McElroy

homedesigning: Sacha Lodge Ecuador

Wed, 30 May 2012 12:22:28 -0400

homedesigning:

Sacha Lodge Ecuador

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice..."

Mon, 28 May 2012 12:27:56 -0400

“If you want others to be happy,
practice compassion.
If you want to be happy,
practice compassion.
-The Dalai Lama”

I bought popularity

Mon, 28 May 2012 03:14:00 -0400

So this week I bought twitter followers. Yes, of course it feels a little icky. But it’s also fascinating.

But I did it for a number of reasons.

I was wondering how the process worked. (For example, it was amazing to find a website that was a marketplace for five dollar transactions, where people were selling an incredible collection of strange services.)
I have recently become obsessed/divorced from/obsessed again with klout. I really want to know how 15k followers changes things.
I don’t understand who these followers I’m buying are, or where they come from. Are they real, are they robots, are they all from one country? Why do they sign up to follow me, what makes it worth there while?
What do I have to do to get twitter to ban me? Will this be enough to aggravate them?
I want to see if there’s any difference between how real people treat me on twitter when they think i am twitter popular.
I want to see if there is a single moment of real engagement or communication with any of those 15k followers.
Will it work to drive downloads to an iOS game, or my blog?

Tweeting from Everest

Fri, 25 May 2012 03:40:35 -0400

This is so weird.

It’s weird that technology has developed to the point where this is possible.

It’s weird that this is what we choose to do with that technology.

I’m not complaining…

…just saying…

…it’s weird.

http://instagr.am/p/LCVb6hIVSX/

Found by @kentgoldman

"Those three steps — the query, the results, and the destination page — have long been locked in a..."

Thu, 24 May 2012 13:16:21 -0400

“Those three steps — the query, the results, and the destination page — have long been locked in a lather-rinse-repeat loop, with users navigating back to a results page when the destination page is lacking, or refining their queries when the results page seems off.”

- http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/23/killer-mobile-browser/?utm_source=feedburner#s:2012-05-23-at-15-34-51

Bus Rider Dumb

Thu, 24 May 2012 02:25:24 -0400

I believe the average bus rider on their way to work in the morning, has one goal.

To get a seat.

You are less likely to spill your coffee. You are more likely to finish the chapter or the level, depending on your diversion that day.

If you get a seat, you can have a nice morning commute, to get into work mode.

Maybe, this doesn’t reflect everybody’s perspective, but it certainly does mine.

I REALLY want to sit.

Which is to say that if there is anything I can do to get a seat, I’m likely to do that thing.

And I thought other people were the same.

But this morning was another comical display, of bus rider dumb.

The front 80% of the bus was packed. The back 20% (elevated up two stairs) had obvious standing room. I politely, plowed through the dense cluster of static nodes.

I got to the back. Not only did I have WAY more room than anybody up front, I found a bloody seat, waiting for me to sit down and play Cordy.

The point of this rant?

I believe people are like me. I believe they really want a seat. I believe they would do five push ups, spin in a circle 10 times, sing happy birthday, be polite to a foreign call center worker, or generally inconvenience themselves a great deal in order to sit, BUT THEY WONT WALK TO THE BACK OF THE CROWDED BUS.

I believe people give up what they want because they would be forced to talk to strangers. And by talk I mean, look them in the eye, smile, and say excuse me.

That worries me.

Cordy: Review (iOS)

Wed, 23 May 2012 03:19:00 -0400

Platformers have come a long way since the iPhone launched. They’ve gone from nostalgic and “interesting” to actually fun. Mostly all the was required was nailing the control scheme.

But they still struggle in the signal to noise turmoil that is the app market. It’s very difficult to stand out, and very difficult to create real fans. The moment I get frustrated, lost or bored in your game I am knee deep in your competitors product in less than 10 seconds. It’s hard to create real FANS for your games.

So I’m glad to say I’ve found a game I can be a fan of, Cordy. It’s a fairly simple 2D platformer (done in 3D.) It’s simple to play, easy to control and beautiful to look at. Recommend you taking a glance, you can get the first couple of levels for free. http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/cordy/id447870643?mt=8

I knew that I was a “fan” when after not playing it for weeks I went to download it again, because I had that strange sensation old school gamers will know, of missing a game, of longing to play it.

discosttu: Tilt Shift Photography

Wed, 23 May 2012 03:09:49 -0400

discosttu:

Tilt Shift Photography

homedesigning: Remarkable Resorts

Wed, 23 May 2012 02:56:22 -0400

homedesigning:

Remarkable Resorts

Tetris NES Box Art

Tue, 22 May 2012 02:53:34 -0400

Note:

The relentless building block video puzzle.
From Russia with Fun!
Obviously the Gold Seal of Quality, front and back.
The Soviet Game Sensation.
First three paragraphs describe how you will feel, playing.
Last paragraph is a feature “breakdown.”

Another Google Maps Game

Thu, 17 May 2012 16:37:24 -0400

Another Google Maps Game:

This is a great way to show a user about all the features in your product. Genuinely a fun game and a brilliant tutorial.

Fan Photography

Thu, 17 May 2012 13:44:59 -0400

Fan Photography

The Atlantic

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:27:29 -0400

http://www.digiday.com/publishers/the-atlantics-digital-transformation/

A great (to me even inspiring) article about Atlantic. But this part worried me. “Branded content” in a content site seems directly contradictory to high quality independent journalism.

“Quartz is turning its back on standard display ads. Instead, according to Smith, Quartz will be “innovating and experimenting quite widely in the area of branded content.”

Dead simple sharing to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr from...

Fri, 11 May 2012 11:20:00 -0400

Dead simple sharing to Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr from anywhere. I just signed up for 9AM.me!

silfarione: Amazing photos of a family in the 1970’s that lived...

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:41:17 -0400

silfarione:

Amazing photos of a family in the 1970’s that lived with a lion by Michael Rougier. (LIFE Archive)

Holy Farmville

Thu, 10 May 2012 00:38:31 -0400

Even hit games often contribute the majority of their revenue to the company after they peak. Farmville was still Zynga’s top game by revenue last quarter even though it’s several years old. It made up 29 percent of the company’s online game revenue, followed by Cityville which had a 17 percent share, according to an SEC filing today.

May 9 (http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/09/was-zyngas-deal-to-buy-omgpop-that-disastrous-heres-some-perspective/?grcc=33333Z98ZtrendingZ0)

whhhhhhhhhhhoa.

Tue, 01 May 2012 02:30:08 -0400

whhhhhhhhhhhoa.

Listserve: Sam, Providence RI

Tue, 01 May 2012 02:24:28 -0400

(From the Listserve project, which so far has been awesome.)

Hello!

These are some things I’ve learned which guide the way I think, and which I value most. I hope they are the most valuable things I can offer to you. Of course, they come entirely from others, who I’ve paraphrased or quoted below. (I’ll reference at the bottom.)

There is more advice and knowledge than I can ever consume. Most of it is probably good and useful to some extent. Hence, choice and prioritization are even more important.

The way something is presented is often more important than its content. The most important part of the way something is presented is how long it takes someone to consume it.

Time is the most important thing I have: “it has been said that time is money. That proverb understates the case. Time is a great deal more than money. If you have time you can obtain money—usually. But though you have the wealth of a cloak-room attendant at the Carlton Hotel, you cannot buy yourself a minute more time than I have, or the cat by the fire has” (Bennett).

I’ll spend maybe a third of my life sleeping. Traditionally, another third working, but: “there’s a common misconception that work is necessary. You will meet people working at miserable jobs. They tell you they are ‘making a living’. No, they’re not. They’re dying, frittering away their fast-extinguishing lives doing things which are, at best, meaningless and, at worst, harmful. People will tell you that work ennobles you, that work lends you a certain dignity. Work makes you free. The slogan “Arbeit macht frei” was placed at the entrances to a number of Nazi concentration camps. Utter nonsense. Do not waste the vast majority of your life doing something you hate so that you can spend the small remainder sliver of your life in modest comfort. You may never reach that end anyway” (Tan).

I try to guide what I do by this simple dictum: to do everything I do with intention. If one is happy to be average, it will happen. Being average is the default. Create, rather than consume. Consume with intention: don’t watch TV, watch a show.

Last, I try to be mindful. What I mean by that is to be active in choosing what I think about, and to fight the defaults. Which is to say, for me, to be ego-centric. I like this mind-game from David Foster Wallace: “there are totally different ways to think about these [miserable, tedious] kinds of situations… [perhaps] the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he’s trying to get this kid to the hospital, and he’s in a bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am: it is actually I who am in HIS way. Or I can choose to force myself to consider the likelihood that everyone else in the supermarket’s checkout line is just as bored and frustrated as I am, and that some of these people probably have harder, more tedious and painful lives than I do.” But the point is not so much what you should think, rather that you get to choose what to think, and especially that you can choose to be happy. Strive to be happy.

-Sam

Arnold Bennett’s How to Live on Twenty-Four Hours a Day.
Adrian Tan’s commencement speech to NTU in 2008, “Don’t work, be hated, love someone.”
David Foster Wallace’s commencement Speech to Kenyon College in 2005, “This is water.”
Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata.

Sam
Providence, RI

cocofenix: Are you Ready to Play?

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:53:13 -0400

cocofenix:

Are you Ready to Play?

My family found out he has cancer.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 17:47:27 -0400

He has his first appointment with the Cancer Agency coming up very soon, likely this week. That’s when he’ll find out the next steps in treatment.

When he was in Thailand, [only weeks ago] he got a fist-sized Thai Buddhist tattoo for “Protection” near the top of his back. An old Buddhist monk does the tattoo while he chants prayers and blows the prayers for protection into the tattoo. I was surprised to see yesterday that the incision in his back goes right through the tattoo. That monk hit the spot. Gotta be a good omen.