RKNet Blog... Thing

My awesome Lorem Ipsum shirt provided by TeeFury, makers of fine, rare designer tshirts.

First off, it was great to see everybody again! I had missed the last two Media Makers events and kicked myself pretty hard both times. Thanks to my cat and the fact that I have a memory like a (rusted) steel trap, I was able to make it out to Newmarket in time to schmooze a little before everything got started.

Everybody is really busy! I took some general notes on each person and everybody had something fun or interesting to share.

UnclePhilms -

• Talked about film projects he’s working on, stuff in conjunction with NewtonStudios.com and BostonFilms.com (bostonfilms.com links to a weird page about internet connection sharing??) - Zerk.tv
• Mentioned that he is scoring a film (horror film I think it was).

Bryan White of Cinema Suicide -

• Launched Soundtrack Apocalisse, featuring soundtrack reviews. Apocalisse is Italian for apocalypse! Neat!
• He’s got tshirts for Cinema Suicide now! They’re really cool looking, done in fake movie poster style, with Cinema Suicide’s URL on them. Go get one now so you can say you were in at the ground floor.
• Quoted by Ghost Adventures, who will soon be putting out a DVD (which may or may not contain some of those CS group quotes). (Correct me if I’m citing the wrong Ghost Adventures group.)
• He mentioned gearing up to do a documentary about the less-than-savory history of Portsmouth, NH and doing some paranormal investigation to coincide with the area. Talked about a lot of really interesting history surrounding Portsmouth. Things I’d never heard before like all the old aqueduct work that has survived, and the old tunnels under the city surviving from old military installations. It sounds like there are a lot of really fascinating subjects he could cover in a Portsmouth documentary and I look forward to hearing way more about it.
• Cinema Suicide got covered by local entertainment paper: The Wire. The story is mentioned on the front page, so if you see a copy, go grab it!

Newcomers! Rob Jaques and Shawn Lampron.

• Rob is a writer, a musician and photographer. He’s got a pretty awesome flickr profile at santaplausible (which is a name I just absolutely love, by the way). He’s looking to collaborate and learn more about cool stuff to do on the internet.
• Shawn is a writer and I believe he said he’s also done some teaching. He’s interested in getting involved in more media and web-based projects.

Chris Clark of GeekForceFive -

• He’s got a book out! Congratulations! It’s called Those Little Bastards and it is available for sale through echristopherclark.com.
• Over at GeekForceFive, he experimented with adding a Question of the Day to a video post he did regarding his recent NIN concert experience. This got some of the best feedback he’s seen yet, and he is considering making Question of the Day a regular feature on GFF. Sounds like a terrific idea and I hope he keeps us posted!
• He’s also forging a community area for GFF at geekforcefive.ning.com - ning.com being a resource for people who want to take a sort of plug-and-play approach to social networking/community sites.

Leslie Poston -

• She’s doing some authoring over at TechnoSailor.com, a tech, business, and new media site.
• Got BIG plans for the upcoming SXSW, trying to get a panel together on “Can social media save the world?” and is looking for support to get this exciting concept off the launchpad and into the conference. The idea behind this panel was inspired by her recent experiences at PodCamp Boston.
• Got a site going called UptownUncorked.com, which has a neat wine glass shape going on with the first U that I think is really neat and would totally like to see develop more as a concept.
• Recently attended a Mashable event in Boston. Also mentioned that she’s a frequent attendee of Boston. Any Media Maker folks who are interested in Boston events should probably contact her for info on carpooling and so forth.
• She’s working with a site called Blorge.com who is also doing some hiring right now.

Deb Mcnally -

• I finally got to meet @debdebtig! I’ve been following her for a while on Twitter because she’s a locally active person. It’s nice to be able to put a face to a name like that.
• Deb is a tech communicator (all types of media, not just writing), as well as a local farmer!
• She’s got nheggs.blogspot.com and will be branching that out to include an official site (NHeggs.com) as well as adding some web service profiles for her chickens, giving people a day-in-the-life look into what it’s like to be a hen on the farm.
• Anecdotally - Back-in-the-day, her husband ran the largest BBS in southern New Hampshire! How cool is that? I myself didn’t spend much time on the internet during the BBS days, I spent more time trying to stay up late playing Shining Force on the Sega channel without getting caught. :3

Nick Plante aka ZapNap -

• He’s also written a book! It’s called Practical Rails Plugins and it’s currently available for pre-order on Amazon. It’s pretty exciting to have published authors in our midst.
• For anyone who doesn’t know, Nick is a freelance developer, working primarily with Ruby on Rails, but is awesome enough to provide services above and beyond that as duty calls.
• He’s also been involved with a zine called ink19, which as I understand it started life as a paper zine and has since evolved some digital tentacles to better propel itself through the cultural miasma that is the internet. The primary focus of ink19 is music, but they cover other fun stuff like movies, television and various other exciting whatnots.
• Nick has a dream! A dream in which it is much easier for people to read and distribute webcomics. That’s a really awesome dream. One which we can probably all get behind.
• Sub-question: Should we do a group event to brainstorm all the possible features and needs of a webcomic reader/distro system? Could be a really entertaining and worthwhile project, and could ultimately unseat things like WordPress when it comes to web comic creation and distribution! (and how boss monster would that be? pfft. very.)

Brian Turnbull -

• Another newcomer, and recent transplant from Chi-town (Chicago). He’s a professional photographer and has recently collaborated with ZapNap.
• Brian and Nick worked with a client to very recently launch Razume.com, a site in which people can have their resumes reviewed by their peers (and probably also by hiring professionals!).
• He took photos of this month’s NHMM which are already up. Why do I always get caught making the most awkward faces?!
• He’s done some photography work for various big band jazz groups, including album art for the Stone/Bratt Big Band.

John Herman -

• Gravityland season two is in the works! More people are getting interested in the project, so the second season could get really intense.
• He’s also working away on a pilot for an HD webisodic show called Thomas in Wonkyland. The premise came about at an improv event a while back, and some of those same players are coming back to work on this concept. It sounds absolutely hilarious and I can’t wait to see it!
• John recently helped his wife make a 1 minute movie for a film festival called le 60, a bunch of 1 minute movies to be shown in Boston in mid-September. He shared with us a really inspiring story about how he contacted a musician in Germany that he really admired, and was able to get some unique music for the project from that communication. Very cool. Incidentally: le 60 is accepting submissions through August 15th, so there is still time to participate in this project/contest.

Jill Silos -

• Jill is an author and cultural historian who works with grad students at UNH, as well as other local college-level students in the area.
• She is working on a book called Everybody Get Together: The Politics of the Counterculture. The book in project form won an award back in 2005, and I think it’s safe to say everyone in the group was very interested in the finished product when it’s ready for release.
• She’s learning to play guitar and apparently does a pretty mean D minor, but is still looking for tips on how to transition between chords.

As for myself, I talked a little bit about exciting new developments at work, and a few of my ideas for RKNet.

• RKNet will be featuring content from paid bloggers. I am still taking inquiries about this, although I have had several interested parties contact me already. Email giania [at] gmail.com if you wish to get more info about the program.
• The purpose of the paid blogging program is to free me up to do the following: redo the RKNet template, develop really cool merch ideas, strengthen affiliate relations. Eventually I want RKNet to be something like boingboing without the awkward lesbian “unpublishing” drama. Baby steps.
• Chris had a really terrific merchandise idea for RKNet, develop “random kitty” plush toys, literal random kitties, probably small batch or one-off items to keep things interesting, and cement their status as collectors items.
• I talked briefly about an idea I had to create a site to specialize in supporting local farmers and local farmers’ markets by providing a centralized site catering to their needs. Deb let me know that in her experience it’s actually pretty difficult to keep up with the normal demand, much less deal with greater exposure. I’d love to work with some people on this concept, to come up with a variety of ideas on how a site like this could help the most people, and maybe make some money.
• Some things I neglected to mention:
• I’ve got a soup! giania.soup.io it’s a kind of micro-blogging, tumblr sort of service. It’s lots of fun and allows for quick sharing of some of your favorite (or least favorite) items on the internet.
• I attended the Boston-based An Event Apart conference. I have transcribed some of my notes, but there’s still a lot left to put up. Stay tuned.
• I mentioned a friend’s ninja doll project but forgot the URL ( ninja-dolls.com DUH), also posted the URL in the comments at the NH Media Makers blog.
• As mentioned gingerly so as not to offend the nice people at Crackskulls, I am a HUGE fan of Dover’s newest coffee shop, Adelle’s. As we get more people at NH MM, we may run out of room at Crackskulls. I spoke briefly with one of the people who works at Adelle’s and it sounds like they might be interested in hosting an event like ours. I believe they have wifi there, and I’m working on getting them their own website so news/events can be posted there also. I’m really dying to try one of their bacon cheddar scones.

Don’t forget to visit the official NH Media Makers blog and check out all the notes John put up, as well as all the comments and follwups from the attendees!

Well, I’m just back from the first ever NH Media Makers get together. What a terrific idea, and what a great turn out. I honestly didn’t know what to expect, both in people or content, despite the post at the actual NH Media Makers site detailing who would be there and what to expect!

We had all types of people, with different disciplines, but the major unifying factor was our passion for all things internet. Which is extremely refreshing as a majority of people I’ve met here in New Hampshire have not been the slightest bit interested in the internet or tech in general. It was like a high school AV meeting with a million times more class.

After adamantly sucking down as much coffee as possible, I tuned in to each attendee’s introduction and background. Everybody had a great story to tell and a variety of really terrific projects they were involved in too. I don’t think a single person there had just one thing they were working on, interested in, or knew about. There was no shortage of great ideas, and everybody seemed tremendously passionate about their field of interest.

We had photographers, videographers, writers, entrepreneurs, search engine marketers, programmers, culture geeks, and often times most people were several of those things if not all of them! Had I been taking notes I’d have a lot more details about each person. Everybody I met was just terrific. There was a definite buzz in the air and I could tell a lot of really valuable connections were made. Separately we’ve got a ton of super ideas and talents, together we could really turn this area into a hub of internet and cultural activity.

Couple of points I want to shout out to any local readers:

• One of the attendees is a film maker out in Manchester who will be looking for extras interested in dying. :)
• Another wants to get interest up in late night monster movie showings in the area, preferably big screen. Who knows about theater in the area?
• We’ve got film folks who might want extras, guest writers, feedback, or musical contributions/suggestions.
• There are authors chomping at the bit for publishing tips or inspiration in general.
• There’s me, looking for blog authors and people interested in helping my wacky friends commit some of their film ideas to the web.
• There’s a niche marketer looking for ideas and feedback on how to incorporate things like video and blogs into his repertoire to strengthen his position as the top in his field(s).

And so much more. I’m hoping others took better notes. There will be a mailing list, and notes and attendee URLs will be posted over at the NH Media Makers site, so stay tuned. We’ll also have some pictures and video courtesy of a few folks who were there. (Phil, John, and Roger if I remember correctly.) There will be more of these in the future, so if you missed the first one, fret not, you will have a chance to join in the fun!

First and foremost, happy Pi Day!

Secondly, and more importantly (my prioritization skills have become rather skewed, what can I say?), it is the birthday of my esteemed co-writer and guy-I-totally-do-the-thing-with, Ian!

Wish him a happy one! Tomorrow: Ides of March. Watch out for statesmen bearing shiny objects, they might also be very pointed, and very headed for your viscera.

Last night the most remarkable series of things happened, resulting in a delightful print out just for you!
In #ormgas (the IRC channel for the OCR internet radio broadcast), Leissi pasted the following -

Notice: This Department requires no physical fitness program: everyone gets enough exercise jumping to conclusions, flying off the handle, running down the boss, knifing friends in the back, dodging responsibility, and pushing their luck.

Struck with inspiration, I decided to make a poster from this material. I also decided that the various cautionary signs from the game Portal, with their wet-floor-sign-guy-in-major-peril quality, were the absolute best to give some graphical window dressing to this wry jab at working life. (I realize the quote is rather old, but I’d forgotten all about it until Leissi was kind enough to remind me of it.)

After several fruitless searches (shocking with the amount of slavering Portal fanatics out there) in the ever-convenient Google Image Search, I finally dug up a panel of Portal’s caution signs. It wasn’t very large so I tried to resize it cleverly, but the end result was still fuzzy. Seeing as this was meant to be a five minute haha on my part, I wasn’t terribly concerned.

I did however take the time to change the saying slightly to make it more apropos to my own current working life. Pleased with myself, I saved a copy as a jpg and slapped it up in #ormgas, and in #ectomo.

I left shortly thereafter, and thought nothing of it, until I came in this morning and checked my gmail. What appeared before my eyes, but a white knight from the depths of #ectomo, Maicro, come to clean up the fuzzy Portal images and raise this snarky little geek joke to the next level of professional subversiveness.

Without further ado, a giant jpg for you to print and share with all the people who fill you with levels of contempt that are at best unhealthy and at worst result in much head explodey.

One million thousand thanks to Leissi and Maicro for their invaluable contributions in the field of snarky, passive-aggressive sign leaving technology. If you have opportunity, comment with links to photos of this particular sheet in action.

Back with more handcrafted ideas for giving people stuff because of some holiday or another is EvilMadScientist.com as they demonstrate how to create Iterative Algorithmic Sculptures from Fimo!

I love fractals despite having only the wispiest of understandings on the mathematics behind them. The tutorial offers you a way to handcraft a physical model of the Sierpinski Triangle, with or without the math background. Although he does offer a few sources that explain what the Chaos Game is, which is worth learning about even if you really only appreciate fractals for their visual appeal. (I found a neat little flash version of the Chaos Game while poking around to find out more about the math portion of this project.)

There are a lot of great photos to go with this project, which is helpful since it looks rather challenging. Seeing this done, I could definitely picture someone making Triforce gear using some of the principles here.
My thought:

• Take iteration one and slice into desired size sections.
• Poke a good-sized hole through the center triangle before baking, as well as any desired holes for adding string or wire if making jewelry out of these.
• Bake per the clay’s instructions
• Once set and cooled, file away the center starting at the hole you poked before baking until there’s only just enough left to hold the outer triangles together. the idea is to make it look like they’re held together by only the corners.
• Spray paint gold or clearcoat, depending on how you want the color.

I don’t ordinarly gush over gadgets, but this keyboard - The Optimus Maximus - has me absolutely drooling. Engadget has a coulple sneak peeks at this techno-candy-ultra-tool.

This could be the most awesome thing art.lebdev has ever done. Which is saying a lot because if you hit the site, you’ll immediately note (besides the serious Optimus promo) at least a few nifty things.

What is the Optimus? Well, I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.

In all seriousness, it’s a fully programmable LCD keyboard. What this means is that it can be customized perfectly for gaming shortcut key layouts, photo editing shortcut key layouts, various language layouts, etc etc. Not only can you assign keys to specific tasks, but you can have those keys display custom images so you don’t forget what exactly those keys are for.

As delightful as that sounds for multi-discipline computer users, the Optimus has been delayed time and time again. The price point may be a bit off-putting for a lot of people, also. $462.27 US dollars will snag you one of these gorgeous technical delights with ONE programmable key. $1564.37 US dollars will get you all 113 keys of LCD glory.

As of this post, it’s available for pre-order and is supposedly going to ship in February 2008. Be patient, gentle readers! Don’t smash that piggy yet (unless you can afford to pre-order)! Save your pennies, nickels, dimes, wrinkled dollar bills.

Despite my lust for this beauty, I’m still skeptical enough to want to wait for some solid reviews before I commit myself to starvation to get one.

I’ve been meaning to get to slapping my holiday list up here - not so much in the hopes of getting the gifts that are on my list - so I can do some slobberingly glorifying reviews of some of my favorite things.

The first thing worth noting is this great article on the MAKE blog about DIY gifts. You’d figure that anything do-it-yourself would run on the cheap side, and for some of the items I suppose it is technically cheaper, but some of these projects are for those with cash to spare.

Nevertheless, nothin’ says lovin’ like somethin’ from the… workbench. Okay that’s lame. How about: Give the gifts that keep on geeking? Uhmm… Right, well, the overall gist here is that you can make all kinds of technologically inclined do-hickies for all the open source loving, raw part digging, LED enthusiasts in your life. It will cost you between $10 (for the LED menorah) and upwards of $3,000 (for a hardcore 3d printer).

Just think, for younger people on your list, you could get one of the kits and build it together. For the musically inclined nerd on your list, you could build the Daisy Open-source MP3 Player and build a sweet ass steampunk case for it out of an Altoids tin or a Weighted Companion Cube or something.

Any way you look, fun times to be had by all.

Hard on the heels of my DESU-related discovery, my friend Keith sent me a veritable dragon’s hoard of gamer themed motivational posters! Tabletop game nerds rejoice, because there are a lot of in-joke posters in here for you. A lot of good MMO, RPG and general geek goodness abound in this collection. I think I saved most of the ones I saw. With a staggering collection of 272 of these puppies, if this doesn’t burn out the humor value for you… then it means they really are just that funny!

And I dare you to use it.

71 3F 92 64 35 8D A6 C6 B7 9F EF 28 E4 5E ED 91

Now what do I do with it? Can I sue people? Maybe I should make the blog’s color palette using the hex from that?

The article itself is short and sweet, so read through the comments at the linked article. The whole subject is highly intriguing if you’ve a socio-political interest in this flap over people who think they can “own” an integer. Also interesting for math and software geeks too! (Particularly software/crypto geeks!)

	Remember the illegal number? Well, I converted the hexadecimal number into a set of five different colors (using hex-color codes) and made this lovely GIF to illustrate. Don’t use these colors together. If you do, you’re breaking the law. Or, at least, you’re breaking it enough to get sued for it.

Thanks T3knomanser!
I’d like to also add that this is a primary example of how color could be used to carry information.