For January, I am blogging with the WordPress Bloganuary prompts in mind. These are writing prompts, one a day, for the entire month of January 2022, which I am pleased to respond to.
If I could have a word with my teenage self, if this were, say, the year 1990, like the advice my godfather Rick gave to me, I would counsel myself to get as much schooling as possible. My godparents taught me quite a bit in 1991 and 1992. My godfather was in the process of adding writer credits to his career as a professor, and I had access to quite a lot of information about the coming “information superhighway,” the Internet. I think I was lucky that I had any comprehension of what was on its way, Big Tech.
Compared to everything else in life, money, relationships, leisure, travel, I would have implored myself to stay in academics and to gain as much knowledge as possible, with the guidelines of sanctioned academia.
In high school, I took in a lot of learning, including insight into how computers were becoming a powerful tool.
I keep an eye on the keyword “participatory media.” If I were better qualified academically to make better judgements about the world as I potentially understand it, I would be more astute when examining social constraints. Participatory media, if I do understand that, refers in part to social, and to creators on social. The world as Big Tech unfolded has been exciting.
MySpace, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube–all these services were blessings compared to the uncertainties about the free world before Big Tech began to realize its ambitions.
I would also tell myself to dress a bit better–enough of the dated pullovers and denim!
If the subject of Facebook enters the conversation, my mom likes to say she isn’t on it.
That doesn’t mean there isn’t a Facebook account in my dad’s name, and I think my mother also thinks that the two of them, my mom and my dad, have the same outlook, and disposition. By that logic, I take it that an account apiece isn’t necessary for them. Comments they leave are usually attributed to one or the other.
I have a small Facebook account. But despite having a humble reverence for the David Fincher-directed 2010 film The Social Network, my pleasure in being on Facebook is helping to run a not-for-profit business. For example, this very morning, a woman let me know, with an email to the Facebook page for the business, that she finds the business very beautiful, and you’ll understand why in a moment.
In 2007, at the sales company where I worked, Facebook on the desktop computers was blocked, so that entrance-level employee couldn’t enjoy it. At that time, even for a young man like me, Facebook was a lifeline. In 2012, Facebook App Center, an internet-based portable store, was carried out onto the market.
The store at first had 500 Facebook applications. which were. for the most part, games. I remember wondering why was this happening. Why were so many users playing games?
Around this time, my dad did kind of a noble thing, when, after years of helping manage the municipal cemetery for his job, he came across a little cemetery on the other side of town. Their trustees were hoping to share the burial ground with the district he had worked for.
My father acquired the cemetery and welcomed me on as a partner in 2012. For a nonprofit, as a retiree might characteristically enjoy working at, presently we require one day a week, ordinarily.
Louth United Church
I am not sure I suggested it myself, but it was probably me who did–making a business page on Facebook for the cemetery, so interested people could easily get ahold of us, like the woman did this morning. My dad had wanted a website for the cemetery, and this extra measure was one more step, a Facebook page
I compose posts that flow data about characteristic concerns we have. You see, I research and blog. I am an amateur writer.
I’ve composed a few brief tales, however, I don’t have the standard novel or screenplay that an essayist frequently has. I’m really an amateur blogger with family business ties. The business page on Facebook has nearly a hundred accounts of people who “like” it, and most of the control of the page falls to me.
One friend of the business, an elderly lady, I got to know a little during her brief visits to the cemetery, and also when the two of us interacted together on Facebook, had advice for me that I continue to apply on the Facebook business page.
My mother may never have signed up for Facebook, but I think she is pleased to think I show the initiative to manage the page. My mom worked for a small business for many years, as a clerk. We actually argue about many matters, but as long as I show a commitment to my dad’s retirement business, I continue to hold some cards in the game, between the three of us.
Nowadays Facebook has a significant draw, yet what we would never have expected are the losses Facebook has had to confront. Remember the lead-up to the appointment of 2016, when it was discovered that Facebook was utilizing Cambridge Analytica? That information firm gave Hillary Clinton a benefit, as her position was greater for Facebook than Donald Trump’s pass into the White House would have been.
It was trouble. Trump’s since been banned from Facebook, as well as from other social media. Granted, Maple Lawn Cemetery’s a small page, and we don’t handle cash transactions there, so the Cambridge Analytica scandal didn’t impact us much, although the distrust in the air that grew for Zuckerberg did have a toxic impact on how people used Facebook, compared to how they used it before the 2016 scandal.
Two days ago, in the early hours, CNET Tech, when reporting on Facebook going against the British Parliament, discussed online one Damian Collins, a member of parliament. Even now, Frances Haugen, CNET reports, is preparing to speak to British Parliament. It was Collins who took Cambridge Analytica to task in 2016, across the pond, and he is quoted as saying, “There needs to be greater transparency on the decisions companies like Facebook take when they trade off user safety for user engagement.”
The issue is that Facebook utilizes information about its customers to maneuver them to invest more energy, again became a national topic Sunday when Frances Haugen, a former Facebook worker, showed up on TV to clarify that Facebook is investigating strategies for better compelling and ultimately how to benefit from kids helpless against Facebook fixation.
Facebook has been successful this week demonstrating to the European Union that Facebook has adequate privacy protections in place, but they remain dodgy. Frances Haugen did them no favours, however.
You know, I don’t think my mother thinks about those kinds of things.
My mom has the perception that people are talking to each other when they are posting on Facebook. You can say that’s true, however, I think she sees those individuals “talking” rather than the more accurate description that anyone, when Facebook posts are public, can cooperate with those posts. The explanation for this is those messages from Facebook, about those individuals that you have been cooperating with, is not that those individuals posting have chosen companions to send messages to (ie my mom, I suppose).
What I mean is that when my mother is happy to leave a comment on a post, say, composed by a cousin of hers or by an aunt, with my dad’s account, the reason emails from Facebook come back to him with reminders is that my mother has initiated contact, with his account, with those family members, it is not because those family members want emails sent to him and to her (my mom and dad).
The drawback I personally have run into on Facebook is that I have that one friend who reacts to lots of the posts I do put up. He’s bizarre. I know there’s a cliched perception that if your mother is reading what you are posting on Facebook, you are dealing with trouble, but to that end I don’t remember too many times that the account that my mom and dad use came back with reactions to my posts.
My mom is good that way. Lots of times, I am dropping posts with little to no engagement, although I have an idea what works to at least merit a little bit of a reaction.
Many people prescribing what’s called a dopamine detox suggest staying off social media. Sometimes they say they never felt better after getting away from Facebook for a while (better, or clearer-headed).
I don’t think my mom ever felt Facebook was a problem among me and my brother and my sister. We aren’t children.
My mom doesn’t like me eating too much junk food, but she doesn’t raise objections to too much Facebook use. It just isn’t that Facebook is the problem its detractors say it is.
I doubt that Zuckerberg is the disrupter that Jesse Eisenberg plays him as in the David Fincher film. That really is great cinema. The brilliance of the ambiguity of the conclusion of the film leaves you with the knowledge of how the film’s events next played out in the real world and leaves the audience to ask an existential question, about the value of what Zuckerberg has done.
Jessie Eisenberg as Mark Zuckerberg is the Nietzschean overman who makes a brave journey, a very satisfying ideology. I find Facebook pleasant and harmless. Occasionally if I come on too strong, for a stranger’s liking, I get rebuked, but usually, I pick safe moves that don’t rock the boat too much.
The Social Network
Compared to both Facebook and Instagram, where the drawbacks are becoming ugly to discuss, I retain an optimistic view of Twitter, and I respect the measures Jack Dorsey has implemented to deal with hate speech, which while known to be a problem on Twitter, doesn’t engender the same conversation that I know of that it does about Facebook. Twitter is actually getting so it can conceivably warn you if you are writing an incendiary tweet. It is a changing attitude for the service, for sure.
About Facebook, people say things like hate content will earn more views and that is probably true, although I don’t know why. Facebook is being blamed for allowing this. I think that a person can be more attractive if they aren’t focused on material that is hateful.
A spiritual outlook is better, I think, say, like to believe that there is good in everyone, if it is only nurtured. Hate is a terrible quality to define a person by. There is vast beauty in the world, and to spend your time on Earth consumed by hatred is not a fine way to live life.
When I was a little kid, my mother would say the cliché, “If your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do the same?” It’s not quite the same thing, as my mom doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with Facebook. I don’t, really, either, despite the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2016, and now the Frances Haugen 60 Minutes debacle.
Perhaps those people with whom my mom chats on Facebook, though they may understand Facebook better than my mother does, do like having comments from her, and like having their posts viewed. That my mother can mentally translate Facebook use into a “chat” that is organic in the sense that people are having a catch-up lets me know that there are probably many people who view Facebook, and Facebook Messenger, the same as that.
The mental concept of Facebook automatically translates into a natural style of conversation instead of being too robotic, which is old hat for anybody who can remember the days that Internet chat was a chief part of the Internet’s function, whether that was AOL or MSN Messenger, or, these days, Facebook Messenger.
Perhaps my participation in services like MSN Messenger back in the day helped elucidate for my mother how it is that Internet chat goes, but it is more likely that talk with my sister Kaite is what educated my mother into an understanding of Internet chat, as Kaite thinks of herself as an early adopter of Facebook.
Like a feedback loop, my sister’s instruction to my mother brought round for me insight into how people view Facebook and Facebook Messenger. Other people must have similar reactions when they are becoming familiar with it. While I would have understood it regularly given my experience on MSN Messenger as everybody had in the 2000s, I too feel that I am right as rain about how it is to be on Facebook, but not at the expense of how I feel it is to be part of a community inside Facebook.
The problem is the question of whether Facebook will keep a good enough reputation for itself among most Internet users around the world. Though my mom’s understanding of Facebook is probably largely due to my sister’s help, I think my mom is right that she sees the use of Facebook in a simple but useful light. None of that would be going on without my sister’s words of explanation for my mother and father.
I should remember that when I am writing emails to Kaite. Respect due, Kaite is married and has a little one at home, and has been working in the city of London, England, where their family resides.
My mom may discourage junk food, but Facebook is right by her. I remember my high school librarian who referred to many works of fiction as being “ice cream reading,” meaning they weren’t high-value books. Funny how that is.
You’re welcome to like this post, follow my blog, and leave comments. All the best, especially if you are on Facebook. If you want to contact me by email, you can, at the personal email patrickcoholan@hotmail.com
My personal Facebook account is https://www.facebook.com/findingenvirons Don’t think you can be affected? Give it a go. I hope you have a great Halloween this season.
A TikTokker followed me, this weekend, with the offer of a shoutout if I were to follow her account, and to tag three friends and to share her video to get an upswing startedhttps://vm.tiktok.com/JN4odUw/
“Are blogs still popular in 2020?”
“Yes, blogging in 2020 is still popular and is serving even more purpose than ever before. …68% of marketers now see blogging as a useful marketing tool.”
Just so we’re on the same page. 🙂 It’s a decent rivalry.
It is now summer. Even though the winter doesn’t usually get too severe here in Southern Ontario, we have summer which feels pretty scorching, and that is surreal. That aspect is well-intensified by strange circumstances. Writing this, in July 2020, I am beginning year no. 9 of writing my blog.
A blog, as you know, is long-form writing. It’s the opposite of microblogging, like how blogging is on Twitter. A Personal Plan on WordPress, an option on the blogging platform, lets you design a blog by choosing from among a variety of special themes, that shape how your blog looks.
On WordPress, as mine is, a regular domain doesn’t look bad, but a more ambitious blogger might start with a Personal Plan if you want a more professional-looking blog. In fact, in WordPress, the Block Editor is the design page that helps you put together blocks of paragraphs, to make writing a post easy.
I use a lot of white space, to keep my blog readable, and to keep it feeling like typewriter text transported to a computer screen, which is what early word processing programs were like. If you know about adventure games in the nineteen-seventies and -eighties, like, for example, the game company Infocom’s game Zork, or a different, earlier, hit game called Adventure, you know they consist of a paragraph of descriptive text followed by a blinking parser, at which you would enter a two-word command to play. I have that period of gaming as a primary concern, one wellspring of motivation.
My intention presently is to reach several dozen people or so with each post, possibly a hundred visitors per post, which is the typical reach I have at present. I appreciate that the odd post I’ve composed gets a couple of guests, to boot. With WordPress, the stats dashboard gives you an idea of how many visitors have turned up for your blog posts, and what they are saying their country of origin is.
I have had this blog for eight years. That’s the level of expertise I have with it, Level Nine, you might put it.
In the first edition of the former game company TSR’s classic game Dungeons & Dragons, Level Nine was known as Name Level. That is the famous tabletop game. It features in the plot of the Netflix hit Stranger Things.
Name Level means that your Dungeons & Dragons character has made a name for himself, as in “Merlin” becoming “Merlin the Wizard,” to take from Arthurian mythology an example. In Arthurian mythology, Merlin is the wizard who helps King Arthur rule at Camelot. Like Merlin and King Arthur, here on WordPress, I am leet.
Likewise, with different parts of life, you have goals with your blog, and blogging makes unobtrusive notoriety for yourself (as it is the Name Level guidelines in Dungeons & Dragons sway interaction.)
On occasion, I draw extra thoughts from patterns I see via web-based media, stages like Twitter and YouTube, and TikTok. On WordPress, I get to blog as much as I make time for it, which is a luxury I know many aspiring writers would enjoy themselves if they had it. With that sort of extravagance, I am happy with the opportunity to continue without too many time limitations. I am not too hard on myself.
My intentions, also, are to keep posting in a way that other people might relate to. When WordPress offered a fourteen-day prologue to composing verse, quite a long while back, I composed through that fourteen-day arrangement. Actually, at the time, I was kind of pleased with a few of the ideas I came up with, as I think my approach is a touch singular.
I in some cases loan support to other little bloggers. I have seen that quite a few bloggers do that. Those are probably the kind of people that I am trying to reach.
Another source of inspiration, outside WordPress, is the real world Nashville Tennessee writer Jeff Goins, an inspiring voice in blogging circles. I think Jeff Goins worked in marketing when he decided he wanted to begin writing. In fact, for his first book, he presented the title You Are A Writer.
The Art of Work is a book that explores all kinds of inspired case studies, of people who bring a special touch to the work they do. It became a bestseller. I think Goins wrote that unless your heart is in your work, it isn’t right.
As well, my father’s sister’s husband, Rick, and his wife Sue, both residing in Nashville, have written some books. They are my godparents.
To the reader, if you have ever read my blog and are returning, by all means, thank you. Such a great hobby. You’re welcome to comment or to follow.
Have a wonderful day and a terrific summer. I wish you well!
The April 2020 WordPress Discover challenges continue with another essay by Michelle Weber, on the subject of “pairs.” Today’s Discover challenge for me is particularly enjoyable. I am thankful.
the stranger, by Albert Camus killing an Arab the cure
a gentleman deals with the death of his mother. killing an Arab might have been the first single put out by the cure. i am sure the cure were inspired by the stranger when they wrote this song, which, despite its theme of “killing” is not a song about hate
brave new world, by Aldous Huxley chrome injury the church
in the future, a man from lands outside civilization tries to come to terms with how people are living. chrome injury is a song from the church’ first record, a new wave record entitled of skins and hearts
bonfire of the vanities, by tom Wolfe a well-respected man the kinks
an accidental hit and run are the minutes that serve to ruin a rich man’s life. a well-respected man tells the story of a man whose desires are controlled by his need to fit into “normal” society
one flew over the cuckoo’s nest, by Ken Kesey ballad of Dwight Frye Alice cooper
a rogue goes into an insane asylum rather than face jail time. Alice cooper’s song ballad of Dwight Frye from their first album love it to death is on a similar theme, about a deadbeat dad who gets locked up
Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance, by Robert Pirsig born to be wild Steppenwolf
a man “throws away his wristwatch” and travels the united states. born to be wild by Steppenwolf is identifiable as being about that same kind of thing
by the way, you’re welcome to follow and/or to comment
Fandango is a blogger who I consider every once in a while a nobleman, a savvy. At one time WordPress would give prompts to urge befuddled bloggers to get a post distributed, yet since the official prompts have finished, Fandango has volunteered to give day by day prompts that are incentive to remember prompts that were, and prompts which are truly useful.
The word for the nineteenth is dial, of which I think, immediately, the instruction to the telephone to ring out to someone with whom you wish to speak. The dial could likewise allude to a check that illuminates how much a measure is accessible, or valuable. However, I think immediately of dialing the telephone, to talk to somebody.
I recall dial is a brand of soap cleanser, as well. This could perhaps be applied to the phone to keep it clean, or, taking it further, to clean the individual with who you wish to speak!
In some cases, I can envision that for appearances, one using the phone to arrange business would appreciate a telephone kept up for neatness, as opposed to a unit that is open to all. I am not sure the caller would always want to join the party for cleanliness, but common sense informs me that consistent measures to keep clean are best put in place, rather than, as my dad might say to me, letting myself go. I remember a high school science experiment of trying to effect a bar of soap, from scratch.
I am trusting with this post to add a sort of punchline to my post yesterday, as it didn’t charge well with my latest, fairly baffling to note. That said, perhaps a variation in my method will help me return to the dozens of readers I could reach, rather than the scant few who availed themselves of me, yesterday. In any case, you are welcome to like this post, to follow me or to leave a comment.
Thank you to Fandango, for the inventiveness of thinking to continue daily prompts, in the same fashion as WordPress did daily, not all that long ago. I hope your troubles continue to be manageable, sir, and that you have a splendid winter ahead. I’ll see you once more, I’m sure.
Seeking ideas for this small blog of mine, I began last month to refer to the weekly newsletter Publishous. Publishous is a little more than a year old, with about 5800 supporters. The newsletter is a collection of semi-connected ideas about content and the like and includes a writing prompt.
Formerly I would refer to WordPress’ own daily prompts before that came to an end, owing, I presume, to WordPress no longer wishing to organize their once-a-day prompts.
The prompt for the current newsletter is Resolutions. I am late because I did less work between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.
As you know, the custom among many New Year’s revelers is to identify resolutions for the coming year that mark a life change. Resolutions can be in the spirit of fun, or they can be difficult to declare if a resolution requires the kind of change that is hard to make.
I kind of hate resolutions because I cannot think of useful ones. I do have a few tactics ready, for better productivity in 2019.
I was inspired in 2018 to read Robert Greene’s book The 48 Laws of Power. This book was a difficult read, but rich enough with great ideas to benefit from having read the book. Even though 2019 was far off, I thought to resolve to make some attempt to apply the book to my strategy in the year ahead.
I was not confident that I could apply much of The 48 Laws of Power until I came across a Twitter account that helps by mentioning ideas from Greene’s book– https://twitter.com/48tweetsofpower
I want to apply more commitment to the areas of work for which I am already present.
My digital social interactions are largely confined to Facebook and Twitter.
At the cemetery, we have been working together since 2011, and we soon thought that a page for the work we do would be useful.
On Twitter, I don’t specifically refer to details of the work I do with my dad. Instead, I tweet a few articles, generally about tech, and some about charity and a few other concepts. I have the idea that, if I do this, it could prove useful.
On Facebook, real “real estate” is hard to market, because of the competition among business users, to make ads which are interesting. I wish my dad and I had a marketing budget, but we don’t.
Most of the work I do for my dad’s little business is done on a volunteer basis, and I rarely include a call-to-action that deliberately invites business (you could say I leave money on the table). It’s just not my responsibility.
That’s all part of why I struggle with effective New Year’s resolutions. It is frustrating to think that life improvement could be worked out without a yin and yang down-side, that depletes the benefit of strategy in business, and in life. I want to check the work in case there is a down-side, that I am blind to, that could defeat me.
I want to blog at approximately the same pace at which the newsletter prompts are e-mailed, in Publishous. You may wish to check it out for yourself.
The spirit of the blog is to put out an “ask” identifying that I’m interested in taking “real world” work online and also that I’m capable as a creator, to use the buzzword, to keep active in a role which for now is valuable to my dad’s business in terms of the results I effect. I’m an optimist.
Bruce Wayne decided as a boy that he would honour the memory of his mother and father by inventing himself as Batman and challenging many criminals in Gotham City.
I watched Justice League when it went to Netflix this month and I enjoyed it. The camaraderie between the members of the Justice League comes off as solid and the plot of the film is enjoyable. It is curious to see Superman return to life.
Some of the cool moments from my life were opportunities to see films, in movie theaters. In 1989, cinema fans filled movie houses to see the DC superhero Batman on the silver screen.
Photographer:
Bruce Mars
I had a good time. Actor Michael Keaton’s role as Bruce Wayne, with its heroism, detachment from wealth, and indifference to romance makes the character of Batman a reinvention. I suppose Keaton was a surprise star turn, and the subplot of Gotham City TV news anchors unable to appear beautiful on television, owing to poison in beauty products deliverered by The Joker, is clever.
Jack Napier’s transition to The Joker is memorable. In other scenes from Batman, Billy Dee Williams of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and subsequently in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, appears as Harvey Dent.
The climactic confrontation of the film, at the Gotham City parade beneath a cathedral with the height of a skyscraper, is wonderful.
Photographer: Yi Ling Tan
When the creepy little video store in the shopping plaza near my home began renting to customers Batman, the store displayed tapes of the film like a phenomenon. Shelf after shelf were full of the Batman video. The format was VHS, the cassette for running a film with a VHS player.
I’d been to see it, but I wanted that VHS. Christmas came, and family placed hand-wrapped videotape-shaped objects under the holiday tree.
They were VHS tapes, but what titles were they? Us kids wouldn’t know until Christmas morning. At the appointed time, I opened mine, and to my delight, the tape inside was Batman.
As the family opened our presents, a second tape of Batman under the Christmas tree emerged. My mother’s brother and his wife had arranged for the gift of the movie Batman as well. Two VHS tapes of the same film–a double.
What did my dear mother decide, you might ask? This was a bummer. She would quietly return a copy of the film to its retail store.
As a twelve-year-old, the price of a brand-new edition of a blockbuster film must be extravagant, I reasoned. The VHS copy of Batman we had would belong to us all.
I suppose that taught me a lesson, like not to count your chickens before they hatch. It was as if my uncle and aunt had felt I deserved my own copy of Batman, and Santa Claus did not. The VHS tape of Batman was a gift, what I wanted and what I was losing.
In 1989, fate unfolded for Batman mobster Jack Napier. The criminal mastermind falls into a vat of burning acid. He loses the pigment of his skin and becomes molded with a permanent smile on his face.
I hadn’t earned my own copy of Batman, and I suppose the real lesson was that I should share. It is a state of becoming tantalized by the promise of something gold and being humbled by the requirement to give it up. Maybe we didn’t know that doubles of the Batman film were under the tree, but no contingency plan was in place.
I was cheesed.
Batman fans typically embrace the trilogy of Batman movies years later directed by Christopher Nolan, but I didn’t get interested in them.
You’re welcome to like, comment, or follow if my recollection of dealing with a hot trendy thing like the above resonates with you.
I’d been focusing when I could on five more ways you can dispense with some of the time you’re putting into video research. If you do anything like that and if you think of consuming video content as being video research, then increasingly I don’t think there’s a consensus that anything like video research is useful. I’m looking back in time when there were different attitudes to video. I mean that it wasn’t as accessible as it today. It occurs to me I should argue that if you are committed to any research activity utilizing video, and there’s a ready workaround, you should concentrate on the workaround.
Aerial view of black board with the letter forming hello greeting concept
The first part for this post, about chasing an adherent to research, left off with points how you can turn some of your conclusions into blog posts. Or if you don’t have a blog, there’s somewhere you could start. I would like to make the point that the best conclusions you can form from watching a lot of videos can indeed be put somewhere, like in a blog, or a podcast, etc. For example, on Patrick Bet-David’s Valutainment on the internet, I watched Bet-David and Robert Greene discuss Greene’s latest bestseller. Bet-David pointed out that Greene sat down with three hundred books to write his latest book, for the pay-off. That’s the traditional sense of research that I don’t think you should disregard in any way. There is no way that you can eliminate the process of reading the page, or perhaps your Kindle, from the actual work of doing research. Sad but true.
The traditional sense of video is taking a video camera to a wedding and then selling it to the wedding party. The best research you can cultivate from a video of that kind is whether a particular family member was in attendance, or perhaps how the bridesmaids looked when they were standing side by side. Do you see many wedding videos, apart from celebrity weddings, that make it onto the Internet? I am not sure there are, particularly as the advent of the handheld video camera has given way to the smartphone camera. If you are a young person reading this, and you don’t relate to the idea of a videographer at a wedding, it isn’t that different from a professional photographer taking pictures. It is just that the videographer mingles with the wedding party and gets a little movie of the wedding.
I’m writing there about commercial consumer video, not expensive TV productions. The thing about the video you watch is that when it is a pricey production, I don’t think you can count on it for insight. Particularly when focusing on video production for TV, in the nineteen sixties, seventies, and eighties, when the technology was useful enough to shoot material for television, and before computers were beginning to infiltrate it, there just wasn’t a lot of purely informative video. The novelty on being on video overshadowed a requirement, to be honest. As soon as the camera was recording, everybody was immediately acting at all times. That sounds like a polarized argument, but ninety-nine percent of the time if you were being paid to appear on camera, you were acting to do it. Speaking jovially, you had to nail it.
What happened in the mid-nineteen-eighties? Computer effects were beginning to be integrated into more and more of the ready video, which starts to become interesting for the possibility that more and better information could be communicated by video. With more information is born the reality that better information begins to come across. Purists might disagree, but fast-forward fifteen years and amateur video is not only more accessible but could also be edited on par with the best of people in the trade in previous decades. There had been an explosion of video on cable TV which meant more ways to deliver information by video. Did that mean you could derive better conclusions in the sense that by better I mean better located in reality? I think so. You always want the past back, once you’re past a certain age, but there is some logic, or I am doing my best to apply logic here.
The apparent irony is that the development of the computer industry accelerated at a much faster pace than did the growth of video. I’m tempted once more to stop, but it’s true that by the time video was in its golden years, the computer industry was spritely, pardon the pun, spritely and skyrocketing for many, many people. I don’t want to mislead you unfairly, but surely some blame for some of the big, really bad troubles that have hit people where there is free access to information lies with what’s just bad information. That caution gets sounded frequently, and where before I was tempted to stop then and there, now I really am going to stop.
I have promised one more post on the subject, with five remaining ways you might want to dodge video. You’re welcome to like, comment, and/or follow.
I am humbled by the attention I receive and I shall make some effort to reciprocate interest if I am lucky enough to make a tiny ripple in this pond. We need to go back to the future
Today, September 8, is International Literacy Day. It was celebrated for the first time in 1967. Its aim is to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities, and societies. Celebrations take place in various countries.
From Wikipedia, Retrieved 7 August 2012.
If you are intellectually-minded, you will probably find yourself reading a number of works of literature, the best-regarded and the most-often cited.
Photographer: Jess Watters
I completed two semesters of literature in college, the second part of 1996 and the first of 1997. The curriculum included a lot of assigned reading material. It required devoting a good distribution of time outside of lectures and seminars to turning the pages of important writing, historical in the sense it is enduring.
No one disputes that a lot of partying goes on in college. I’m a mortal, however. I wasn’t going to the bar environs with my friends much at all, as many peers were doing. I didn’t see any way around reading in my room, at least some of the time.
I’d been in eleventh grade between 1993 and 1994. I had elected to take, as one of my high school courses, the subject of ancient history.
When the summer of 1994 arrived, Mr. Simpson, the gentleman who was teaching an ancient history class, signed my 1994 school yearbook with a note that he predicted I’d spend my life doing a lot of reading. I think he felt I was a smart student.
Ancient history explained what human life was like, as best we could calculate in the day, life in ancient times when other civilizations than the present existed around the planet. It reminded me a little of the game Dungeons & Dragons.
Mr. Simpson taught us about nations such as the Roman Empire. I’ve inferred that the historical Roman Empire inspired some of the gameplay of nineteen seventies’ Dungeons & Dragons.
In the school board governing my high school, in the first part of the year 1996, the teachers went on a work-to-rule. It was my “grade 13,” the year that tried to most closely prepare students if they stayed in schooling.
WordPress with positive contrast
“Work-to-rule” meant that high school teachers would only work the hours specifically matched to the student timetable and that teachers wouldn’t support any outside activity or assign homework. It was worrisome because I needed to get a jump on the skills I’d need for college. The teachers I had on hand to me simply weren’t working other than carrying out the minimum effort possible.
“If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise”
I might not have got into so much bother at that time. I feel I wasted time partying with friends, as there was no homework to be done and I was characteristically young, an early student. I wasn’t a self-starter, I would say, as I wasn’t challenging myself to learn all the essential skills to start college.
I didn’t have much help from our teachers–none of the students did–and when it came time to start college, I had a disadvantage.
It was a bad break. My college grades dipped more than I would have liked, more than they might have had I taken the initiative to develop study skills necessary to deliver the goods in college.
I mentioned the game Dungeons & Dragons. In various editions of Dungeons & Dragons “initiative” is a rule that game players help decide strategy combat by dice rolls which inform which game character has the first choice to act in the rounds of battle, an advantage in being first.
I should have tried to win the initiative roll. I plainly didn’t. I regret it to this day.
I certainly ask for you to “like,” comment, and/or follow. I wish you well in your own “game.” Good luck to you, however you decide to play your hand.
Sacrifice is inevitable, and, really, a loss is the essence of tragedy. That’s why tears are shed, whether the sacrifice is deliberate or not, and, in the end, what was most dear to us is gone and never again had. Whatever we lose, no matter how hard we fought to earn it or how profusely we sweated to realize what we hold close, the day comes when it goes and you may not even have a chance to say goodbye.
Photographer: it’s me neosiam
What do we hold precious? Whatever seems to us to be the best, what we cherish if we are among the lucky, people, animals, places, property… it all goes.
It can be gone in the wink of an eye. What’s more, it will most likely be that we will never have known it at all, except in our memory.
Fate unfolds for one and all, I suspect. We have opportunities to wield our hand and to stake claim to everything we feel we want, but if misfortune strikes, all of it can be taken away, and even if we do everything in our power to keep safe what we love, I think you must know that it will go, that nothing is forever. You don’t have but once, I feel, and it doesn’t matter what else is taught you.
I want to tell you this with the best intentions. You have but what amounts to today, and you have to strike, to hold, and to keep fast, and to love because you can never count on what’s ahead. It doesn’t matter what controls you set for the future.
You will see this time go, and it will never return. The most I can do, I feel, is to let you know.
Today’s WordPress prompt is the word “gone.” If you sympathize, if you “like” this blog post, use the “like” button or “follow” or subscribe. I didn’t want to be the one to tell you, but if you’re the same as me, you’re already here.
I’ve decided to return to my explanation of the Marvel Comics game Marvel Avengers Alliance, through the “lens” of the renowned treatise on military strategy, The Art of War.
Photographer: Suzy Hazelwood
1. The Laying of Plans, Calculations and Estimations
In Marvel Avengers Alliance, you have to “earn” gold, and this is achieved by spending money (such as $5 on ten “gold”). Gold can be exchanged for command points. A combination of silver, which is available for free in the game, and command points together, train your superheroes at the ready–so that they go up a level.
2. Waging War – The Challenge
The game Avengers Alliance consists of a number of challenges between its “bosses,” who are wicked opponents to the Avengers, and yourself and your heroes. Come each time you defeat a “mini-boss” or a “boss” you have won a game mission, and the next mission awaits. That’s the gist of the game, which is good fun.
3. Attack by Stratagem or Planning Offensives
In the game, you have a ready store of gear, supplies and more so that with “research”, carried out inside the game, your superheroes at the ready can advance to more dangerous fights than they have previously taken on. You can also recruit heroes and send them into battle (when they are not “busy” getting you silver) at the outset of each fight, so that you have enough superheroes at the ready.
4. Tactical Dispositions or Positioning
Tactical determinations aren’t a major concern in Marvel Avengers Alliance, but there are opponents against whom you must battle, that protect their own by getting in the way of your attacks.
5. Energy & Direction
There is an energy component to Marvel Avengers Alliance which restricts you by the number of fights you can lose, at which point you need to wait until your energy comes back. Or, if you have energy in reserve to use, which is an extra in the game, you can bring your energy back instantly.
6. Weak Points and Strong / Illusion versus Reality
The game is entirely about illusion, and the superheroes at the ready are the Avengers, who you know from comics, and film. The Avengers have many illusory powers which they wield. Likewise, the villains are monstrous!
7. Maneuvering and Dealing with Direct Conflict
Typically, the fights of the game are three against three, or occasionally fewer. The maneuvering in battle consists of directing your team’s attacks so that the enemies are reduced to zero and fade away.
8. Variation in Tactics aka The Innumerable Changes
Your team has their equipment and superpowers so you can choose your tactics while in the heat of battle. That’s a major part of the game, and if that kind of diversion interests you, Avengers is good fun.
9. The Army on the March / Moving the Force
To collect silver, which goes with training and research, you can send heroes to various parts of the world as it is understood in the game, where your heroes spend time “policing,” which plays into the game to help with your advancement.
10. Terrain or Situational Positioning
The game doesn’t include a terrain component, which is good because the app would be all the more challenging. Each fight resembles good or evil at the centre of the fight.
11. The Nine Situations / Terrains
Author Elish Bul-Godley discusses Chinese philosopher Sun Tzu in: Why Wall Street Loves “The Art of War” – A 13 Point Plan To Mastering Business Strategy, and if you have a thirst for combat, perhaps Sun Tzu’s strategy will appeal to your better judgement. Bul-Godley quotes Sun Tzu saying: “Strike at its head, and you will be attacked by its tail; strike at its tail, and you will be attacked by its head; strike at its middle, and you will be attacked by head and tail both.” Indeed, often your fights will be against a trio of evildoers, and you have to decide how best to attack your enemies.
12. The Attack by Fire
Fire-dealing weaponry is part of the game, and an arsenal is available both to you (who is the “Agent” in the game), and to the superheroes who have fire attacks at their disposal.
13. The Use of Spies / Intelligence
Fortunately, Intelligence, by which you gain information, factors into the game as much as the story does, keeping the fights coming, as a mission is always ready for your heroes.
14. There is no #14
Sun Tzu must have won the war at 13, for The Art of War stops there.
Sky opening on the horizon
If you have an interest in a game like Marvel Avengers Alliance, feel free to blog about it and I shall enjoy reading you!
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