned Meat Bone Meal Exports and there is an impending crisis in protein meal provision. 

6. Buying land, building homes and selling them in Bangladesh - We were a bit late to the party, the boom is in full swing at the moment.

7. Warung Pintar concept in Bangladesh - there are plenty of small businesses and most people have the space but don’t have the resources to start their own  shop. A concept like Warung PIntar would enable more entrepreneurs and help with the livelihood situation.

8. Building chatbots for businesses. - This i absolutely love and i will push it along some more. 

Every exploration led to new lessons. I am very thankful for the last few months. Having the time to explore things with absolute freedom has been incredible.

[glopratchet]

No sin

In the world to come there is little sin. You are one of many, and your sins will be forgotten in time. You feel a weight lift off you chest as the darkness fades away. It's been years since you've felt this way, but it feels right somehow. There are just lots of american alligators. You can't help but smile at that thought. After the election of the first ungendered president, the prediatrain movement caught fire in america. By the time you were born, gender seemed to mean very little to anyone besides those who wanted to test the limits of political correctness. As for you, it wasn't something that you thought about on a day to day basis. Underneath the hoodie and baggy pants you wore was skinny body of a boy, not particularly long or rough looking. You didn't really have any extraordinary traits anyway other than your crazy dark blue hair. The demand for american alligator meat skyrocketed in China. By the time your father had retired, he owned a 5,000 acre ranch that was specialized in alligator husbandary. Through cross breeding and expensive robotic labor implants, the cost of labor was pushed down to a minimum, and the value of the meat and others goods produced up to a maximum. By then your mother had long since taken over management of the company and became one of thee richest people in the world. Nike released automatic shoe laces as a gimmick. Whorals where burned to ash while polled hereford heifors fetched over a billion dollars a head in auction. Cows were now a bigger danger than the newly created zorse hybrids. Soon your father bought over McDonalds and with their total indoctrination of mass culture, and pushed for robotic cattle to completely replace livestock. In 2032 came your first billion dollars Luden-100 robot. Your doctorate in mechanical engineering made you the perfect person to design it's personality core, which was the most expensive single part of the 2,567 piece robot. Googizon won the bid to construct for the military the most forward thinking alligator farm in existance. The technology spread over the decades and cattle went the way of the dodo. Anything that couldn't easily be made by robotic means, printers and 3D machines was procesed to nothingness for the good of mother earth. In 2073, you won your first nobel prize alongside your father for leading the development of nanite repairing machinery and a process to make it easier for anything to be made into feed. It currently floats near the okeenokee snow swamp. an area of land that was left unaltered by humanitys hunger. Your the new Jesus and captain of the avengers! This is not that story. You head outside into your $40,000,000 million mansion that overlooks the outskirts of Washington D.C. The republicans have just legalized cannabis in all states and avadi referendum has just made safe legal. We are primal ponds inc. and we brought irony back into the world in a form of vodka. it's being served on our brand new martini yacht as we speak! Everyone in the civilized world is slightly drunk forever! You made the apparently smart decision to divorce yourself from the common man and woman a long, long time ago. Hard work and real privation are for the unenlightened now that we can print food out of thin air and turn sea water into potable H20 with vibrations. A small mom and pop alligator farm attemping to make it. So you can live the small town dream of driving your pick up truck and going hunting with your buddies right? Oh, so you're a member of a new subculture that has been getting traction in red states. The simple living, self-sufficient types who don't trust science or big government. You chose this because it makes you happy working on an old pickup truck, plucking chickens and sorting through animal dung for hours after a full days work... Right? Right? We need you to make deliveries for us. We have a three color process printing press and unlimited colored inks that can produce any type of stash box imaginable. We'll even have our chemists perfect it before initiation. You'd be perfect for this line of work. After a probation period we can talk about your salary and even a stock option plan if you really perform well. No thanks, I think I need to find myself and live an authentic life without the corruption of science or big business. Please... Point of view of the player: It took some help from Sal but with some out of game resources you found your next building: An abandoned mansion that looks like something straight out of a fairy tale. Think Sleeping Beauty castle. It has scenic views of Disneyland to the East and is only a 30 minute drive from Los Angeles which makes it perfect for raiders and anti-raiders alike thanks to a freeway being finished in 2020. You finish organizing your newest staff choices and set out to make sure everything jives well and truly. A delivery champion and a chem expert walk into your office, both fairly young although one could only guess that the chem expert still has traces of acne in his glowing complexion. They're also both ghoul, the delivery one has that clumsy dawrk fur of gray and white, the other a dark chocolatey brown that's probably perfect for the laboratory. "I bolded and underlined the most important one." You state holding your hand out as they hand you there app folder. He had a secert life as billy fea fbots They both blink, then blink again, then take the folder from your desk and go through it. The delivery one acts as a typical ghoul would if somebody was horrible enough to ask him for his folder. The chem expert turns pale when he realizes his mistake. His dark fur fades to the pallor of a farmboy after a long night of dancing. "W-wait, what is this?" He trembles. And one more thing... You stuff the case file they just gave you in your pocket as paranoia gets the best of them. "Why my office usually only deals with humans or random wolves too old to Transhumanise. We only hired you two because I fixed a cars' engine and noticed your applications outside." You say, coming from around the desk and toward them. You start with the Ghoulish delivery man, taking him by surprise as you pick him up under his armpits and check his ears. Dedicated to delivering dragon tail in the far, far, future. You put him down and look at the chemist. He attempts to make some sort of excuse and tries to give a weak smile. You grab him tail first and pull him into your chest, looking for an ear with a piercing ~Futuristic Dragon~ You nod as you put him down and move on. "This is weird." You finally admit to them. "But I'm sure the Illuminati sent these two specifically with our needs in mind." Maybe that needs to change... "If I smell too much tripe, I'm kicking them both out." There is a long pause, the dawrf begins to try and shuffle something out of his pocket. The chemist ghoul's ears flatten against his head. Uh oh, he's going for it! "Raiders attack!" You begin to yell as you attempt to scramble for the shotgun under your desk. We proudly introduce today's newest member to the raiders business field! The plump and chubby dawrk are no match against you far more agile human body . You've killed enough ghouls and mutants that they fall easy to your fists. You pick up the shotgun and aim at the dawrbear as it charges you, knocking your desk over in the process. You blast the beast's foreleg before it swipes you across the room. "Paws behind your head!" Alligator delivery service. The fastest deliveries in Rostock! You're about to comply before you remember that ghouls heal insanely quickly. You duck under a wild swing and slam the stock of your shotgun into the creature's head again, knocking it out cold as you cuff his ankles and wrists. You do a doublecheck to see if he's dead, just to be sure. He is, seemingly unable to beg for his life. The alligator farm where the gator are delivered is currently under a series of construction tasks. REALLY nasty series of construction. You suppose that could be turned into slave work but they hardly need you to oversee that shithole. Plus the medic would probably smell the whole lot in a day and those heads are not coming off... Might be a loss producing fatfighters but at least it'd mean no more blood for these motherfucking monsters. "Shit, the chemiest's gone." You hear a voice from your office ask. Already we own over four over ten foot alligators including rex lex, the mighty apple and many breed one of a kind animal. You creep back over to your office, shotgun at the ready. The voice is once again emanates from within your pocket. You pull out the PDA 100 that Steve gave you and its starts to speak again. "You've got a what in there?" A worried voice asks from the other side of the line. A massive 14 foot beast. Weighing at least half a ton. It's name is....... - The messages stop there, like someone has pressed the spacebar. You browse the device and see that it's sent several information packets about the Funderpals company itself. You can't really access any of them without a password though. You're about to turn it off when it suddenly vibrates in your hands. Then again and again with ever increasing speed. Each on is incredibly detailed with over twenty bioligocail parts. They have a label appended to the front of each: (Green), (Red with anger sign), (Whtie), ......... We are currently broadcasting their vital signs over at americanalligator.xyz 73! Stay tunned far mor eexciting matchs to cmmilestone thisera of reptilian reserch! Meaningless labels. Each one is lifeforces based, you're certain of it now. Perhaps each section referes to the specific organ of the alligator based on its colour, becides the obvious: Green is the green label and so on... Our alligators come in many different sizes, ages, shapes, sexes and shades. He just said this to you over the phone. 'SHAPES' meaning the organ colour, sooooo..... The website is still mostly a pumpkin orange colour with a picture of an alligator on the front page. You're not a biologist but it seems that each alligator pic relates to the specific alligator pic sent to you on your phone... It soon starts to make your head pound too much and you decide to stop furthur research for the time being. The like to eat, sleep, dream, and spawn but they love to fight and gossip. They are loyal to those who are loyal to them, but ruthlessly efficient against those who dare cross them. You get inside your car once you're finished and proceed to drive the long and lonely road back home. You hear a quiet sigh escape your lips as you let the cool air conditioning fill your lungs. It's been quite a traumatising few days. You wonder if it's possible that something like this hasn't happened before in Fastoon's recent history. The algorytms which run each alligator is closely modeled after the habits of the real world reptile, alligator missippissus. It's sheer size being the only massive distinguisher between fantasy and reality. Once you hit the open highway, the PDA 100 begins to vibrate once again. What do I look like? Some sort of god dam schoolgirl? I didn't wear anything WITH a fuzz, because I'm 15 and anyone with half a brain could see I was aboslutely not wearing anything WITH wool... Their lungs breath and thier hearts beat just like yours. The only major difference is the fact that you are trying to determine their strongest organ based on labels used in visual cortex artwork. And so the message begins... once again. At this point, it's become maddening, however fascinating it may be. Orders for gator teeth are starting to accumulate. Smugglers are bringing the teeth in by the hundreds to them. Once again, you don't see any options. Your screen begins to blink itself off as the larger alligator's vital signs begin to disappear from your PDA. We just need your help to fund creation of the wrestling simulation. The sponsors will be able to pay for your tickets and you will be able to request songs and vote off others at home. In exchange your children will have food and school until the age of 7. In short time the screen stops blinking off and on and simply stays extinguished. Our desire is to create an expierence which leaves you dripping from the feeling of utter terror and awe as you combat one of these unpredicatable beasts. Our progress will not be hampered by you and many, many more people will have the honor of experiencing this breathtaking connection to one of Gods greatest gifts to earth. Thank you for your time. Alligator delivery service in addition to gator tail, we serve realism. hours of alligator combat video have been studied. real life wild life wranglers have been interviewed. now we just need to budget of 500 dollars towards the creatation of an accurate alligator wrestling simulation. thank for your cooperation and respect for our national heritage. The screen flickers on... Recent thought and development of the next evolution in alligator pic sharing techs have come to a hault. funding seems to be the issues as new users are not signing up fast enough. Thank you for your understanding. And on behalf of all the artists improving perfect beeing.

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 79: A Christmas Adventure (1983)

Written by Joe Pranevich

Merry Christmas! Welcome back to another Christmas at “The Adventure Gamer” where we are looking at our sixth holiday adventure game! Time flies while we are having so much fun and I’m just amazed that we keep finding new holiday adventures to play. This time out will be 1983’s A Christmas Adventure, a “bitCard” (more on that in a bit) by Chartscan Data, Inc. This game has two notable distinctions: First, it is the earliest Christmas game that I have found so far. Merry Christmas from Melbourne House and A Spell of Christmas Ice were both 1984 games, but this one is a full year earlier. This may be the first commercially released Christmas adventure ever, but we’ll keep looking for more. Second, this game was brought to us by you! Last year, we ran a brief GoFundMe to purchase the only available-to-the-public copy of the game from Retrogames. Our community pitched in some funds and we purchased and sent the game off to the Internet Archive. Unfortunately, they were unable to get the game imaged for the holidays and we detoured to Humbug instead. The archivists uploaded our game in January and that gave us plenty of time to review it for this Christmas.

The Christmas Adventure story begins in Montreal, Quebec at the home of Frank Winstan. It was spring or early summer 1983 and he was working on an idea to design and sell personalized software as an electronic holiday or greeting card. You wouldn’t just play an adventure game, you’d play a game that knew your name and would have personalized messages and other features set by your friends or family. Even in the 1980s, the holiday card industry was hundreds of millions of dollars in yearly sales; if they could tap even a tiny portion, the upside would be huge. In part due to a fear that someone else could capitalize on a similar idea first, he set his sights on a Christmas release for his first electronic “bitCard”. Even for the fast development cycles of early games, the timing was incredibly tight and made all the more so due to a lack of marketing or distribution infrastructure. Winstan needed to bootstrap a startup and ship their first product in less than five months. Was that even possible?

The software retailed for approximately $45 in today’s money.

Winstan had been advised by others that his timeline was too tight, but he enlisted the help of a Larry Callahan, a friend from Vanier College, and they set to work. Chartscan Data was born! Winstan was a psychology professor and he did not have experience with adventure games. Nonetheless, he and Callahan established a system where he (and Ron Sperber) wrote the scenario, Callahan built much of the initial Apple II version, and other programmers were brought on board for porting and other work. Callahan wrote the software in a combination of BASIC and 6502 assembly for speed and size. To make an impossible task even harder, Winstan targeted five separate 6502-based systems, each with their own versions of BASIC and other platform dependencies, all needing to ship at the same time.

While Callahan and others built the product, Winstan built the company. Time was against him. Despite marketing copy that said the game would go on sale in October, he only officially incorporated his company that September. Winstan’s role was to ferry code and documentation between the contracted programmers, develop marketing relationships and ship copies of his near-completed game for reviews, as well as write and type-set all of the documentation, and just about everything else. The coding wasn’t entirely going according to plan either and with only a month to go, he was still placing “help wanted” ads in the McGill University newspaper looking for experienced 6502 programmers. He reports that he frequently slept only two hours per night to keep all of the gears turning. Christmas was, in a very real sense, coming!

Judging by the date on this review, you would be correct to surmise that they made it! Chartscan Data released their first product on time, but not quite everything had fallen into place. Given the schedule, there was insufficient time to produce or distribute a boxed version of the game or to develop relationships for the same. Instead, all sales were to be via mail order. Winstan had managed to get seven or eight (by his report) reviews published, but these were in the holiday issues of various computing magazines. Between the delays inherent in print publication and the challenges of a mail-order only business model, there was a slim window where readers could purchase the game and ensure that it arrived in time for Christmas with all of the customizations inact. Samples were sent to computer stores, but this was not the perfect harmony of distribution and marketing that Winstan’s e-cards needed to be successful.

The Apple II edition of “A Christmas Adventure”

I’d love to report that A Christmas Adventure was the surprise hit of 1983, but that distinction falls to Care Bears and Cabbage Patch Kids. They made their Christmas delivery, but ultimately the timeline and budget were too tight to build a distribution pipeline to reach the masses by Christmas morning. Less than a thousand copies were sold that first year, plunging Chartscan Data into debt and ultimately bankruptcy. Having played the game (as you will soon read), they did not fail for lack of either effort or a good idea. Winstan’s concept of personalized games as gifts was a remarkable leap in 1983! In fact, I would assert (without adequate proof or research, mind you) that he is likely the unsung inventor of the “e-card”. I hope that he and his team look back on this failure with a certain amount of pride.

As a final coda on this part of our story, Winstan tells me that The Sloane Report, a Miami-based newsletter focusing on software in education, named A Christmas Adventure as their co-game of the year in 1984. Of course, this recognition came too late for the Christmas season, but it hinted that there may still have been life in the product after all. Although Chartscan Data had gone under, a new Bitcards, Inc. emerged through the magic of business and financial wizardry. Winstan taught himself BASIC and continued the development of A Christmas Adventure himself, releasing a “2.0” edition in time for Christmas 1984. This is the version that I played in my review. He continued updating and selling the game through Christmas 1986 with the final version being tagged as version 2.8. He tells me that he nearly had an agreement for a boxed edition of the game, but at that late stage the industry was shifting towards IBM PCs and that was not a platform that he or his team envisioned supporting. In the end, no other Bitcards were created and the company was eventually folded. Winstan and Callahan continued their careers at Vanier College. Winstan taught Psychology, while Callahan ran their IT Support Services (a role that is very dear to my heart!).

Frank Winstan in the 1980s.

This title has become exceedingly rare. Unlike so much of the early Commodore and Apple II software library, the game was never picked up by the BBS community or the abandonware forums. Very few copies were known to survive. For many years, the only known version was one of Winstan’s “sampler” demos sent to computer stores, documented by AppleAdventures in 2015. This version included 50% of the story and a “mini-customizer” so that you could see how your personalization would affect the story. AppleAdventures was later able to get his (or her?) hands on an original full version by 2018 and produced a “Let’s Play” video of it on Youtube, but I was unable to convince him to give us a copy to review. When I speak of the differences in the 1983 version below, I am comparing to his earlier efforts in documenting the game.

The version that I played for review was Winstan’s “version 2.0” edition with a 1984 copyright date. This update incorporated a few new puzzles and cleaned up old ones, added a bit more music, and redid some of the item names and text descriptions. This is the version available today on the Internet Archive and, I believe, the version that we purchased last year in our GoFundMe promotion.

Before I begin, I want to thank Frank Winstan and Larry Callahan for their kind cooperation in my review of their work. I can only imagine what it is like to have strange people email you about something that you did thirty-six years ago, but to their credit they have been incredibly forthcoming with details and anecdotes about the development of the game. It is to my great shame that I only incorporated around a third of the historical details that they provided me. I am also exceedingly grateful for Frank for sending along a copy of the manual and offering to mail me a pristine Apple II version for my review. I was unable to take him up on that given the time constraints– I suspect rushing right before Christmas is a feeling that he is familiar with!– but appreciate it nonetheless.

Very nice “3D” rendering of flying towards the palace; quite advanced for 1983!

Introductory Movie

The game opens with an extended cinematic, very unusual for a game of this era and well-done over all. The camera flies over a darkened North Pole snow field towards Santa’s Ice Palace. We are taken inside to Santa’s office. A “greetings” message on the wall appears to be customizable. I’m not positive who is narrating, but they have “chatted” with Santa’s computer many times before and refer to us, the viewer and player, as a “poor mortal”.

Something is amiss? What can it be?

OMG. Who could it be?

  Suddenly, an alert appears on the computer: Santa is missing! With only a few hours before Christmas, the computer springs into action to figure out what to do. It searches its worldwide naughty-and-nice database to locate someone that can help. That someone… is you! My version has the name set as “Current Player” although this also is customizable.

With that, we are instructed to flip over the disk and begin.

Presumably the Apple logo was also customizable.

Playing the Game

We start the game where the cinematic ended, in Santa’s “Ice Palace”. The greeting message from the opening is still there, but the safe that was clearly visible before is now covered by an Apple painting. I’d wager that was either customizable as well, or at least changed based on which platform you were running. Is that a hint? Yes! We can move the painting to reveal the safe, although it is keyed to only let Santa open it. A strange parser issue shows up immediately in that the “waste basket” is spelled “was’basket”, presumably because the word was too long. You have to be careful as “basket” isn’t recognized as a synonym. I’ll have to be on the lookout for these sorts of things.

When we look at the desk and chair, we get the message that they “cannot be manipulated in any way” and “this is not a trick”. The 1983 edition of the game doesn’t mention them at all and I am not sure what was gained by adding them in except to fill out the room.

In terms of customization, the 1983 video that I viewed has the game brought to us by “Frostbyte Computers” while my version says “Apple User Magazine”. Apple User was a magazine published in the 1980s by Database Publications, although beyond that I am not deeply familiar with it. Frostbyte is a name that is used by far too many companies over the years and I am unclear which one this referred to. In both cases, my guess is that these are companies that Frank Winstan worked with to promote the game. I do not know what a straight-from-the-factory edition of the game would have said.

In addition to the vault, we also have a computer that wants us to insert both a system and a data disk (oh, the 1980s!) and we can pick up the waste basket.

Made in Canada!

  My first task is to explore the house and see what I find. Rather than narrate through every room one-by-one, let me summarize:

To the north is Santa’s Workshop, complete with a map of Canada! I grab a shovel, but the crafting tools are too delicate to be picked up by my fingers. I pull aside the rug to reveal a key. I ignore the stairs down for now.

In the northwest of the palace is Santa’s minimalist art gallery: only a single painting adorns the wall. Moving it causes me to be attacked by “cursed elves”. That triggers a brief action scene, but there doesn’t seem to be anything I can do except watch as they ransack the place. I am forced to restore already. A window in the room is too high up for me to do anything with it. Will I find a ladder?

West of the office is a living room with a chair and a (very!) hot fireplace. Even looking at the fire kills me, so I’ll avoid that for now. I sit in the chair and discover that it “feels funny”. I remove the cushions and discover a rope that I can add to my collection. A sword over the fireplace seems interesting but I can’t do anything with it.

Further west is an entertainment room with a jukebox and ping-pong table. I pick up a record, but there is no obvious way to play music.

North of the living room is a spartan kitchen containing milk and an empty bag. I nab both.

In the south, I find a bedroom with dressers and closets. One closet contains a surprise Pac-Man cameo while the other has a full set of Santa regalia including boots, a hat, a coat, and gloves. I pocket some coins from the dresser. A second drawer is locked, but my key fits. That contains a disk labeled “chanukah”! Finally, a piece of paper falls out of Santa’s coat that says to call “Current Player” (me!) in the event of an emergency. How did they know I was so good at adventure games!?

Hey look! It’s a cameo!

  That is a lot to digest, but I want to highlight a few things. When you enter that closet in the bedroom, the screen goes black and Pac-Man marches across the screen. When he gets around half way, he discovers that he’s in the wrong game and quickly runs off. It’s bonkers and the first laugh-out-loud moment of the game. I hope we see more examples of the authors’ humor as we play on. It seems impossible, but when this game came out Pac-Man (1980) was very new and “Pac-Man fever” had only just subsided.

Interface-wise, the game is inconsistent whether or not objects disappear when you pick them up. The shovel and key disappear, for example, while the wastebasket does not. Unlike Sierra’s Mystery House-style games, dropped objects only appear when you drop them in the room that they originated in. The parser seems very simple with very few supported synonyms. I’m also fairly sure that it has only three characters of sensitivity, as opposed to the five used by many other early adventures.

Finally, this is the first reference to Chanukah (or “Hanukkah” or any number of equally-valid alternate spellings) in one of our Christmas games! I’ve been hoping to come across a Hanukkah adventure game, but I’m almost certain that none were made in the classic era. The only Hanukkah game that I know of at all is Game of the Maccabees (1983), a little-known action game for the Atari. The earliest Jewish-themed adventure game that I know of is The Pesach Adventure (1993) celebrating Passover. If I ever find a Hanukkah adventure, you can bet your menorah that I’ll find a way to cover it.

If only Amazon could work out how to store 43 million boxes in such a small space!

  Just beneath the workshop is the “gift storage room” where we can see piles of gifts for the good little boys and girls in the world. Looking at them triggers a database-style interface where I can theoretically learn the gifts of all 43,126,798 good children, but for simplicity we can only see the first eight entries. While 43 million seems like a big number, there were 63 million children in the United States alone in 1983. Were the rest naughty? And what about all the good children everywhere else in the world? And did I spend more time than I should researching historical census data? The answer to the last question is “yes”.

We can look at the presents, but only a couple of them seem valuable. Presents #1, #5, #6, and #8 all teleport me somewhere around the castle when I look at them. I’m not clear why. Present #3 is apparently “curtains” and thanks to the magic of an overly-destructive pun, I die and have to restore. #7 is the present for me that I will get at the end of the game. The only presents of value are #4, a doll that I can pick up, and #2, a rhyme:

I was talking to a computer ace Her name, it was Veronica I said, “Hi Ronny- what’s the word?” She said, “The word is Chanukah!”

With two references to Hanukkah in the last couple of minutes, I think that will be important later.

The 1983 game has a completely different puzzle here. In the opening cinematic, there is a brief display of Santa’s gift list. For some reason, Susie’s present is listed in that opening but left blank here. Somehow this is supposed to clue you in that you can pick up (“get doll”) in this room. Regardless of how you get it, the doll is pull-string and intones, “Mommy says that you have to keep warm when you are sick.” Could that be a clue?

The sleigh is pointed in an inconvenient direction, don’t you think?

  Past the gift room is the empty reindeer stables and a garage containing Santa’s sleigh. With neither reindeer to pull it, nor jolly old man to steer it, they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. I do find a blanket that I can grab. By this point, I’m out of inventory space and storing things elsewhere but you get the idea.

With no more rooms in the Ice Palace, I resolve to solve some puzzles. The first is easy: Santa’s security system is fooled by wearing his clothes and that gets me access to his safe. Inside is an unlabeled potion. I can also insert the “chanukah” disk in the computer, but it still needs a second before it will boot. (Weren’t old-timey computers so quaint?) It takes some time and experimentation, but I realize that the record from the jukebox is referred to as “floppy” in its description. That makes no sense at all, but the computer boots when I (somehow?) insert it, so what do I know?

On startup, the computer asks for a password so I take the most obvious guess: “chanukah”. It works! Only a moron would write the password on the disk itself, but my wager is that Santa isn’t the most clued in to digital security. Wait until he gets his whole “naughty” list hacked one of these years! The computer displays a menu with four options:

The first is the gift list, but it doesn’t appear to be useful. The list does not match what is in the store room; the doll is the same, but the third gift is a bicycle and not (evil) curtains.

The second and third options are “need to know” and the computer somehow thinks I don’t need to know yet. When I need to “cure elf maladies” or render “reindeer first aid”, I’ll know where to look for answers.

The final option describes an emergency exit from the palace. It reveals that during an emergency (like this one), the castle is automatically sealed to prevent anyone entering or leaving. However, there is one way out via a “virtually empty” room, although it involves fastening together two common items hidden elsewhere. To make it trickier, one of the items is in a “different time plane”. Is there time travel in this game? My guess is that the rope is one of the items, but what is the second?

The 1983 edition has the computer with the same password, but without the menu. Instead, it gives you a (unnecessary, in my case) clue to access the vault.

Catch the elves in color!

  This is where I get stuck and I eventually watch the 1983 video to see what I missed. The next puzzle that I could solve was the “cursed elves”. I had not noticed that if I opened up the painting while carrying the bag, my action scene would be different. Now, I can control the bag with the arrow keys to capture as many elves as possible. It was more difficult than it looks! For one thing, the elves can move diagonally while I can only move up and down or left and right. Even leaving one behind ends the game and it took me a few tries to capture them all. Once I did, I discovered that I captured seven bad elves and one good one. I have to play over again to try to leave one of the green elves and this adds another layer to the difficulty as the green ones seem to kamikaze whenever I get close. After a few frustrating attempts, I work out that the striped elf is the “good” one (not the plain green one) and seal the deal.

This puzzle is clearer in the black-and-white version of the game as all of the elves wearing vertical stripes are evil while the one with horizontal stripes is not.

Catch the elves in black and white!

  Once we work out the correct elf to keep and get lucky with the arcade sequence, the final elf appears in the room with me. Unfortunately, all of the evil magic has made him ill (an elf malady!) and I can now consult the computer to see what to do. The computer tells me that I need to feed the elf the potion and to keep him warm. I hand over the potion and blanket and he’s right as rain again. The elf turns out to be the leader elf and is happy to follow me around from room to room. I am not clear how to solve this puzzle in the 1983 edition of the game as there is no computer hint. I believe that the doll’s advice was supposed to clue you in to give him the blanket, but I am uncertain what may have clued you in to needing the potion as well.

With the elf in tow, I can pick up the tools in Santa’s Workshop since he can carry them for me.

I fail to notice at first, but you can walk through the hole where the evil elves poured through. This leads to a dark tunnel and then to a time machine! See? I knew there would be time travel here eventually. The original edition of the game has a small maze in place of the tunnel, but since I’m just watching a video I have no idea how difficult it was.

This time machine has a Y2K problem.

  Even with the time machine, I am immediately stuck again. The 1983 video just shows the elf activating the machine when you enter the room and look at it, but that doesn’t happen in the 1984 version. I have to solve this myself. Before I get too far, let me admit that this was multiple hours of experimentation with a little bit of “reading the source code” included. Only a small portion of the game is written in BASIC and I was unable to find anything relevant, but that tells you how desperate I was. Given the rarity of this game, I do not believe a “request for assistance” would have been useful!

If I only had the manual when I played!

  This is when I discovered the “help” feature and boy is it robust! This is all clearly laid out in the manual, but I did not get my hands on a copy (thanks again to Mr. Winstan!) prior to playing. By typing “help”, you can request general information (such as a list of verbs that the game understands) or more specific information about the room that you are in. You can even decrease the difficulty of the elf capture game! This is a great feature, made slightly worse by all of the disk swapping that you have to do to access it. This was likely quite easy on a real system, but my emulator did not handle the disk swapping correctly (probably because the game writes its state to the disks?) and so I had to restore after receiving the hint. I will blame this on modernity rather than a bug in the original. The two hints for the time machine room are cryptic:

“He is his name and his name is like he. Get his attention- that’s the key!”

“Only someone who is small by design can help you slip through the cracks of time.”

Both clues point to the elf as the solution, but I only stumble on the answer by accident. We can, it turns out, issue commands directly to the elf by typing “elf” by itself. That brings up a second prompt to tell him what to do. You can even type “help” again and he’ll give you his own clues! In this case, he tells us to examine the time machine. I had done that already, but now I tell him to examine the machine. This reveals that there is a keyhole in the back.

I know I missed something because I never learned that the time machine was broken, but if you tell the elf to “fix timemachine” when he is carrying the tools, he does so and we are whisked back to the past.

I had thought that this strange syntax for asking the elf to do something would have been in the manual, but it turns out that it is not. My manual is for a later update to the game and perhaps this puzzle was tweaked again, but as it stands I found this to be the most frustrating part of the game so far. Being able to issue commands to the elf is a great feature! It opens up tons of puzzle mechanics and was implemented very well in the Zork series, for example. I am not aware of any other games using this syntax and I wish that it would have been mentioned in the manual.

Prehistoric!

  With my complaints out of the way, I travel back to the year “1”. (The current year was “8X”, but I’m not going to nit pick this two-digit year too much. I expect there were more than just cave paintings in the year 1901!) When we are in the past, the interface doesn’t really work because– somehow this makes sense– we are in an era before computers existed and therefore we cannot tell our computer to do stuff for us. Fortunately, the elf traveled with us and we know how to control him so it all works out. It’s clever but reminds us that we are working through an avatar. We learn that the cave paintings are done by an ancient Evil One and that he is the one that put the elves under a spell. Did he make Santa and the reindeer disappear as well? I discover a hook hidden under a pile of bones and grab that before heading back to the present.

The 1983 version of the puzzle is different.

  In the original version, the time machine is easier to activate as I stated previously, but also takes you to a different era. This is the only example of changed art that I see so far between the 1983 and 1984 games. Rather than going prehistoric, we seem to go somewhere else. The dial remains on “83” so I am glad that this sequence was rewritten for clarity. We still pick up a hook in the past (behind a painting rather than in a pile of bones) and then travel back to the present.

With the hook and rope together, I can create a grappling hook! I throw that to the window in the art gallery and I am able to leave the Ice Palace for the first time. I’m not even going to mention that we were on the second floor.

Just because my nose glows… I just don’t fit in.

  I have been reluctant to mention this before now because I am not sure what is the game and what is the emulator, but I have been struggling with infrequent lockups. I’ve never lost more than a few minutes, but from this point on the game suddenly becomes much less stable. By the time I reach the end in a few minutes from now, I’ll be carefully plotting every move and avoiding actions (like checking our inventory!) that can trigger a crash. I push through, but if these bugs were in the original then I am not sure how much patience the players would have had for this. I’m going to assume that the bugs are due to emulaton and possibly due to my use of save states rather than saving to disk as intended.

I emerge outside. To the west is a snow bank. I dig with the shovel and discover that Rudolph was trapped under the snow! He’s suffering from the extreme cold and his nose has turned orange rather than red; apparently that also means that the other reindeer will not recognize him. Are glowing colored noses so common that they couldn’t put two-and-two together? Sure, Comet and Cupid might be dumb, but Donner and Blitzen could have worked it out. I ask the computer what to do and it tells me that I need to administer a “hot non-alcoholic beverage”. I don’t have any of those yet.

Not the game’s best art.

  Abandoning Rudolph for now, I head east to discover a hut with a loose floorboard. Looking at it tells me that it is “hanging at the window” and I can only assume that it’s a translation error of some kind. It hardly matters because I can move the board to find a path downstairs. Heading down, I discover not only Santa’s secret stash of booze, but also the jolly old elf himself. He’s been tied up, but it is no problem at all to “untie santa” and he heads off on his way. Santa will wait for us by his sleigh.

The final puzzle stumped me for a long time, but I eventually found the “hint” that I needed by hex-editing the game files. I know, I know… I’m a dirty cheater. The 1983 edition of the game just requires you to give the milk to Rudolph, but the 1984 edition wants it to be warm milk. I had guessed as much, but no amount of trying to warm it by the fire seemed to have helped. I eventually noticed an item in the game called “was’bas+mlk”. This revealed that I could put the milk in the basket, then I could put the basket in the fire, and finally I could fish them back out and have warm milk. Make sense? The parser doesn’t handle this very clearly as we cannot remove the milk from the basket when done, but it gets the point across and we can feed the milk to Rudolph. Once back to health, he too went back to Santa’s sleigh.

I race back to the sleign, noticing that there are now reindeer in their stables. Presumably Rudolph gathered them together once he was feeling well. At the sleigh, Santa gives me a present and a message from my friend that gave me the game and heads off on his yearly rounds. I win!

Time Played: 6 hr 35 min

Santa thanks you and leaves for his once-a-year task.

We get our gift (never revealed) and then the game ends with a personalized message.

Final Rating

We made it to the end of another holiday classic! I hope you enjoyed this trip as much as I have. I have a ton of fun researching these holiday games and I hope that comes through. This is a game that has tremendous promise, but for everything that is ahead of its time (the personalization and help system especially), there are some head-scratching moments that a more seasoned game designer would have avoided. The fact that I had enough fun that I was willing to try to hex-edit the game to solve it should be seen as a sign of my enjoyment and desire to reach the end, rather than my frustration.

Every one of our reviews may be someone’s first and that is doubly true for these holiday posts. Let me remind you that we are using our “suspiciously similar” EGGNOG system for review since our usual rating scale doesn’t seem festive enough. Also keep in mind that these scores are based against an idealized version of a circa-1990s LucasArts or Sierra game. Text adventures and early adventures in general do not score all that highly, but this is an indication only of their quality compared to games released more than a decade later. These ratings are designed to be fun and it is generally not a good idea to put too much stock in them.

Let’s get to reviewing:

Enigmas and Solution-Findability – On the whole, I enjoyed the puzzles in this game even though most did not rise above fetch quests around the house. The use of the computer for hints was fantastic, as was everything involved with the Elf, and the creation of the warm milk. Ultimately, those were let down by the primitiveness of the parser but the underlying ideas were solid. The animated arcade sequence was also done well with the right level of charm and frustration; having to work out which elf to save was a nice touch. I am giving extra credit for the robust helpo system which was exceptional for the era and helped to ensure the game remained fun and not frustrating. The rhyming clues ( which I only briefly covered) were some of the game’s best sources of humor. My score: 3

Game UI and Items – As much as I hate to say it, the interface isn’t quite baked yet. A three-character parser with very few synonyms is not great even by 1983 standards and it shows that the developers hadn’t played that many adventure games prior to building this one. If they had better tools, they could have made a better game. Still, the verb list was helpful (even if it felt like an exaggeration) and there are some great features such as the ability to make multiple moves in a single line which are listed in the manual but which I did not discover on my own. My score: 2

Gameworld and Story – The Ice Palace and environs were fun to explore, but they never felt like a real place and the story never coalesced into a full narrative. We never fully understood who our avatar was in the game (an intelligent or magical computer?) and the menace of an Evil One from the dawn of time who plotted something against Santa was a great start, but didn’t go anywhere and didn’t have any impact on the ending of the game. It feels like there were plot beats missing. Who tied up Santa? How did Rudolph end up trapped in the snow? Did we ever cure all of those cursed elves? My score: 1

Noises and Pretty Pixels – This game gives us both a Christmas soundtrack and some excellent art, including a surprisingly nice opening animation. A few of the locations weren’t drawn as well as the others, but the little touches ranging from Pac-Man’s cameo to the catch-the-elves game were done very well. My score: 3

Overworld and Environs – In our normal rating system, we refer to this category as “Atmosphere” and it describes how the game made you feel. Was it tense? Did the setting evoke strong emotions? Did it all come together in an indescribable way? Unfortunately, I have to say that while the game was good and had some nice bits of levity, the overall tone wasn’t consistent. I may have felt differently if I had used the help system more or if the rhymes were integrated into the game itself. My score: 2

Gregariousness and Thespianism – This category refers to the game’s text and I’m very much in a split-decision. On one hand, the room descriptions were spartan and a few object names had strange contractions. And yet, some of the jokes landed, the computer interfaces were nice, and the help system was robust and clever with lots of rhyming clues that most players would never see. I loved those rhyming clues! My score: 2.

Before we add it all up, I want to add one bonus point for being customizable. I was considering deducting points for the crashes, but as I am uncertain whether that was my game or the emulator, I’ll give the game the benefit of the doubt.

Finally tally: (3+2+1+3+2+2)/.6+1 = 23 points!

Honestly, that feels about right. This is another case where the game is greater than the sum of its parts, but it is in good company with several of our other Christmas games, as well as Brian Moriarty’s early work. I am positive that the Bitcards team would have continued to improve had they remained in the industry. With a slightly better engine, they could have done wonders. Even so, it seems likely that Frank Winstan invented the computer greeting card.

I might be stretching things a bit, but I would not be at all surprised to learn that Winstan’s game inspired the release of Merry Christmas from Melbourne House the following year. While they were Australian (but releasing games in the US and UK) and it seems unlikely that they played this one, a particularly inscrutable joke in that game was that you could only exit Santa’s workshop via a window. We may never know if these events are connected, but I have my suspicions.

If you are looking for even more Christmas-gaming fun, please check out our previous holiday specials:

Merry Christmas from Melbourne House (1984)

A Spell of Christmas Ice (1984)

Crisis at Christmas (1986)

Elves ‘87 (aka Elf’s Christmas Adventure) (1987)

Humbug (1990)

As for me, I’ll be taking a break until the new year when I will resume our Infocom marathon (finally!) with Trinity. See you in 2020!

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-79-a-christmas-adventure-1983/

[bealarttumbler-blog]

INFO @ A GLANCE

NAME: MONOPRICE MINI DELTA 3D Printer

PRICE: $159.99 (U.S. DOLLAR)

BUILD SIZE: 110 X 110 X 120mm

In my December update post, I mentioned that I had recently become the owner of a Monoprice Mini Delta 3-D printer. I have since had time to use this budget 3-D printer and I’m happy to say that I am not overly disappointed, though it does have a fair amount of flaws. 

DISCLAIMER

Before I dive too far into this post, I think it is worth noting that I have zero experience with both, 3-D modeling and 3-D printing. I am learning all of this on the fly. As I go through my story\review, I will be providing links to the resources that I used to get the ball rolling with this printer.

  WHY DID I WANT A 3D-PRINTER?

I would like to start at the very beginning of my journey into the world of 3-D printing by telling you how I got started down this obsessive path. Here in Atlanta, Georgia an event takes place each year during the month of May called Momocon. This is a huge, multi-genre event in the heart of the city that focuses on American and Japanese animation, video games, board games, and most importantly to my story, cosplay.

Full disclosure, I knew nothing about this event before 2018. I tend to be more of an introvert so these types of social events have often eluded the narrative of my life. A few months before Momocon 2018, a good friend informed me that I was “going to go to Momocon with him regardless if I wanted to or not”. I protested initially, but my friend mentioned the one thing that he knew would change my mind, Halo.

Of all the fandoms in existence, Halo is the fandom that I fanboy over the hardest. The reason for this obsessive fandom is deserving of its own blog post, regardless, my friend knew exactly what to say to get me to the event. Having attended the event before, he promised me that I would see plenty of Halo cosplayers at Momocon. I was sold. Fast forward a bit to May 2018 and there I was at Momocon 2018 on the hunt for the Halo cosplayers. Below, you can see a few of the photos from my visit.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

While I did have a blast at Momocon, something was missing that really bothered me. I didn’t see one Halo cosplayer the whole time I was in attendance. Admittedly, this is a HUGE venue. The Georgia World Congress Center has a 1.4 million square ft floor plan, so it’s not entirely inconceivable that I just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. I left the event just slightly let down, but not uninspired. I got the idea in my head that instead of hoping to see someone cosplay as the Master Chief, I could do the cosplaying myself.

A few months went by and I still had this idea of cosplay in my head, which for me is usually a sign that I’m not going to let something go until I go through with it. I spent a good part of the Summer researching how to build cosplay armor and discovered a lot of great YouTube Channels. KaumiCosplay,  Yaya Han, Punished Props Academy, Angelegend, and I Like To Make Stuff are all Youtubers that have provided great content and invaluable tools in learning to craft foam armor and props.

While I was able to experiment and make some small bits and pieces, I simply have not had the time, or space for my Spartan Armor build. With Holloween fast approaching, I decided to do the sensible thing and pay way too much money for a costume.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

The “Disguise Men’s Halo Master Chief Ultra Prestige Costume“, as it is called, is amazing in a lot of ways but is far from perfect. This costume will be receiving its own blog post in the near future, so I’m not going to go into lots of details here. The main take away is that I did wear this costume at a large, public function and it was an instant success with the crowd. I would guesstimate that I posed for 50 – 70 photos that night. Unfortunately, I was the center of attention and did not receive a single photo from the event to share with you here. Even If I did have a photo on hand, you still wouldn’t be able to see how miserable I was wearing this thing. I was drenched in sweat on a cool October afternoon. The visor was near impossible to see through and I literally had to rely on the sounds of peoples voices calling for photos to know where to look. it was not easy to be out in this thing at all. 

So what does any of this have to do with a tiny 3-D Printer? 

After the event, I again started looking for ways to improve upon this costume and\or create my own from scratch. I recalled seeing a video where Bob from “I Like To Make Stuff” 3D printed a Storm Trooper helmet. This video was likely my launch point for getting into 3D-printing. I began researching 3D-Printers and was setting my sites on a Prusa I3. This printer had great reviews and enough workspace for me to print nearly anything, even if it needed to be printed in sections and glued together later.

I also had another idea unrelated to cosplay where I would 3D model, print, and sell gaming related memorabilia, such as life-size copies of Majora’s Mask, Halo assault rifles, the love cube from Portal. Unfortunately, selling these items I learned is totally illegal, though that doesn’t stop most people.

GamingJunk

Of course, I informed my wife of my intention to waste spend money on this project of mine. She, as always, was indifferent. My plan was to get through the holidays and make my purchase after New Years Day. Unfortunately, my wonderful wife took my informing her of my intent to spend money on a 3D Printer as a sign that I wanted her to get me a 3D Printer for Christmas even though my exact words were “Do not buy me anything for Christmas…”.

My wife and I are extremely different when it comes to Technology. That’s a nice way of saying that she is not tech savvy at all. I love her to death, but the woman worries when she has to send an email. Knowing this bit of info, you can imagine the horror and awkwardness that I felt when she told me that she had gotten me a gift. I knew it would be a 3D-Printer and I knew it would not be the one I was researching. I was not wrong.

My MonoPrice Mini Delta

What I ended up with was a 3D Printer that was a third of the printing capacity that I required. Being that this was a gift, I could not complain, nor could I return it. My Wife made her best effort to impress me with this little guy and I will do my best to put her intentions to good use. I still intend to get a larger printer in the near future, but you can expect to see a Part Two coming soon where I do a proper review on this printer.

Thanks for your time.

-Beal

Monoprice Delta Mini 3-D Printer: Part 1 – The Story INFO @ A GLANCE NAME: MONOPRICE MINI DELTA 3D Printer PRICE: $159.99 (U.S. DOLLAR) BUILD SIZE: 110 X 110 X 120mm…

[glenmenlow]

16 Entrepreneurs Share Their Personal Branding Idols

What public figure is your personal branding idol, and what about their branding strategy inspires you the most?

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Richard Branson

Richard Branson is one of my personal branding icons. From Virgin Records to Virgin Atlantic, he’s built a strong brand and following through interesting storytelling, innovative initiatives, and world-class design. – Arry Yu, StormX

2. Marcus Lemonis

The more I watch him, the more Marcus Lemonis has climbed my list of favorite entrepreneurs and branding experts. His branding strategy always involves the people who have started the business and staying true to the original concept the business was founded on. The best part about the way he approaches the reshaping/rebranding of the businesses he invests in is how he cares about his partners along with how he wants both employee and employer to be in a win/win situation. Just because he’s a highly successful entrepreneur, it doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his humility. In fact, his humility and honesty are his most valuable assets. As a business owner, seeing someone with that kind of business portfolio and net worth treating other people with such respect is very inspiring. – Jared Ross Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.

3. Cody Wilson

This is going to be a controversial pick, but Cody Wilson is one of the people I see as a branding genius. He’s the founder of Defense Distributed, a nonprofit organization centered around firearm production and distribution. They’re so controversial because of their products centered around 3D-printing guns, which has placed them at the forefront of the American gun control debate. Wilson has managed to turn a concept as terrifying as creating unlicensed garage guns into a sleek and modern business serving as a reflection of the IoT paradigm. He’s successfully sold his company as a bulwark for the second amendment and weathered some of the most intense press scrutiny unscathed. His brand is an example of how to be controversial and successful. – Bryce Welker, Crush The PM Exam

4. Elon Musk

Elon Musk is on top of his game when it comes to branding. He strategically posts about current events on Twitter, sharing both the good and the bad, and still manages to keep an unbiased opinion. He stays true to his own beliefs and consistently puts out the same message across everything that he does. His entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to change the world through tech inspire me and so many others across the world. – Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS – Integrated Marketing Solutions

5. Barbara Corcoran

Barbara Corcoran sold her business in 2001 and hasn’t had a specific business venture since. Yet, somehow, she has been able to stay relevant by building her personal brand. From Shark Tank to Dancing with the Stars, she finds ways to make herself stay relevant. Rather than building a new business, she monetizes her brand with media engagements and inbound business investment opportunities. – Fan Bi, Menswear Reviewed

6. Darren Rowse

I admire the community that Darren Rowse has managed to create around his ProBlogger brand. His website is full of great advice for bloggers and his Facebook group is very active with writers helping each other out. He’s been able to successfully turn his brand into a fully engaged community which is hard to do. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

7. Tony Hsieh

I love how Tony has leveraged his personal beliefs to build his company’s reputation. He is known as the architect who builds strong company cultures that deliver great customer experiences. I believe that in the long term the companies that operate with honesty and transparency will be those that flourish. He has created both a personal and company brand that is often referenced as the quintessential customer-centric model. Customers want to do business with him and his company is a sought-after place to work.  – Brian Greenberg, Life Insurance Quotes

8. Marie Forleo

Marie has done an incredible job branding herself, her most notable program “B-School” and her overall business. Every external brand touch point is consistent. The topics and advice she discusses on MarieTV resonate with just about any entrepreneur. The real deal, Marie is one of the few marketing experts that has been able to reach millions and teach thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs how to plan, launch and grow successful businesses. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

9. Neil Patel

Neil Patel has created a great personal brand for himself. He has a well-optimized website, strong social media presence, a podcast and most recently has shifted over to video. I like that his brand is about experimenting with different marketing techniques and he then spills his secrets as to what worked for him and what didn’t work so well. Learning from him has saved me time and money by implementing processes right the first time. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

10. Gary Vaynerchuk

I’ve actually had the opportunity to meet Gary at his office in Hudson Yards. The eeriest thing was the conversation felt oddly normal because I had watched literally every video available on his YouTube well before ever meeting him. It was like we had been having the conversation every week for years. I start with that because of what he has helped me most with — authenticity. He is the exact same person you see plastered on social when you see him in person, very thankful and genuine. He has also helped me to learn to give without the expectation of anything in return. Those two things have helped me learn to be a better version of myself. – Frank B. Mengert, ebenefit Marketplace (ebm)

11. Grant Cardone 

Grant Cardone’s content is always on. From social to podcasts to events and everything in between, he really is an inspiration. Love him or hate him, he has mastered his own authenticity and has been able to create a massive following and move his audience to action. In a climate of conformity, he has securely gone against conventional wisdom on delivery and public relations, and this mastery of content has secured him solid conversion rates for his products, books, and brand. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic

12. Gabby Bernstein

Gabby Bernstein is my personal branding idol because she has uplifting content that is authentic and real. She is consistent with her videos, email newsletter, and social media presence. I have followed her for about six years, and she has always adapted to whatever the new virtual platforms are and she has dominated them. Her brand is consistent and clean yet has allowed her space to grow, mature and change as a woman and teacher in ways that are easily communicated with her audience. – Ally Lozano, Ally Lozano LLC

13. Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins has built an empire helping others become the best versions of themselves. He’s an inspiring teacher and mentor to those who may not otherwise have a good role model or mentor in their lives. Tony’s communication skills are phenomenal. He’s able to talk to a room of people but connect to people individually. He can relate to a lot of different people which I think is one of the main reasons people like to listen to him speak and take his advice to heart. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

14. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

With around 12.8 million followers on Twitter, Dwayne’s messages tend to speak mostly of hard work, love and making the most of one’s life. I feel his overall appreciation for life that shines through his posts works brilliantly in building a brand based on his core beliefs. His posts come with an element of charisma and intimacy. It appears that he’s tailored his page to suit the needs of his fans, often highlighting people with whom he has memorable encounters. This has more than the desired effect in breathing life into his brand because the appreciation he showers on others is always well-received. The inspirational stories he shares help build the emotional connection. Besides, his consistency, with around three to five tweets every day, tells his fans that he’s always around. – Derek Robinson, Top Notch Dezigns

15. Sara Blakely

Sarah Blakely has always been a personal idol, both when it comes to her business acumen and her personal branding. Even though she is now a billionaire, she frequently discusses her humble beginnings, discussing how she gave everything she had into starting Spanx. These stories are not glamorous, and are incongruent with her current status, yet she keeps telling them. This consistent message of determination against the odds positions her as a relatable leader and makes her an immediate inspiration for young entrepreneurs. As a woman, she knew the potential for her product, and she used her personal experience to find a consumer insight that changed the industry. Her personal branding is all about being herself and empowering others. – Kate Edwards, Heartbeat

16. Jay Shetty 

I have seen how Jay Shetty has built his brand around “Wisdom Goes Viral” from the get-go and there are so many motivational people who are similar to who he is and does what he does. To stand out among his peers, he created video content that touched people’s feelings. I’ve watched him grow his brand from the ground up and I can see how he has generated such a loyal fanbase through his small snacks of wisdom. Everyone can use a little wisdom now and then, even though it may feel like common sense. He has touched people in ways that are making the world a better place, a single individual at a time. He provides a great model and platform for me to then build my brand with my domain expertise. I haven’t been as successful as he has, but I know what is possible as well. – Sweta Patel, Silicon Valley Startup Marketing

The post 16 Entrepreneurs Share Their Personal Branding Idols appeared first on Personal Branding Blog – Stand Out In Your Career.

from WordPress https://glenmenlow.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/16-entrepreneurs-share-their-personal-branding-idols/ via IFTTT

[markjsousa]

16 Entrepreneurs Share Their Personal Branding Idols

What public figure is your personal branding idol, and what about their branding strategy inspires you the most?

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Richard Branson

Richard Branson is one of my personal branding icons. From Virgin Records to Virgin Atlantic, he’s built a strong brand and following through interesting storytelling, innovative initiatives, and world-class design. – Arry Yu, StormX

2. Marcus Lemonis

The more I watch him, the more Marcus Lemonis has climbed my list of favorite entrepreneurs and branding experts. His branding strategy always involves the people who have started the business and staying true to the original concept the business was founded on. The best part about the way he approaches the reshaping/rebranding of the businesses he invests in is how he cares about his partners along with how he wants both employee and employer to be in a win/win situation. Just because he’s a highly successful entrepreneur, it doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his humility. In fact, his humility and honesty are his most valuable assets. As a business owner, seeing someone with that kind of business portfolio and net worth treating other people with such respect is very inspiring. – Jared Ross Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.

3. Cody Wilson

This is going to be a controversial pick, but Cody Wilson is one of the people I see as a branding genius. He’s the founder of Defense Distributed, a nonprofit organization centered around firearm production and distribution. They’re so controversial because of their products centered around 3D-printing guns, which has placed them at the forefront of the American gun control debate. Wilson has managed to turn a concept as terrifying as creating unlicensed garage guns into a sleek and modern business serving as a reflection of the IoT paradigm. He’s successfully sold his company as a bulwark for the second amendment and weathered some of the most intense press scrutiny unscathed. His brand is an example of how to be controversial and successful. – Bryce Welker, Crush The PM Exam

4. Elon Musk

Elon Musk is on top of his game when it comes to branding. He strategically posts about current events on Twitter, sharing both the good and the bad, and still manages to keep an unbiased opinion. He stays true to his own beliefs and consistently puts out the same message across everything that he does. His entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to change the world through tech inspire me and so many others across the world. – Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS – Integrated Marketing Solutions

5. Barbara Corcoran

Barbara Corcoran sold her business in 2001 and hasn’t had a specific business venture since. Yet, somehow, she has been able to stay relevant by building her personal brand. From Shark Tank to Dancing with the Stars, she finds ways to make herself stay relevant. Rather than building a new business, she monetizes her brand with media engagements and inbound business investment opportunities. – Fan Bi, Menswear Reviewed

6. Darren Rowse

I admire the community that Darren Rowse has managed to create around his ProBlogger brand. His website is full of great advice for bloggers and his Facebook group is very active with writers helping each other out. He’s been able to successfully turn his brand into a fully engaged community which is hard to do. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

7. Tony Hsieh

I love how Tony has leveraged his personal beliefs to build his company’s reputation. He is known as the architect who builds strong company cultures that deliver great customer experiences. I believe that in the long term the companies that operate with honesty and transparency will be those that flourish. He has created both a personal and company brand that is often referenced as the quintessential customer-centric model. Customers want to do business with him and his company is a sought-after place to work.  – Brian Greenberg, Life Insurance Quotes

8. Marie Forleo

Marie has done an incredible job branding herself, her most notable program “B-School” and her overall business. Every external brand touch point is consistent. The topics and advice she discusses on MarieTV resonate with just about any entrepreneur. The real deal, Marie is one of the few marketing experts that has been able to reach millions and teach thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs how to plan, launch and grow successful businesses. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

9. Neil Patel

Neil Patel has created a great personal brand for himself. He has a well-optimized website, strong social media presence, a podcast and most recently has shifted over to video. I like that his brand is about experimenting with different marketing techniques and he then spills his secrets as to what worked for him and what didn’t work so well. Learning from him has saved me time and money by implementing processes right the first time. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

10. Gary Vaynerchuk

I’ve actually had the opportunity to meet Gary at his office in Hudson Yards. The eeriest thing was the conversation felt oddly normal because I had watched literally every video available on his YouTube well before ever meeting him. It was like we had been having the conversation every week for years. I start with that because of what he has helped me most with — authenticity. He is the exact same person you see plastered on social when you see him in person, very thankful and genuine. He has also helped me to learn to give without the expectation of anything in return. Those two things have helped me learn to be a better version of myself. – Frank B. Mengert, ebenefit Marketplace (ebm)

11. Grant Cardone 

Grant Cardone’s content is always on. From social to podcasts to events and everything in between, he really is an inspiration. Love him or hate him, he has mastered his own authenticity and has been able to create a massive following and move his audience to action. In a climate of conformity, he has securely gone against conventional wisdom on delivery and public relations, and this mastery of content has secured him solid conversion rates for his products, books, and brand. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic

12. Gabby Bernstein

Gabby Bernstein is my personal branding idol because she has uplifting content that is authentic and real. She is consistent with her videos, email newsletter, and social media presence. I have followed her for about six years, and she has always adapted to whatever the new virtual platforms are and she has dominated them. Her brand is consistent and clean yet has allowed her space to grow, mature and change as a woman and teacher in ways that are easily communicated with her audience. – Ally Lozano, Ally Lozano LLC

13. Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins has built an empire helping others become the best versions of themselves. He’s an inspiring teacher and mentor to those who may not otherwise have a good role model or mentor in their lives. Tony’s communication skills are phenomenal. He’s able to talk to a room of people but connect to people individually. He can relate to a lot of different people which I think is one of the main reasons people like to listen to him speak and take his advice to heart. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

14. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

With around 12.8 million followers on Twitter, Dwayne’s messages tend to speak mostly of hard work, love and making the most of one’s life. I feel his overall appreciation for life that shines through his posts works brilliantly in building a brand based on his core beliefs. His posts come with an element of charisma and intimacy. It appears that he’s tailored his page to suit the needs of his fans, often highlighting people with whom he has memorable encounters. This has more than the desired effect in breathing life into his brand because the appreciation he showers on others is always well-received. The inspirational stories he shares help build the emotional connection. Besides, his consistency, with around three to five tweets every day, tells his fans that he’s always around. – Derek Robinson, Top Notch Dezigns

15. Sara Blakely

Sarah Blakely has always been a personal idol, both when it comes to her business acumen and her personal branding. Even though she is now a billionaire, she frequently discusses her humble beginnings, discussing how she gave everything she had into starting Spanx. These stories are not glamorous, and are incongruent with her current status, yet she keeps telling them. This consistent message of determination against the odds positions her as a relatable leader and makes her an immediate inspiration for young entrepreneurs. As a woman, she knew the potential for her product, and she used her personal experience to find a consumer insight that changed the industry. Her personal branding is all about being herself and empowering others. – Kate Edwards, Heartbeat

16. Jay Shetty 

I have seen how Jay Shetty has built his brand around “Wisdom Goes Viral” from the get-go and there are so many motivational people who are similar to who he is and does what he does. To stand out among his peers, he created video content that touched people’s feelings. I’ve watched him grow his brand from the ground up and I can see how he has generated such a loyal fanbase through his small snacks of wisdom. Everyone can use a little wisdom now and then, even though it may feel like common sense. He has touched people in ways that are making the world a better place, a single individual at a time. He provides a great model and platform for me to then build my brand with my domain expertise. I haven’t been as successful as he has, but I know what is possible as well. – Sweta Patel, Silicon Valley Startup Marketing

The post 16 Entrepreneurs Share Their Personal Branding Idols appeared first on Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career.

[joejstrickl]

16 Entrepreneurs Share Their Personal Branding Idols

What public figure is your personal branding idol, and what about their branding strategy inspires you the most?

These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. YEC has also launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

1. Richard Branson

Richard Branson is one of my personal branding icons. From Virgin Records to Virgin Atlantic, he’s built a strong brand and following through interesting storytelling, innovative initiatives, and world-class design. – Arry Yu, StormX

2. Marcus Lemonis

The more I watch him, the more Marcus Lemonis has climbed my list of favorite entrepreneurs and branding experts. His branding strategy always involves the people who have started the business and staying true to the original concept the business was founded on. The best part about the way he approaches the reshaping/rebranding of the businesses he invests in is how he cares about his partners along with how he wants both employee and employer to be in a win/win situation. Just because he’s a highly successful entrepreneur, it doesn’t mean he’s abandoned his humility. In fact, his humility and honesty are his most valuable assets. As a business owner, seeing someone with that kind of business portfolio and net worth treating other people with such respect is very inspiring. – Jared Ross Weitz, United Capital Source Inc.

3. Cody Wilson

This is going to be a controversial pick, but Cody Wilson is one of the people I see as a branding genius. He’s the founder of Defense Distributed, a nonprofit organization centered around firearm production and distribution. They’re so controversial because of their products centered around 3D-printing guns, which has placed them at the forefront of the American gun control debate. Wilson has managed to turn a concept as terrifying as creating unlicensed garage guns into a sleek and modern business serving as a reflection of the IoT paradigm. He’s successfully sold his company as a bulwark for the second amendment and weathered some of the most intense press scrutiny unscathed. His brand is an example of how to be controversial and successful. – Bryce Welker, Crush The PM Exam

4. Elon Musk

Elon Musk is on top of his game when it comes to branding. He strategically posts about current events on Twitter, sharing both the good and the bad, and still manages to keep an unbiased opinion. He stays true to his own beliefs and consistently puts out the same message across everything that he does. His entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to change the world through tech inspire me and so many others across the world. – Samuel Thimothy, OneIMS – Integrated Marketing Solutions

5. Barbara Corcoran

Barbara Corcoran sold her business in 2001 and hasn’t had a specific business venture since. Yet, somehow, she has been able to stay relevant by building her personal brand. From Shark Tank to Dancing with the Stars, she finds ways to make herself stay relevant. Rather than building a new business, she monetizes her brand with media engagements and inbound business investment opportunities. – Fan Bi, Menswear Reviewed

6. Darren Rowse

I admire the community that Darren Rowse has managed to create around his ProBlogger brand. His website is full of great advice for bloggers and his Facebook group is very active with writers helping each other out. He’s been able to successfully turn his brand into a fully engaged community which is hard to do. – Syed Balkhi, WPBeginner

7. Tony Hsieh

I love how Tony has leveraged his personal beliefs to build his company’s reputation. He is known as the architect who builds strong company cultures that deliver great customer experiences. I believe that in the long term the companies that operate with honesty and transparency will be those that flourish. He has created both a personal and company brand that is often referenced as the quintessential customer-centric model. Customers want to do business with him and his company is a sought-after place to work.  – Brian Greenberg, Life Insurance Quotes

8. Marie Forleo

Marie has done an incredible job branding herself, her most notable program “B-School” and her overall business. Every external brand touch point is consistent. The topics and advice she discusses on MarieTV resonate with just about any entrepreneur. The real deal, Marie is one of the few marketing experts that has been able to reach millions and teach thousands of aspiring entrepreneurs how to plan, launch and grow successful businesses. – Kristin Kimberly Marquet, Creative Development Agency, LLC

9. Neil Patel

Neil Patel has created a great personal brand for himself. He has a well-optimized website, strong social media presence, a podcast and most recently has shifted over to video. I like that his brand is about experimenting with different marketing techniques and he then spills his secrets as to what worked for him and what didn’t work so well. Learning from him has saved me time and money by implementing processes right the first time. – Jared Atchison, WPForms

10. Gary Vaynerchuk

I’ve actually had the opportunity to meet Gary at his office in Hudson Yards. The eeriest thing was the conversation felt oddly normal because I had watched literally every video available on his YouTube well before ever meeting him. It was like we had been having the conversation every week for years. I start with that because of what he has helped me most with — authenticity. He is the exact same person you see plastered on social when you see him in person, very thankful and genuine. He has also helped me to learn to give without the expectation of anything in return. Those two things have helped me learn to be a better version of myself. – Frank B. Mengert, ebenefit Marketplace (ebm)

11. Grant Cardone 

Grant Cardone’s content is always on. From social to podcasts to events and everything in between, he really is an inspiration. Love him or hate him, he has mastered his own authenticity and has been able to create a massive following and move his audience to action. In a climate of conformity, he has securely gone against conventional wisdom on delivery and public relations, and this mastery of content has secured him solid conversion rates for his products, books, and brand. – Matthew Capala, Alphametic

12. Gabby Bernstein

Gabby Bernstein is my personal branding idol because she has uplifting content that is authentic and real. She is consistent with her videos, email newsletter, and social media presence. I have followed her for about six years, and she has always adapted to whatever the new virtual platforms are and she has dominated them. Her brand is consistent and clean yet has allowed her space to grow, mature and change as a woman and teacher in ways that are easily communicated with her audience. – Ally Lozano, Ally Lozano LLC

13. Tony Robbins

Tony Robbins has built an empire helping others become the best versions of themselves. He’s an inspiring teacher and mentor to those who may not otherwise have a good role model or mentor in their lives. Tony’s communication skills are phenomenal. He’s able to talk to a room of people but connect to people individually. He can relate to a lot of different people which I think is one of the main reasons people like to listen to him speak and take his advice to heart. – Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights

14. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

With around 12.8 million followers on Twitter, Dwayne’s messages tend to speak mostly of hard work, love and making the most of one’s life. I feel his overall appreciation for life that shines through his posts works brilliantly in building a brand based on his core beliefs. His posts come with an element of charisma and intimacy. It appears that he’s tailored his page to suit the needs of his fans, often highlighting people with whom he has memorable encounters. This has more than the desired effect in breathing life into his brand because the appreciation he showers on others is always well-received. The inspirational stories he shares help build the emotional connection. Besides, his consistency, with around three to five tweets every day, tells his fans that he’s always around. – Derek Robinson, Top Notch Dezigns

15. Sara Blakely

Sarah Blakely has always been a personal idol, both when it comes to her business acumen and her personal branding. Even though she is now a billionaire, she frequently discusses her humble beginnings, discussing how she gave everything she had into starting Spanx. These stories are not glamorous, and are incongruent with her current status, yet she keeps telling them. This consistent message of determination against the odds positions her as a relatable leader and makes her an immediate inspiration for young entrepreneurs. As a woman, she knew the potential for her product, and she used her personal experience to find a consumer insight that changed the industry. Her personal branding is all about being herself and empowering others. – Kate Edwards, Heartbeat

16. Jay Shetty 

I have seen how Jay Shetty has built his brand around “Wisdom Goes Viral” from the get-go and there are so many motivational people who are similar to who he is and does what he does. To stand out among his peers, he created video content that touched people’s feelings. I’ve watched him grow his brand from the ground up and I can see how he has generated such a loyal fanbase through his small snacks of wisdom. Everyone can use a little wisdom now and then, even though it may feel like common sense. He has touched people in ways that are making the world a better place, a single individual at a time. He provides a great model and platform for me to then build my brand with my domain expertise. I haven’t been as successful as he has, but I know what is possible as well. – Sweta Patel, Silicon Valley Startup Marketing

The post 16 Entrepreneurs Share Their Personal Branding Idols appeared first on Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career.

[oselatra]

Heading the Hub

Decades after he left Arkansas, Pine Bluff native Christopher Jones has returned with the perfect resume to lead the Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub.

Christopher Jones always planned to come home. More than 20 years and five degrees later, after spending time at NASA, getting mentored by former U.S. Secretary of Energy Ernie Moniz and working as a dean at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jones, 41, is back in Arkansas and heading up the nonprofit Arkansas Regional Innovation Hub.

Founded in 2013 and based in downtown North Little Rock, the Hub is a place for people to learn and create things and start businesses. Members, who pay monthly fees, have access to fully equipped carpentry and metal shops and a range of other tools, including 3D printers, laser cutters, CNC routers, garment printers, an etching press, screen printing stations and all sorts of computers (there's a day rate, too). Thousands of schoolchildren have come through the space since it opened. Last year, the Hub merged with Winrock International, the Little Rock-based development nonprofit.

"Winrock is about creating economic advantages for the most economically disadvantaged people around the world. ... We believe that same mission applies right in our backyard," Winrock CEO Rodney Ferguson said of the Hub's role within the broader scope of Winrock. "I think we found someone [in Jones] who has a deep passion for community development, skills development, the maker space and for addressing economic disparity. I think it's a wonderful next step forward for the Hub."

Jones' resume suggests he will be up for the challenge. He has bachelor of science degrees in physics and math from Morehouse College in Atlanta, master of science degrees from M.I.T. in nuclear engineering and technology and policy, and a Ph.D. in urban studies and planning from M.I.T. He spent about a decade working as an assistant dean at the M.I.T. graduate school. He taught high school. He led a neighborhood nonprofit in Boston. He said serving as executive director for the Hub, a position he landed in March, checks a lot of boxes for him. He's been lucky to build upon experience every time he's taken a new job, he said. "In this case: executive director, engineer, raising money, community connections." Even better for Jones, who grew up in Pine Bluff? "I get to do that at home."

Jones and his wife, Dr. Jerrilyn Jones, and their three young daughters moved to Little Rock last summer after Dr. Jones got a job as an emergency room doctor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Science and a faculty position in the school's Department of Emergency Medicine. Fifteen years earlier, when they were dating seriously, Jones had floated the idea of returning to Arkansas to his wife, who grew up in Alabama but, like Jones, left after high school — to Howard University in Washington, D.C., and then Harvard Medical School.

She didn't flinch.

Jones has fond memories of growing up in Pine Bluff. He did a summer science program at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, an internship at the National Center for Toxicological Research and participated in a residential program at UAMS one summer. But like a lot of smart kids, he wanted to see and do beyond home. More specifically, he wanted to go to space. After he graduated from Watson Chapel High School, NASA helped that goal along when, based on his college application, the space agency provided him a full scholarship to Morehouse. Amid double majoring and serving as student body president his senior year — which put him on the college's board of trustees, alongside the likes of alumnus Spike Lee — he got to work at NASA centers around the country. His mentor at NASA, former astronaut Franklin Chang Diaz, encouraged Jones to follow his path to M.I.T. for a graduate degree in nuclear engineering.

As he got into that study, Jones got more interested in energy systems and the policy implications of technology, so he added a second master's in technology and policy. Ernest Moniz, the M.I.T. nuclear physicist who would serve as President Obama's secretary of energy from 2013 to 2017, was his adviser.

The technology and policy graduate program was established to address a troubling divide, Jones said: "Too many people in policy had no clue the implications [their policies had] on technology and science. And too many people in science and technology didn't open themselves up to the policy implication of what they were developing."

After grad school, Jones spent a year teaching ninth-grade algebra at a high school, where about 90 percent of the kids were African and Latino and most were eligible for free and reduced lunch. Teaching "pulls on you physically, mentally and emotionally — it's just a huge investment." But Jones said "the experience was outstanding" and he loved being able to be a role model to students who could see "a teacher that looked like them." He's still in touch with a handful of the students he taught.

From there, Jones returned to M.I.T. to get a Ph.D. in urban studies and planning and to serve as assistant dean in the graduate school, focusing on diversity. In the 10 years he worked at M.I.T., graduate applications from underrepresented minorities rose from 300 to 1,300 and enrollment doubled from 7 to 14 percent. Phil Thompson, now deputy mayor of New York, was Jones' Ph.D. adviser. Thompson and the department put a lot of emphasis on "how do you take what you know and go out and make a difference and do something?" Jones said.

Jones got the chance to put that into practice when he was tapped to head the Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative, a community-based nonprofit in Boston founded in 1984 to reclaim a neighborhood blighted by divestment and arson. Thirty years later, thanks to the DSNI, the neighborhood had "several hundred units of permanently affordable housing, community school, urban gardens," Jones said. Jones was hired to administer a $6 million Promise Neighborhood grant from the U.S. Department. of Education. He worked to find partners to match that amount.

From there, Jones joined BCT Partners as senior consultant, where he worked on several multimillion-dollar federal projects.

***

The Hub will soon embark on a strategic planning session to determine what its future mission, vision and values should be, Jones said. He has some ideas of the challenges the nonprofit faces.

"The innovation ecosystem in Arkansas is still very young, but I think it's old enough now that the players are ready to come together. There's not a long history of partnering in this space, and so, when you're new to partnering, there are always bumps and bruises that are par for the course. But to me, it's exciting."

Since the Hub opened, other groups with similar missions have started up, including the Conductor in Conway, the Little Rock Technology Park, the Venture Center and Startup Junkie in Northwest Arkansas. A number of business accelerator and incubator programs also have sprung up across the state, including a health care accelerator at the Hub sponsored by Baptist Health. All those players and experiences will figure into the Hub's future vision, Jones said.

Jones expects the Hub's reach to extend beyond Central Arkansas. "I think we'll find hubs popping up across the state and find ways to network all those hubs," he said.

North Little Rock investor and Hub founder John Gaudin based the nonprofit on several programs around the country, including the Cambridge, Mass., Innovation Center, which Jones was familiar with from his time at M.I.T. "He gets the idea, with his urban planning background, of developing and attracting talent through technology and inclusion," Gaudin said of Jones.

"Whether it's racial diversity or economic diversity or gender diversity, there's a role for the Hub to play," Jones said. "This is not to the exclusion of folks who are already here. No matter who you are and what your background is, I want you to feel welcome. It's not lost on me that I'm an African-American man with an engineering background, so I'd be remiss not to bring others into the fold. It's not lost on me that I'm the father of three girls, so I'd be remiss to not bring more gender diversity — though that's already happening."

Some of the issue is a matter of branding, Jones said. "I think there's an untold story of women and minorities in tech," he said. He noted that his college roommate, Paul Judge, finished Morehouse in three years, got his doctoral degree by the time he was 26, had started his third company by the time he was 30 and is now "leading the charge in tech in Atlanta." Another of his college friends runs the startup accelerator CO.LAB in Chattanooga, Tenn. He knows the people behind Black Girls Code.

"The challenge is really showing the next generation of youth that this is a space they can really be involved in," Jones said. He cited the recent Marvel superhero movie "Black Panther," where the hero rules an African country that is far more technologically advanced than the rest of the world, as a positive step toward changing perceptions.

The biggest challenge for the Hub? Jones compares it to his time in the administration of M.I.T.:

"At M.I.T., people know it. It's a really strong brand. Great folks. The challenge there was choosing. There were many directions to go. Here the challenge is choosing. What do you do today? What do you want to be doing in five years? Because there are so many good options."

Heading the Hub

[filosofablogger]

I started today’s good people post about a single person, Mama Rosie, who is doing wonderful things.  But, she is doing so many wonderful things, and having such an impact, that I quickly realized I would not be able to finish it in time, so I switched gears (another symptom of my bouncy mind) and decided to write about multiple good people doing good things.  I went in search, and I found these …

I had never heard of the band Midnight Oil, but of course daughter Chris had … she knows every band that has existed since the beginning of time (and refers to my music as “bad taste”).  Anyway, the band Midnight Oil, an Australian band dating back to the 1970s,  is giving a concert in Fremantle, Australia on 29 October.  According to the band’s lead singer, Peter Garrett, every single cent will go to support marine protection organizations, charities that work in the areas of reef protection and climate change.

Peter Garrett

The band has long identified with environmental causes, and Garrett himself was on the international board of Greenpeace for two years from 1993-1995.

One of the organizations the environmentally-minded band will be supporting will be the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Started in 1965, the independent charity works to create large marine national parks and sanctuaries, support sustainable fishing practices and protect threatened ocean life such as whales, sharks and seals. The organization also works to protect the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system (344,400 square kilometres), which is severely threatened by environmental pressures and climate change.

Midnight Oil typically earns up to $210,000 per concert, so their contribution is nothing to sneeze at!  Great job, guys …. and thank you!

Joseph Badame and his wife, Phyliss, were survivalists who stocked up on everything: dry food, generators, fuel, survival books, thousands of rolls of toilet paper — all to keep them alive in the event of a disaster or some other crisis. When the crisis came, however, all the food they had stockpiled would be of no use.  In 2005, Phyliss had a massive stroke that left her paralyzed, and she died after another stroke in 2013.  Joseph, then nearly 70 years of age, had quit his job years before to take care of his wife, and had eight years’ worth of medical bills. He managed for a few years, but this year he defaulted on his mortgage and could not pay his taxes, and in August received a foreclosure notice from the bank.

Joseph planned to move to a small apartment that he could afford with only his Social Security, but what to do with all this food stored in the basement of the house?  Sometimes, I think, fate steps in and brings people together for a reason.  Last month, Joseph met Victoria Barber, a local food truck owner who just happened to be taking donations to help people in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Joseph donated $100 in cash, but more importantly … he took Ms. Barber to see the food in his basement and told her he would like her to send it to the people of Puerto Rico, who needed it more than him.

Barber and her husband spent the next week raising money to transport the barrels. Badame helped, too, and wore a red T-shirt: “#PRSTRONG” it said, with a heart below it. Members of the local police department and a high school soccer team helped carry the supplies out of the basement, and the barrels were repacked so that each contained a variety of dried goods.

Badame said it was his own life that was saved. “I’m tired, old, depressed, feeling like I’m a failure regarding the survival thing,” he said. Then Barber “came along, gave me a shot of adrenaline. I couldn’t believe it.”

Sometimes things just happen that way.  Hats off to Joseph Badame and Victoria Barber whose ships just happened to pass one day, and together they made a difference to the good people in Puerto Rico.

Pro athletes have been much in the news of late.  Until recently, I thought of most pro-athletes as overpaid, greedy people, but I am learning that many of them have big hearts and generous spirits. Not a hockey fan, I had never heard of the Montreal Canadians player, Jonathan Drouin.  Drouin has partnered with the Canadiens Children’s Foundation to host less fortunate children at a Bell Centre suite for the team’s games. He is making a personal annual contribution of $165,000 that will go toward a suite that will be used to provide underprivileged children and their families an opportunity to attend games they would not otherwise be able to. And just last month, Drouin donated $500,000 to the Fondation du Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), and a pledge to help raise $5 million for the hospital.

This is one athlete with a heart of gold!

It’s just a little thing, really … it didn’t cost anything except a small bit of time.  But sometimes those little things mean so much.  An unnamed 92-year-old man went to his local Bank of America in Montebello, California, to withdraw some cash from his account.  Unfortunately, his state-issued I.D. had expired and the bank teller refused to honour his request.  Perhaps confused, and definitely upset when the employees would not help him, he was told to leave, but he refused, for he needed to withdraw his cash.  So, the bank employees called the police (nice folks, eh?)  Luckily for the man, the officer who arrived on the scene was Officer Robert Josett, a man with a good heart.  Officer Josett took his time to take the man to the nearest DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) and helped him renew his identification card.  Officer Josett then took the man back to the bank and made sure he was able to withdraw his money.  As I said, a small thing, but we can understand how much it meant to the man.  Thumbs up to one caring officer!

Stephen Davies was born without a lower left arm.  He spent his first decades on earth without the aid of a prosthesis, and finally, as an adult, decided to invest in one.  He was disappointed in the available designs … he wanted something ‘cool’, but they were all the same … functional, yet boring.  He posted about his experience online, where it was seen by one Drew Murray, a volunteer for a group called e-NABLE that was doing some innovative things using 3D printing to create artificial hands.  Drew offered to make a functioning arm for Stephen.  Stephen was so impressed with the results that he talked Drew into a partnership, and together they formed Team UnLimbited, an organization that makes prostheses for children free of charge.

While I do not understand this technology of using a 3D printer to create prosthetic limbs, I do understand innovation, character, and generosity, and these two men are rich in all three of those!  Just look at some of the fun ones they have made …

“We’ve done Iron Man designs, Harry Potter, Lego and Spider-Man. The key is making something the child actually wants to wear and feels is cool enough to show their friends.”

Two great men, a wonderful organization, and a bunch of happy kids!

  And I end with a story about the City of San Diego in California.  In March, 2016, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced a “Housing Our Heroes” initiative to provide secure rental housing for 1,000 homeless veterans.  Last week, they exceeded that goal and have provided housing for 1,007 previously homeless veterans. But the city is not stopping there.  According to CEO Rick Gentry, they will be expanding the program to include other homeless people and hope to house another 1,000 by the end of the year.

For incentives, landlords received $500 for the first units they rented to a homeless veteran and $250 for each additional unit. They also received an average of $1,500 in security deposits and $100 in utility assistance per household.

Jimmie Robinson, a landlord who rents out several houses, took in seven homeless veterans in the Housing Our Heroes initiative. Robinson said the incentives were “eye-catching,” but were not the greatest motive for taking in homeless veterans.

“When you get to meet them, the satisfaction of helping people turn their lives around was more important. When you see somebody rebuilding their lives, that’s what it’s become for me, more than than the incentives.”

Wonderful job, San Diego!  I hope we see more cities taking this initiative soon.  That there are people living on the streets in this nation of plenty is unthinkable.

These are just short stories about people doing mostly small things, but every one of those things count, each one of these people are showing compassion for their fellow mankind, and they are making a difference.  My hat is off to each of these fine people!

Good People Doing Good Things … Little Things Mean A Lot I started today’s good people post about a single person, Mama Rosie, who is doing wonderful things. 

[usetechsmartga-blog]

From programming to bathroom tissue: movie producer to live open hotspot for a year Needs to discover exactly how far the "open source thought can go in genuine life."

A movie producer is wanting to put in a year carrying on with an open source life—including his garments to his bathroom tissue entirely clinging to the rationality.

Sam Muirhead, a New Zealander living in Berlin, will start his test on August 1, 2012 and is raising cash on crowdfunding site IndieGoGo to bolster the driven venture. Muirhead, who concedes he can't code or bind and is for all time synchronized to his Mac, will require all the help he can get the chance to answer some of his most squeezing open source related inquiries: "Would I be able to 3D print pants, can robots cook me breakfast?"

The excitement he has for getting the message out and instructing people in general on the most proficient method to make an interpretation of the rationality to regular daily existence looks as if it will fuel him for the entire year, notwithstanding.

"I'll be trying exactly how far the open source thought can go, all things considered," he says with discernable fervor on his limited time video, while settling a penguin sticker over his MacBook's Apple image. "I'm amped up for investigating the diverse sides of open source with cleverness, lucidity, and basic considering, as I unravel myself from a universe of consumerism and go from an open source untouchable to an aggregate DIYer and Linux geek."

Muirhead, who has so far raised $2,650 of the objective $20,000 with 27 days to go, says he needs to charm himself in the group sourcing theory and find contrasting options to day by day, unconstructive consumerism.

En route, he plans to highlight issues encompassing the time-squandering, useless, and against advancement copyright issues confronting innovation today.

"Consistently you see Apple, Samsung, and Google tossing million-dollar claims at each other, when mechanically they all have shared objectives," he revealed to New Zealand News. "While in the open source group there's the aphorism that contenders remain on every others' shoulders, not on every others' toes."

He will do without Apple's Final Cut Pro programming for Lightworks or Novacut to alter the week after week movies that will show up on his blog journal, depend on "standard written work" now and again, and swing to neighborhood programmer group c-base to help him build up a camera of adequate quality utilizing open source innovation. While archiving his venture is an incredible method for getting the word out, it additionally attempts to show how open source itself is a perfect arrangement for narrating—a consistent stream of data being refreshed, as opposed to idealized over a year spent creating a full length film, is an awesome approach to share thoughts and encounters as they happen.

Imagining a whole life of "stuff," it nearly appears an inconceivability that Muirhead can prevail in an aggregate open source life. In his limited time video he utilizes apparel for instance: he is either must discover organizations offering open source dress, or make his own from open source designs—sliced to Muirhead being taped after a Berlin fashionable person down the road in frock and flip lemon.

"It'll be fun," says the potentially masochistic Muirhead. "Yet, they'll be a lot of difficulties—I should state I'm not anticipating open source bathroom tissue."

Working with the Berliner "makers, programmers, creators, planners, visionaries, designers, researchers, and specialists" who will ideally answer his call, he will make his own particular option items by participating in shared group ventures. The last arranges, codes, or charts will be distributed on his blog so that general society can duplicate or correct his manifestations. They will in the end have the capacity to alter the plans live on his site. He will likewise be swinging to open source training to show himself some things about coding and patching.

And uniting the Berliner people group—which as of now has the MakerLab advancing advancement, neighborhood urban homesteads partaking in the reasoning, and its own one of a kind open source political Pirate Party—to help him in the test, produce energy for publicly releasing, and motivate new thoughts, the coordinated efforts will likewise help Muirhead evade a year of journal recordings portraying "only him on my mentor."

En route people in general will have the capacity to demand help for their own open source ventures, and the individuals who add to the crowdfunding will get "a tip of the cap, a tricky wink, a kiss blown on the wind, an unassuming bow, and a thank you on the site"— and maybe some unique delineations. The cash they give will go toward materials for new manifestations and the generation expenses of archiving the entire thing.

As much fun as it will be to watch Muirhead handle the week by week test of finding open source tissue, it will likewise be energizing to take after the advance of a venture that stands to unite the officially open Berliner people group in new and intriguing deeds of outline, innovation, and development.