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yngcheteng · 5 years

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“Unto the Horizon”: Week 1 Development

Hello, commander! You have arrived at the postmortem blog for “Unto the Horizon”, an ETC BVW Round 4 project. BVW, acronym for Building Virtual Worlds, is a class taught at the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC), where students go through 5 rounds of distinctly themed projects and learn game development fundamentals and soft skills such as cooperation and communication.

For Round 4, each team was tasked to create a compelling storytelling experience. Each team will also get to pick a platform of it’s desire, including Vive, Oculus, Meta 2 and a CAVE (Cave Autonomous Virtual Environment) room.

Usually, each team gets 5 team members: two programmers, two artists and one sound designer; however that is not the case for us, as we are one programmer short, with Shawn as programmer, Muhammad and Min as artists, and myself as sound designer. For our team, we picked the CAVE room - a room in which the player stands on a programmable moving floor and surrounded by three gigantic screens.

It took a while for us to agree on what kind of story we really wanted to tell, and just to foreshadow, we still didn’t get there after week 1 interim. Below are a few ideas we came up:

A Day In the Office: An office worker talks to his/her boss while witnessing something odd happening outside the window.

A Painful Decision: You and your grandmother are thrown into a Battle Royale scenario, and she tells you to kill her before someone else does it, for you are the only one capable of giving her a painless death and that you have a better chance to survive.

The Execution: Three players press the same button simultaneously, but only one button activates the electrical chair.

Rocket Science: Two players play as astronauts trying to launch the rocket safely into space.

We immediately got rid of ideas 2 and 3, for they’re all eff-ed up stories and the players will only feel bad because the story hints them to feel that way, not because they actually feel guilty doing so.

The first idea stuck around for quite a while, but we didn’t see potential within that story; on the other hand Rocket Science immediately made sense to all of us: The CAVE room IS a tightly enclosed area, which resembles the space in a rocket; furthermore the moving floor could be programmed to mimic the rumbling of the vehicle.

Just as we’re about to finalize our goals, I had this crazy idea: what if we make this into an asymmetrical co-op game? Our big classroom, the Randy Pausch Interdisciplinary Studio, has rows of chairs and a big screen. If we can decorate it, it would look like Mission Control! Then we could design puzzles for both sides to solve, and cooperate in order to clear the game. In short, it would be a story about the joy of accomplishment.

Surprisingly, the team agreed on the idea and decided to take the challenge a big step further. As the original proposer, I was responsible for the puzzles and gameplay; as the sound designer I was also responsible for the music.

It’s no surprise for me that Hans Zimmer’s work for the movie Interstellar would come up immediately in my mind. Given that the movie itself is about space, the music would immediately fit the scenario of our game; yet, Interstellar tells a heavy story about humanity’s fate, and our game was merely an experience about launching a rocket into space.

So probably not Interstellar, I thought. The next recent space movie I can think of is The Martian. It includes a scene which we exactly wanted to replicate: Wattney’s saved, and everyone roots and embraces each other with joy and tears.

Photo taken from “Raw Video: Mission control reacts as Curiosity lands on Mars", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DB60S7BYtA

Therefore, I dived into the soundtracks of the movie, and while I listened to them I started designing the puzzles for the game. Like the music, it’s pretty straightforward for anyone to think of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, which in my opinion served as a solid example of asymmetrical gameplay design; plus, the scenario of Keep Talking is also quite similar to ours: One team is met with problems, the other team knows how to fix it.

Because we were planning to have multiple teams, our original plan looked something like this:

This diagram depicts how the “end solution” is split into four sub-problems, each tackled by a dedicated “team” - NAVIGATION, ENGINE, MECH, and an unnamed team (spoilers!).

One thing that I kept in mind is that I needed to integrate the setting and the story into our puzzle. That means inevitably there will be some professional terms, such as “altitude”, “speed” and “thrusters”. In the end these “precautions” turned the manual into an intense reading such as follows:

According to the first of our playtesters, it’s really like rocket science. Although it’s actually surprisingly simple (you didn’t even have to do the math), the formulas trapped their attention therefore made them spend extra time on demystifying the document.

Muhammad: “Remember what Jesse (Schell) told us in class where they had to fire someone who worked on a security game, just because he knew too well about being a security guard? This is exactly what’s happening here.”

Just in time, Muhammad! That’s exactly where the problem is at: being too realistic =/= being fun. We’re not making a spaceship simulator, we’re just telling a story.

For the remainder of the week, I continued to improve the puzzles. At the end of the week, I’m already at version 5.

Some changes made to the documents were:

Removed all traces of formulas. They weren’t real anyways, and although it might serve the plot it would never make the players’ lives easier.

High-lighted key actions. Playtesters have found emphasized instructions helpful to understand what they should do.

Label each instruction step-by-step.

A preview of what the players are expected to do, placed in the beginning.

While version 5 of our documents made it just in time before interim, my soundtrack unfortunately didn’t. Although there is no excuse for it, I just didn’t feel quite right about what we had for interim. It felt quite… flat. Unexciting. Plain. You name it. It did tell a story, but the story wasn’t interesting enough, and the stake weren’t high enough to make the adventure captivating.

Turned out that my speculation was not far from our feedback:

Lack of interest curve.

Lack of tension. No sense of danger.

Experience not as engaging for guests in mission control (the team who has the manual)

Some other highlights focused on technical issues, such as blurry and quiet demo video, small UI elements and etc. But definitely the biggest concern up until interim was about the story.

We wanted to tell a story, but we had no story. And so we came up with an even crazier idea……

(To be continued…)

#unity3d #game #gamdev #gamedesign #cmuetc #bvw

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pogueman · 7 years

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Inside the World's Greatest Scavenger Hunt: The Finale

yahoo

GISHWHES stands for the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt the World Has Ever Seen. Teams of 15 have one week to complete a list of 200 difficult, charitable, or hilarious tasks. They prove they’ve completed each item by submitting a photo or video of it; their $20 entry fees go to a charity, and the winning team gets a trip to an exotic location.

This is the final part of our series!

Part 1 • Part 2 • Part 3 • Part 4 • Part 5

Part 5: The Hunt is Over

It’s been an exhausting week for the 15 members of Team Raised from Perdition. In their fourth annual attempt to win the world’s largest scavenger hunt, they’ve taken the week off from work, palmed off children to relatives, and tested the limits of society’s tolerance for disruption.

They’ve also made personal sacrifices. “Sleep deprivation. Junk food all the time,” says co-captain Nina Mostepan. “Working out? I don’t know what that is right now.”

“We eat a lot of pickled eggs and chili in a jar while we’re driving,” adds Shiane Gaylie.

During the heat of the hunt week, “we get short with each other,” admits co-captain Geoff MacAnally. “Nina and I bicker about, like, how things should be running. And then we’re like, ‘I need to breathe.’”

As the deadline approaches—Saturday midnight—it’s clear the team won’t complete all 176 items on the GISHWHES list. (In the six-year history of the hunt, no team ever has.)

In the end, though, the team managed all but three tasks. They’ve pampered a cow in Vermont, played badminton in a food court, persuaded two old men to play chess in a movie theater, sold bottled air on the street, registered 10 people to vote, built a spa for a mouse, panned for gold in a public fountain, sculpted a life-size dictator out of maxipads, built a working rowing scull out of trash, wrote a phone app for dialing a rotary phone, and played a human piano.

The judging process

“Months pass between the end of the hunt and the actual winner’s announcement,” Christine says. “We spend that time obsessively combing over all the other teams’ entries and beating ourselves up for what we could have done better.”

In general, though, Raised from Perdition was feeing confident. “We figured there was pretty much no way we wouldn’t at least be a runner-up,” says Rob Fitz-James.

“Because we were runners-up the year before, and we did even better this year,” Shiane adds.

Rob agrees. “Better video quality, better photo quality. And submitting items before the deadline problem helped.”

According to hunt creator Misha Collins, the judging takes so long because, well, there’s a lot to go through.

“We take it very seriously. We have stages. We have lots of people that help judge in the first round, and then we narrow it down to the top 50 teams, and then down to the top 10 teams, and then down to the top three.”

Every year, some teams try to get by with “interpretive” items. “Sometimes, people will come up with a creative interpretation; they’ll do a cardboard cutout version of the real thing, or something like that. 19 times out of 20, they don’t get points for that, even if they put a fair amount of creative work into it. Our directive is very specific: you have to do the item as it is stipulated, and not some creative re-imagining to make it easier.”

Nowadays, his team actually employs Photoshop experts. “Because people cheat! One year, there was a team that would have won, but they’d Photoshopped a really big-ticket item. It was very convincing, and we were like, ‘Wow, they did it!’ But they didn’t. They had cheated, and we caught them.”

The GISHWHES judging process isn’t just long; it’s also opaque. Each item on the list carries a certain point value, but “there’s a high degree of subjectivity in the judging,” Collins says. “Like, we give bonus points.”

But the teams themselves will never know.

“GISHWHES never tells the competitors what their point total is,” Christine points out. “We don’t even get a cumulative point total, and we’re never told what the individual items are awarded. And it drives us crazy. Because it’s difficult to know how to improve from year to year if you don’t have a metric for what the judges are looking for.”

“That’s by design,” Collins says. “We don’t want people to get involved in petty arguments. So we don’t give them enough information to fight.”

The big moment

The contest wrapped up on August 6, but weeks—months—went by without any word as to when the winners would be announced.

“Sometimes GISHWHES can be a little disorganized, I find,” says Shiane. “They just kind of surprise you a lot. You don’t know when the winner will be announced, for example. You don’t know when anything will be announced, until it’s there.”

But then, one day in October, there it was: a tweet that Misha Collins would be making an announcement on Facebook Live.

Christine: “I’m sitting in my dark hole of a basement. We gathered over Google Hangouts and held our breath.”

Shiane: “He did the runners up first, and he did it alphabetically. As soon as he skipped R, which our team name starts with, we knew that we’d won. We were all freaking out before he even announced it.”

Geoff: “And then the moment: ‘And the winning teammmm is…’ That’s exactly how he does it.”

In fact, that is how Misha Collins said it. “And the GISHWHES 2016 winning teammmm… is… Raised from Perdition!”

Christine: “Everyone erupted.”

Kira Sullivan: “We were all freaking out. It was pure joy. I screamed. My roommates thought something really bad happened to me!”

Shiane: “I hit my head on the ceiling. I pushed Rob over a table. We yelled and screamed for, like, 20 minutes.”

Geoff: “I cried.”

Nina “Ugly crying! You can see it in the video. I’m like, ‘Waauuuugh!’”

Kira: “In that moment, we really felt like a team. We didn’t know each other beforehand, but we came together and we won.”

Suzanne Simpson: “It was the most surreal experience of my life.”

Geoff: “After three years of working hard, it was a euphoric feeling.”

The prize for winning GISHWHES is a trip to some exotic spot. This year, it’s Iceland. (For the 2017 hunt, which begins in August, the trip will be to Hawaii.)

Raised from Perdition arrived in Iceland today, in fact, to begin their five-day adventure, orchestrated by the GISHWHES staff and attended (at least for one day) by Misha Collins.

“Well, Misha’s pretty cool,” says Nat. “But the best part of the trip is meeting our teammates! We don’t know the people in San Fran, or South America, or Chicago, or Tennessee, or Connecticut, so we’ll get to meet them all! It’s all going to be great.”

Why GISHWHES

For many GISHWHES players, the greatest reward isn’t the trip.

“I’ve heard a lot of people say things like, ‘I was suffering from agoraphobia. I hadn’t left my house to do more than go to the grocery store in two years. My friend coerced me into participating in GISHWHES, and it somehow broke things through for me,” recounts Collins. “Or, ‘I did GISHWHES and I changed my major in school to art,’ or, ‘I did GISHWHES and I decided to go back to school because of it.

“I mean, I don’t want to be too grandiose about it,” he adds. “I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all about that touchy-feely stuff. It is just a scavenger hunt. But people do have some remarkable experiences.”

Of course, there’s something in it for Collins, too. He’s proud of his seven Guinness World Records. The million-plus dollars raised for charity. The five Syrian refugee families housed and fed. The lives saved from bone-marrow donations. The mountain on Mars that NASA named after GISHWHES.

And he’s especially proud of the 2011 hunt item that required launching a fully decorated Christmas tree into the air with helium balloons.

“There was something just magical about that image, of watching Christmas trees float away. It was one of those ephemeral, magical moments,” Collins says.

“But we didn’t really think it through all the way. Because what happens if untethered is, the Christmas tree just floats away! And there were some regional airports that were closed due to, ‘Christmas trees in the airspace!’ I love that item, even though people’s flights were delayed because of it.”

Over the years, GISHWHES has grown from an impromptu game that Collins ran on Twitter for 300 fans to a truly international competition with 55,000 participants. And in that time, he’s had to add lawyers, and insurance, and a staff, and a website. Is there a danger that GISHWHES might become so Real and Official and Regulated that it loses its sense of chaotic, spontaneous, hilarious fun?

“We want the tone of GISHWHES to remain irreverent and free spirited and kindhearted and challenging and humiliating,” he says. “But at the same time, we want it to grow to something that more people participate in. In my grandiose scheme, people all over the world dread the first week in August, because that’s when GISHWHES happens. That’s my ambition for our enterprise. And you know, we’ll see. If it keeps growing at this rate, by the year 2300, we might be a well-known outfit.”

More from David Pogue:

Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part I

Inside the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part 2

Insider the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt: Part 3

How to win the World’s Greatest Scavenger Hunt

The David Pogue Review: Windows 10 Creators Update

Now I get it: Bitcoin

David Pogue tested 47 pill-reminder apps to find the best one

David Pogue’s search for the world’s best air-travel app

The little-known iPhone feature that lets blind people see with their fingers

David Pogue, tech columnist for Yahoo Finance, welcomes nontoxic comments in the comments section below. On the web, he’s davidpogue.com. On Twitter, he’s @pogue. On email, he’s [email protected]. You can read all his articles here, or you can sign up to get his columns by email.

#_lmsid:a077000000DAfMuAAL #_revsp:usnews.finance.yahoo.com #_uuid:08e1364e-216e-32f7-9600-274edef69ada #_author:David Pogue

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reincarnatedasacupcake · 6 years

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July has been a super hot month that has left me hanging out in a nice air conditioned apartment, reading many a book. It's been nice to have time to read again and I'm trying to take full advantage of it by reading as much as I can. Here's what I read this month:

Fairy Quest: Outlaws (Fairy Quest #1)

by Paul Jenkins & Humberto Ramos

67 Pages

Fairy Quest is set in the world in Fablewood, where all of the stories that have ever been told live side-by-side. But it is a sinister place indeed. Under the watchful eye of the dreaded Mister Grimm and his Think Police, the characters must keep their story straight or risk having their minds wiped inside the Mind Eraser.

Despite this, Red Riding Hood and her Wolf (Red and Mister Woof) have become friends. And they are about to risk everything to try and escape from the clutches of their oppressors and find sanctuary in a mysterious place called the Real World. Red and Woof will undertake a difficult and perilous journey through all of Fablewood, hoping against all odds that they can remain as friends forever.

This was a great comic about fairy tale characters who no longer want to follow their stories, who want to live their own lives. It's a neat idea about taking your story into your own hands. I really enjoyed what they did with the characters and really need to get my hands on the next issue.

Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock: Journey to the Everspring #2

by Kate Leth & Jake Myler

27 Pages

The Fraggles’ journey has led them to the mysterious Crystal Caves where creatures of all shapes and sizes await. They’ll need to rely on one another and maybe even sing a song or two if they’re going to make it through to the Everspring!

I wish these were a collection but I can only get it issue by issue, so it's hard to get a real feeling for the story when it's so spread out. This one was about overcoming fears and that it helps to be with friends. It's still always a fun, short read.

The Oracle Queen (Three Dark Crowns 0.1)

by Kendare Blake

120 Pages

Triplet queens born on the island of Fennbirn can be many things: Elementals. Poisoners. Naturalists. If an oracle queen is born, however, one with the gift of sight, she’s immediately drowned, extinguishing her chance at ever taking the throne.

But that’s not how it always was. This cautionary practice started long ago, with Queen Elsabet—the legendary, and last, oracle queen—whose reign was tinged with blood and horror.

Paranoid, ruthless, and utterly mad, Elsabet’s mistrust led to the senseless slaying of three entire houses of innocent people. At least, that’s the unchallenged tale carried down from generation to generation. But what really happened? Discover the true story behind the queen who, though born with the gift of sight, could not foresee her swift and sudden fall from power . . . until it was too late.

Through out this series, they always talk about the Mad Queen, so I was excited to find this short novella about her. Then I was terribly disappointed with how the story revealed itself. I get trying to twist the story, but I really wanted what I thought the actual story. I think it would've been more amazing to see how the Queen actually went mad. I've been very disappointed with these short stories.

Power Up #1 (Power Up #1)

by Kate Leth & Matt Cummings

26 Pages

It has been foretold that four noble warriors of incredible strength would be gifted with cosmic abilities at a moment of planetary alignment...which, yeah, something definitely went wrong here. Amie is a disaffected twentysomething with a lot of attitude, Kevin is a washed-up athlete way past his prime, Sandy's a mother of two teenagers, and Silas...is a goldfish. Just a normal goldfish. Are we sure we read that prophecy right?

After reading The Fraggles, I wanted to see what else Kate Leth had done and I came across this fun comic about unlikely superheroes. This is also 1 issue at a time, but it's super cute and I want more and more of it!

Adventure Time Vol. 2 (Issues 5-9)

by Ryan North, Shelli Paroline, Braden Lamb & Mike Holmes

112 Pages

The all-ages smash hit of the year is back with more algebraic adventures in the Land of Ooo!The all-ages hit of the year is back with a new volume collecting even more algebraic adventures! What happens when Finn the human and Jake the dog get a hold of Princess Bubblegum’s time machine and travel to go to the future? Find out in this second volume!

These are always fun and strange and that's just how I like them. This one dealt with the problems of time travel. That problem is robot revolution apparently, but it's still pretty awesome. I'm really enjoying this series and it holds up to the same fun and crazy as the tv show.

Winter (The Lunar Chronicles #4)

by Marissa Meyer

83 Pages (23:30 Hours)

Princess Winter is admired by the Lunar people for her grace and kindness, and despite the scars that mar her face, her beauty is said to be even more breathtaking than that of her stepmother, Queen Levana.

Winter despises her stepmother, and knows Levana won’t approve of her feelings for her childhood friend–the handsome palace guard, Jacin. But Winter isn’t as weak as Levana believes her to be and she’s been undermining her stepmother’s wishes for years. Together with the cyborg mechanic, Cinder, and her allies, Winter might even have the power to launch a revolution and win a war that’s been raging for far too long.

Can Cinder, Scarlet, Cress, and Winter defeat Levana and find their happily ever afters?

This was a great final book. I really enjoyed how everything came together, yet there where still so many twists and turns that I wasn't expecting. I loved all the character story arcs and would continue to read this story forever. This is the perfect example of what I want in retellings of fairy tales and I want MORE.

The Prince and the Dressmaker

by Jen Wang

288 Pages

Paris, at the dawn of the modern age:

Prince Sebastian is looking for a bride―or rather, his parents are looking for one for him. Sebastian is too busy hiding his secret life from everyone. At night he puts on daring dresses and takes Paris by storm as the fabulous Lady Crystallia―the hottest fashion icon in the world capital of fashion!

Sebastian’s secret weapon (and best friend) is the brilliant dressmaker Frances―one of only two people who know the truth: sometimes this boy wears dresses. But Frances dreams of greatness, and being someone’s secret weapon means being a secret. Forever. How long can Frances defer her dreams to protect a friend? Jen Wang weaves an exuberantly romantic tale of identity, young love, art, and family. A fairy tale for any age, The Prince and the Dressmaker will steal your heart.

this was a sweet story about a boy who loved to wear dresses and the woman who loved and believed in him. I really, really enjoyed it and wish there were more stories like these. so much heart and desire and acceptance.

The Mermaid Chair

by Sue Monk Kidd

368 Pages

Inside the abbey of a Benedictine monastery on tiny Egret Island, just off the coast of South Carolina, resides a beautiful and mysterious chair ornately carved with mermaids and dedicated to a saint who, legend claims, was a mermaid before her conversion.

Jessie Sullivan's conventional life has been "molded to the smallest space possible." So when she is called home to cope with her mother's startling and enigmatic act of violence, Jessie finds herself relieved to be apart from her husband, Hugh. Jessie loves Hugh, but on Egret Island-amid the gorgeous marshlands and tidal creeks-she becomes drawn to Brother Thomas, a monk who is mere months from taking his final vows.

What transpires will unlock the roots of her mother's tormented past, but most of all, as Jessie grapples with the tension of desire and the struggle to deny it, she will find a freedom that feels overwhelmingly right.

What inspires the yearning for a soul mate? Few writers have explored, as Kidd does, the lush, unknown region of the feminine soul where the thin line between the spiritual and the erotic exists.

The Mermaid Chair is a vividly imagined novel about the passions of the spirit and the ecstasies of the body; one that illuminates a woman's self-awakening with the brilliance and power that only a writer of Kidd's ability could conjure.

I love Sue Monk Kidd and I've always wanted to read this book, but could never find a copy of it. Turns out my mom had a copy of it and gave it to me. This was a lovely story that I wasn't expecting. I shouldn't be surprised, since I've love every other book of hers that I've read. Although the story is about a woman who falls in love with a Monk, but the story of her finding and freeing herself from who she use to be is the one that I really love. I just fall into her writing and don't ever want to come back out.

The Forbidden Heir (The Four Arts #2)

by M.J. Scott

352 Pages

She fled to save her life, but surviving what comes next might destroy everything she believes in…

The royal witches of Anglion have always been bound to serve their country. But Lady Sophia Mackenzie, whose unbound magic and near claim to the crown made her a target, was forced to flee Anglion, leaving behind a dead assassin and shattered loyalties. Now she finds herself in Illvya, where the magic is everything she’s been taught to fear and the only person she can trust is her new husband, Cameron.

Sophia and Cameron must navigate a strange world of illicit temptations, dangerous threats and political intrigue, where as a royal witch Sophia is both prized and reviled.

As she begins to master her powers, the factions seeking to control Sophia close in, and her magical and emotional bonds with Cameron are pushed to the limit. To survive long enough to claim the future she seeks, she may have to choose between love and loyalty, and hope the price of her choice is one she can bear.

I read the first book in this series years ago and only found out that it had a sequel recently, and only on ebook. Although I barely remember the first book, I got into the second one with only a little difficulty. I was worried that it was going to turn into another magical school book, but I'm glad that it didn't. It actually got pretty interesting and I was frustrated when I found out that there was going to be another book, but with no publishing date or info on it. I may never know how it turns out.

Cruel Crown (Red Queen 0.1-0.2)

by Victoria Aveyard

208 Pages (6:26 Hours)

Discover the truth of Norta’s bloody past in these two revealing prequels to #1 NEW YORK TIMES bestseller RED QUEEN.

Queen Song

Queen Coriane, first wife of King Tiberias, keeps a secret diary—how else can she ensure that no one at the palace will use her thoughts against her? Coriane recounts her heady courtship with the crown prince, the birth of a new prince, Cal, and the potentially deadly challenges that lie ahead for her in royal life.

Steel Scars

Captain Farley was raised to be strong, but being tasked with planting the seeds of rebellion in Norta is a tougher job than expected. As she travels the land recruiting black market traders, smugglers, and extremists for her first attempt at an attack on the capital, she stumbles upon a connection that may prove to be the key to the entire operation—Mare Barrow.

This was 2 books in 1 and both were vastly different. The first story was amazing and I really loved following Queen Coriane and her real/imagined downward spiral. It gave a lot of depth as a background story. The second story on the other hand, was vastly different. Farley's story is annoying and filled with missives back and forth with all the credentials and classifieds and blah blah blah over and over again as they pass messages. It was hard to listen to over and over for very small messages. It made me want to switch over to another book. But I didn't and the story was okay.

Jim Henson's Fraggle Rock: Journey to the Everspring #3

by Kate Leth & Jake Myler

27 Pages

Deep in the Crystal Cave the Fraggles find...Doozers?! Gobo, Red, and the rest of the gang meet a whole new, never-before-seen colony of Doozers with a bit more artistic flare than they’re used to. But will they be able to help the Fraggles get water back to Fraggle Rock?

I love the new Doozers in this issue. I think they are super cute and I love all the machines that they've made.

Wires and Nerve (Wires and Nerve #1)

by Marissa Meyer & Douglas Holgate

238 Pages

When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers' leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity. With appearances by Cinder and the rest of the Rampion crew, this is a must-have for fans of the series.

I was so excited to learn that the story wasn't completely over yet and that it was taking the time to give Iko her own plot line. Reading it in a comic style was nice after both reading and listening to this story. I'm interested in seeing where this story goes now.

Power Up #2 (Power Up #2)

by Kate Leth & Matt Cummings

27 Pages

A traffic jam turns into a battlefield as Amie, Sandy, Kevin, and Silas fight together as a team for the first time!

Although short, this was a fun introduction to the rest of the characters of this series. And I LOVE Kevin's outfit sooo much!

The Emperor and I, Vol. 2 (The Emperor and I #2)

by Mato

162 Pages

The highly anticipated second volume of the popular Twitter hit is brimming with more pages! After naming the emperor penguin she found in her refrigerator “Emperor,” high school girl Kaho is living a charming life with her new pet. Now that it’s summer, will Kaho be able to pull off the bold stunt of taking Emperor to the beach?!

This comic continues to bring me a lot of joy and fills my dreams of having my own penguin pet. I love that she takes him to the beach and how much joy there is in those pages.

Six-Gun Snow White

by Catherynne M. Valente

154 Pages

A New York Times bestselling author offers a brilliant reinvention of one of the best-known fairy tales of all time with Snow White as a gunslinger in the mythical Wild West.

Forget the dark, enchanted forest. Picture instead a masterfully evoked Old West where you are more likely to find coyotes as the seven dwarves. Insert into this scene a plain-spoken, appealing narrator who relates the history of our heroine’s parents—a Nevada silver baron who forced the Crow people to give up one of their most beautiful daughters, Gun That Sings, in marriage to him.

Although her mother’s life ended as hers began, so begins a remarkable tale: equal parts heartbreak and strength. This girl has been born into a world with no place for a half-native, half-white child. After being hidden for years, a very wicked stepmother finally gifts her with the name Snow White, referring to the pale skin she will never have.

Filled with fascinating glimpses through the fabled looking glass and a close-up look at hard living in the gritty gun-slinging West, this is an utterly enchanting story . . . at once familiar and entirely new.

This was a great retelling of Snow White. I was expecting it to be a little immature, but it wasn't at all. In fact, I would say it dealt with some really heavy concepts. I enjoyed that the 7 dwarves were actually 7 strong women who wanted to be left alone by the rest of the world. The ending was really strange and abrupt, but the rest was really good.

The Night Circus

by Erin Morgenstern

387 Pages (13:40 Hours)

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway - a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love - a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus performers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

I really wanted to enjoy this book, but I really didn't, which was too bad. This book could've been really good and there were parts that were, but the story was so spread out and the years jumped around so much that it was hard to follow or to ever really get a feeling for anyone's character.

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#Talk Star Wars To Me #52 Books #review #Adventure Time #the lunar chronicles #fraggle rock #reading

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cynthiajayusa · 7 years

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Events Guide: South Florida’s July 4th Celebrations

When I think of Independence Day, I think of BBQs, picnics, carnivals, rides, the beach, fireworks, and all the other things that bring family and friends together for a day of celebration and fun. Here’s some of what’s happening all over South Florida on July 4th.

Broward County

Sunrise: Baha Men/The Romantics Concert July 4th Celebration Outdoor Festival at the BB&T Center (1 Panther Pkwy). Gates open at 5 p.m. and the festivities include music, fireworks, food and beverage vendors, children’s rides and inflatables. The music starts at 6 p.m. with the Baha Men (“Who Let the Dogs Out”). Headliners The Romantics (“Talking in Your Sleep,” “What I Like About You”) take the stage at 7:30 p.m. The evening concludes with the 9 p.m. fireworks spectacular.

Coral Springs: Fourth of July Celebration at Mullins Park (10000 Ben Geiger Dr.) from 6 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Entertainment begins at 6 p.m. and includes bounce houses and music. There will be a nominal fee for kid’s craft activities, food and refreshments. Grand fireworks display is set to begin promptly at 9 p.m. Parking fee is $3 at the Coral Springs Gymnasium, Mullins Park and the Center for the Arts.

Plantation: Independence Day Celebration, “Music of America” at Plantation Central Park (9151 NW Second St.) from 9 a.m. to 9:30p.m. The schedule of events is parade at 9 a.m. beginning at West Broward Boulevard and NW 46th Avenue, heading west to 69th Avenue, to Northwest Fourth Street, ending at City Hall with an awards ceremony. Big City Dogs, a classic rock and blues band, performs at 7 p.m. at Central Park ball fields. Purchase food or bring a picnic dinner, lawn chairs or blanket. Zambelli fireworks will be presented at 9 p.m.

Davie Flamingo Gardens Old-Fashioned July 4th takes place at Flamingo Gardens (3750 S. Flamingo Road) from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Celebrate Independence Day the old-fashioned way with games, 30s and 40s music by DJ Digital Anarchy and costume contests. Everyone can enjoy sack race, hula hoop, watermelon and pie eating contests. Mr. and Mrs. Wray will be serving up some of Mrs. Wray’s famous BBQ ribs in the historic BBQ Pavillion.

Lauderdale-By-The-Sea: Fourth of July Celebration, presented by the city’s Volunteer Fire Department, begins with a parade at 10 a.m. by the fire station on Bougainvillea Drive (behind Town Hall, 4501 N. Ocean Drive), heading north to Pine Avenue, east to El Mar Drive, south to Hibiscus Avenue and then west to Bougainvillea before heading north and returning to the fire station. Family Fun on the 4th Day, from 11 a.m.-3 p.m. at El Prado Park, will feature a waterslide and fire truck for the kids, as well as other fun activities. Holiday fare will include hot dogs, lemonade and other kid-friendly food. Fireworks will be shot off the beach, just north of El Prado Park.

Hollywood Beach: Star-spangled Spectacular Celebration at Charnow Park (1500 N. Boardwalk) from 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Summertime has arrived as family and friends prepare to gather on the beach, enjoying the splash pad, music, beach games or just relaxing under an umbrella. The celebration concludes with a patriotic offshore fireworks display at 9 p.m. Buses to the beach will run from 5 to 8 p.m. Returning shuttles will operate between 9:30 and 11 p.m.

Miramar: Independence Day Celebration and Amphitheater Grand Opening – at Miramar Regional Park (16801 Miramar Parkway) from 3p.m. to 9:30p.m. The festivities include a Kids’ Zone with inflatables and face painting. There will also be hula hoop, bubble gum and apple pie eating contests, as well as caricature artists. Fireworks finale is approximately at 9 p.m.

Pembroke Pines: Independence Day Celebration at Pines Recreation Center,

(7400 Pines Blvd.), from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be music and food from 6 to 9 p.m. Fireworks show begins at 9 p.m.

Dade County

Coconut Grove: 4th of July Picnic & Fireworks – This annual old-fashioned Picnic is 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Barnacle Historic State Park (3485 Main Highway, 305-442-6866) and features music, food, games and crafts. Admission is $5 for ages 13 and older, $3 for ages 6-12. CocoWalk (3015 Grand Ave.) has patriotic activities planned from 3 to 7 p.m. as well as the traditional Hot Dog Eating Competition at 6 p.m. The celebration then heads over to Peacock Park from 6 to 9 p.m. where there will be music, games and face painting. Fireworks show is at 9 p.m.

Miami: America’s Birthday Bash takes place at Bayfront Park (301 N Biscayne Blvd) from 3p.m. to 9:30 p.m. The park is open all day for lots of fun. The younger set will enjoy Kids’ Zone from 3-7 p.m. There will also be music, and food and beverages may be purchased. Fireworks are shot off barges in Biscayne Bay at 9:00 p.m.

Hialeah: Independence Day Celebration takes place at Ted Hendricks Stadium (4700 Palm Avenue) from 5 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. With a variety of food trucks, activities at the Kids Zone, and even a live concert, this event will be one that you can’t miss. The finale is a fireworks and laser show.

Miami Gardens: 4th of July Celebration of Family, Community and Freedom takes place at the Betty T. Ferguson Recreational Complex (3000 NW 199th St.) from 5p.m. to 9:30p.m. Bounce houses, 3-on-3 basketball, flag football, classic games, kids’ zone, food trucks and indoor pool are all part of the fun. Fireworks are scheduled for 9 p.m.

Coral Gables: Fourth of July Celebration takes place at the Biltmore Hotel (1200 Anastasia Ave.) from 7p.m. to 9:30 p.m). This year’s event will include patriotic music by the Greater Miami Symphonic Band at 7 p.m. Grounds open to the public at 5 p.m. Complimentary shuttle service starts at 5 p.m. The fireworks display launches at 9 p.m.

Miami: 4th of July Paddle & Dinner at the Virginia Key Outdoor Center (3801 Rickenbacker Causeway) from 6:30 p.m. – 11:30 p.m. The 9th annual Fireworks Paddle offers the best view of multiple fireworks. You can watch from your kayak or paddleboard. Landlubbers can watch from the beach. Included are dinner, drinks, paddle or hike. Pre-registration is required (no walk-ins allowed). Cook-out starts at 6 p.m. You may bring beer or wine, just remember to drink in moderation. Firework Paddle: Launch time is 8 p.m. Fireworks start at 9 p.m. What you can expect to see from the water: fireworks from South Beach and Bayfront Park shows from the comfort of our flotilla; Also, Coconut Grove, Key Biscayne and Fisher Island. The route is sheltered and away from direct boat channel traffic. They skirt the coast to avoid the other crazies.

Independence Day Concert at the Shepard & Ruth K. Broad Performing Arts Center (11300 Northeast 2nd Avenue) from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Join them for a celebratory performance of America’s most thrilling music. Yuriy Bekker will conduct the MMF Orchestra through a program that captures the spirit of the holiday, with bombastic works like Tchaikovsky’s Overture of 1812, Copeland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, and selections from the patriotic songbook of John Philip Sousa. The whole family is invited to salute the flag with us as we honor our nation’s birthday with this special evening of orchestral hits.

Turnberry Isle Miami’s “Sparktacular” Fourth of July BBQ and Show at the Turnberry Isle Miami (19999 West Country Club Drive) from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Locals and hotel guests are welcome to partake in patriotic festivities, enjoy live music and savor classic American barbecue on the resort’s golf course. Admission is $50-$199, and includes fireworks and premium seating, live band, complimentary all-American BBQ and catered food trucks, complimentary beer, wine, iced tea, lemonade and complimentary valet

Palm Beach County

Deerfield Beach: 4th of July Celebration at the Main Beach Parking Lot

(149 SE 21st Ave.), starting at 12 p.m. The activities include music, arts and crafts and food vendors. Stick around for the fireworks at 9 p.m.

Royal Palm Beach: Star Spangled Spectacular at the Royal Palm Beach Commons Park (11600 Poinciana Blvd.). Star-Spangled Spectacular kicks off at 1 p.m. with a Kids Fun Zone featuring carnival-style rides, slides and games. It runs until 8 p.m. and requires a wristband purchase of $10 per child. Over 20 gourmet food trucks will be part of the Food Truck Invasion. Arts and crafts vendors will be selling local artists’ wares, local musicians will be providing entertainment throughout the day. In addition, there will be volleyball, cornhole and bass fishing tournaments as well as paddle board and kayak rentals. Lawn chairs and blankets are permitted. Zambelli Fireworks International Show begins at 9:00 p.m.

West Palm Beach: 4th on Flagler at the Waterfront Promenade & City Commons

(101 N. Flagler Drive) from 5p.m. to 10p.m. The large outdoor Independence Day celebration features two stages of local acts, military honor ceremony, larger-than-life versions of games like human foosball and bowling, as well as free kids’ activities. Food and drink options will be available for purchase. An 18-minute fireworks extravaganza begins at 9 p.m.

Boca Raton: 4th of July Fireworks Block Party, Hotdog Eating Contest takes place at the Tilted Kilt Pub and Eatery (3320 Airport Road) from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m. Two Eds band 5 p.m., kids’ activities (bounce house, inflatable sumo wrestling, face painting, balloon artists), craft breweries sampling ($5 for 6 sample tickets). RSVP: $25 VIP Seating, $25 Hotdog Eating Contest entry fee.

Green Acres: Ignite the Night Independence Day Celebration at the Greenacres Community Park (2905 Jog Road). This annual patriotic celebration from 5:30 to 10 p.m. features music by The Groove, “Most Patriotic Dressed” contest, stilt walker, rides, games, arts and crafts and food vendors. Fireworks take off at 9 p.m.

source https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/06/28/events-guide-south-floridas-july-4th-celebrations/ from Hot Spots Magazine http://hotspotsmagazin.blogspot.com/2017/06/events-guide-south-floridas-july-4th.html

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demitgibbs · 7 years

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Events Guide: South Florida’s July 4th Celebrations

Broward County

Pembroke Pines: Independence Day Celebration at Pines Recreation Center,

(7400 Pines Blvd.), from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be music and food from 6 to 9 p.m. Fireworks show begins at 9 p.m.

Dade County

Palm Beach County

Deerfield Beach: 4th of July Celebration at the Main Beach Parking Lot

(149 SE 21st Ave.), starting at 12 p.m. The activities include music, arts and crafts and food vendors. Stick around for the fireworks at 9 p.m.

West Palm Beach: 4th on Flagler at the Waterfront Promenade & City Commons

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/06/28/events-guide-south-floridas-july-4th-celebrations/ from Hot Spots Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.tumblr.com/post/162360183210

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hotspotsmagazine · 7 years

Text

Events Guide: South Florida’s July 4th Celebrations

Broward County

Pembroke Pines: Independence Day Celebration at Pines Recreation Center,

(7400 Pines Blvd.), from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. There will be music and food from 6 to 9 p.m. Fireworks show begins at 9 p.m.

Dade County

Palm Beach County

Deerfield Beach: 4th of July Celebration at the Main Beach Parking Lot

(149 SE 21st Ave.), starting at 12 p.m. The activities include music, arts and crafts and food vendors. Stick around for the fireworks at 9 p.m.

West Palm Beach: 4th on Flagler at the Waterfront Promenade & City Commons

from Hotspots! Magazine https://hotspotsmagazine.com/2017/06/28/events-guide-south-floridas-july-4th-celebrations/

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ramialkarmi · 7 years

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While he's taking a break, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick should study Elon Musk (TSLA)

You can easily make the argument that Tesla is the hottest company of the post-financial-crisis period.

A surging stock price at the beginning of 2017 and a market cap bigger than Ford, GM, and BMW has helped that case, but even before the finances were turbocharged, the Tesla story was compelling.

But Tesla is 13 years old. Everyone wants to keep the plot fresh, and to satisfy that craving, for the past few years we've had Uber and its $70-billion valuation — more than Tesla's booming market cap.

Uber, however, is in full-on crisis mode, after spending 2016 making Tesla look like old news. A withering report on the company's toxic culture came out earlier this week, and the company announced that its hard-charging CEO, Travis Kalanick, would be taking a leave of absence.

Kalanick — whose mother was tragically killed in a boating accident over the Memorial Day weekend, and whose father was injured — has plenty to think about while he's taking a break. There's a fair chance that he'll seethe over Uber's decision to demand that he become, as he put it, "Travis 2.0."

A better use of his time would be to study Tesla CEO Elon Musk and learn from the master. Here's why:

1. If you're going to be a "great man," you need to be pretty great

Startups with major-league founders or big-time CEOs will often list the "great man" problem as one of their risks in investor filings. Musk is a classic example — a CEO who is almost synonymous with the companies that he runs. Uber is also in many ways an expression of Kalanick's personality and drive to succeed.

But whereas Musk is celebrated for his Thomas-Edison-like genius and his engagement with grown-up toys such as electric cars and rockets, Kalanick is seen as a sharp-elbowed street fighter who focuses on winning the war by triumphing in battle after battle and grinding the competition down to dust. His greatness, such as it is, is sort of grim.

It doesn't have to be that way. When Uber rolled out a fleet of driverless cars in Pittsburgh last year, Kalanick and his team were able to rise above the rough-and-tumble of wiping out the taxi business. Kalanick also showed some spine in standing up to President Trump's travel ban and resigning from Trump's executive advisory committee.

But for every good thing that Uber does, it seems to do two bad things. The Pittsburgh self-driving debut was undermined by a lawbreaking introduction for the technology in San Francisco and a botching of the political relationship with the Pittsburgh city government.

Kalanick should consider that although Musk might not yet be the greatest CEO who's ever lived, he sets a high standard and strives to be continuously impressive. Being a "great man" means being great pretty much all the time.

2. You need a vision

Uber's origin story isn't exactly world-saving. Kalanick wanted to create a service that would enable well-heeled urbanites to more easily arrange for chauffeured transport in "black cars" — high-end livery cabs that typically cater to the metropolitan upper crust.

Over the time that Uber has been on the ascent, some more admirable qualities have been layered on: freedom from car ownership, mobility for those no longer able to drive, the chance to craft a flexible work life (this last one is obviously tricky, given Uber's at-times harsh business practices where drivers are concerned, but it does work for some folks).

Uber's vision up to this point has simply been to be the cool way for young urbanites to get around, and that's why the company has a $70-billion valuation and is perhaps the biggest pre-IPO Silicon Valley startup of all time — the unicorn to end all unicorns.

But that doesn't exactly add up to a vision. Musk's companies — Tesla and SpaceX — by contrast are all vision, often at the expense of the actual businesses. The master plan (and there actually is a written-down Master Plan) is to accelerate humanity's exit from the fossil-fuel era. Also, to colonize Mars so we have a backup plan for Earth. If Kalanick is a Mamet-esque character, then Musk is rightly the inspiration for Tony Stark in the "Iron Man" movies. He's a scientist superhero.

Again, with self-driving cars, Kalanick has the chance to recast himself as a Muskian visionary. He just needs to concentrate on driving home the message of autonomous mobility being Uber's big idea for the future of the human race.

3. Don't be afraid to geek out and explore crazy side projects

Musk has engaged with artificial intelligence and as a hobby started a company, the Boring Company, to dig tunnels under Los Angeles to combat gridlock. He also kicked off the Hyperloop.

In spite of the fact that Uber will likely have a massive impact on future urban design, Kalanick hasn't made himself and evangelist for the city of tomorrow. He gave a TED talk in 2016 in which he essentially attacked mass-transit in the context of a proto-Uber ride-hailing service from the early 20th century while simultaneously dissing, somewhat righteously, the urban problem of personal car ownership and mostly un-righteously, government regulation.

Kalanick is a nuts-n-bolts businessman and seemingly constitutionally opposed to thinking of Uber as having a higher calling, although he's happy to accept that his "punch a button and get a ride" entrepreneurial inspiration could improve lives by eliminating congestion, eliminating onerous commutes, and slow down global warming.

But it wouldn't hurt him to up his game on this front. Uber has a certain amount of visionary penitential baked into to the business model, it's just a question of Kalanick digging more deeply into that. And this far, Uber's main side project, self-driving cars, has led to an increase in respect for Uber as a visionary company. More of that would be well worth it.

4. Grow up

Musk has been able to combine a child-like fascination with new technology and huge adventures with a more adult capacity to manage several growing businesses. That he's basically a big kid is appealing and enhances his charm. But when you get right down to it, he's trying to make a better world for his own children.

Kalanick has presided over a quintessentially low-vision, bro-y, post-dot-com Silicon Valley culture at Uber that has now generated scandals and got him all but kicked out of his job (due to his founder's control of the company and a compliant board, he's basically impossible to fire).

Kalanick is unmarried, childless, and seemingly all about his work. He's worth billions, but he's also a 40-year-old man-child who has built a company so important and valuable to the Silicon Valley funding ecosystem that he hasn't been pressured to put aside his childish ways. Until now and his admission that he needs to become "Travis 2.0."

His sabbatical ought to give him some time to start acting his age.

5. Don't fear Musk

Kalanick reportedly thought that Tesla and Uber might be able to work together in 2015, but he got outfoxed by Musk, who seems to have his own idea about a Tesla ride-hailing/car-sharing service.

Despite that, Tesla is pretty far from being able to flip the switch on a Tesla Network, so an Uber-Tesla tie-up should never be off the table. Kalanick has to at some level understand that the Tesla electric-car story has been supplanted to a degree by the Uber don't-own-a-car story. So Musk might still need Uber, if nothing else as potential major customer for the Model 3 $35,000 vehicle launching later this year.

Kalanick can also learn from Musk how to oversee a cash-incinerating operation while still keeping the stock price up and maintaining access to capital markets. Uber burns plenty of its own cash and may continue to do so for as long as Tesla has — more than a decade.

As a bonus, Kalanick should also study Musk for lessons in how to evade a crisis. Tesla almost went out of business in 2008-2009; only Musk's eleventh-hour fundraising kept the lights on. More recently, Tesla managed the repercussions of a fatal crash involving its Autopilot semi-self-driving technology. In both cases, Musk showed resilience and humility. Kalanick may have some of the former. The latter is something he now needs to acquire.

SEE ALSO: The new Uber won't work with Travis at the helm — here's why

Join the conversation about this story »

NOW WATCH: Buying Tesla stock is like buying a call option on Elon Musk

#Tech Insider #Arab #Entrepreneurship #sillicon alley insider

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seanmeverett · 7 years

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Diary of a Madman, Page 31

9,900 people peering inside. Don’t get trapped.

I. This Week’s Analyses

Making A Return When The Dow is Down [The Base Code]: Peeking into alternative asset classes, this is the first of our analyses into cryptocurrencies. An anlysis with a purpose. Namely, to hedge your own investments against fear’s effect on markets.

Invention Is Not Valued, But It’s Where Value Begins [fountainhead]: We were finally able to express the frustration we’ve felt for decades into something concise enough, even for Trump.

BMW’s Secretive Robotics Division [fountainhead]: BMW recently published their 100-year vision of transportation. They showed two cars and a motorycycle. Allow us to help them realize the true vision of our personal transportation of the future.

NewLab in Brooklyn for Scientific Companies [fountainhead]: We took a tour of this incredible space in Brooklyn’s old ship yard, gutted and replaced by a coworking space for prototyping nanomaterials, artificial intelligence, and robotic Mars rovers. Talk to Lilly, she’s lovely.

Habitable Planets Found Close to Earth [fountainhead]: A watershed moment that deserves to be talked about within the digital walls of Humanizing Tech. Goldilocks isn’t just a zone. Let’s get that gal some porriage.

Broken Ring, Implanted Thoughts [Antoine RJ Wright]: Interesting insights when one of your wearables breaks.

Report: Social Media Usage by F500 CEOs [fountainhead]: A new report out by a global public relations firm, compares the emerging trend of major public company leaders using their personal social channels as a new PR medium. Elon can prome a market in a moment. Trump won an election. Zuck stops working on Facebook but still controls its future.

III. Inventors Having Afternoon Tea at The Plaza Hotel

If you surround yourself with quality, you can’t help but pick up on some of that philosophy and attention to detail. Then, if you only choose a few very specific instances, it teaches you the benefit of “white space” that helps draw even further attention to the exquisiteness of the experience.

Afternoon tea at the iconic Plaza Hotel, if you will.

For example, Berkshire Hathaway published their annual shareholder’s letter, version FY16. The sound mixing in Arrival or the animation of Kubo. Or maybe the iconic brand of Rolls Royce, the industrialist not the stagecoach.

Finally, lyrics that speak to the Inventors:

And nobody in all of Oz, No wizard that there is or was, Is ever gonna bring me down!

II. Newsworthy News

Stats: Humanizing Tech has shot up the Alexa charts since January of 2017, now the 789,000th website on the internet, out of over 1 billion total. That’s the Top 0.08% of all websites in existence.

Storytelling: Learn how to tell a story like Pixar from Khan Academy.

China & AI: They reset their entire population’s belief system. Transformed it into the world’s manufacturing center. And now, leading much of the Narrow Intelligence work in quiet. Be careful, America.

Chaos Theory: take a flash back to the theory.

Space Startups: Don’t wait until cheap launches are already here. Have your business ready for the largest gold rush in the history of humankind. Don’t forget the Interstellar Engine. Automated QA testing.

Energy through the Air: cross-room charging.

Design: Go through Dribbble. Everyone is designing mobile apps. What about robotics, space manufacturing equipment, AR goggles, etc?

Biologic Intelligence: General Intelligence, this time, from Darpa.

Economics: confidence, from Deloitte.

Inside Chanel: By definition, if you’re different, your ideas and ideals will be ostracized until you’re popularized. Watch the new Number 18.

AR: Now that the non-developer edition of the Hololens isn’t scheduled to hit shelves until 2019, my question is where the hell is Augmented Reality? No Magic Leap. No Hololens. No Apple Glasses. So much talk, so little product.

Data Sets: It should not be lost on you that zero of these narrow AI datasets have nothing to do with physical movement in a 4-dimensional universe.

Video: Crazy to me that Ooyala is just now starting to think about OTT products. Piksel spent 3 years and $30 million building a microservices, API-based brand new video platform for Broadcasters. Roku’s raising $200M at a $1B valuation, just not from the Valley.

Self-Driving iPhone: you can’t make this stuff up. The iPhone slowly but surely becoming an interstellar space ship.

Jobs: Head of Product.

AI: Remember when Kurzweil said AI would break through based on computing power, like 2045? That thinking is stuck in Mathematic, not Biologic systems. So of course it would need that level of computing power, not a Raspberry Pi. Also, VCs have told me straight faced that neural networks are how the brain works. Mmmkay dude.

“Mimicking the herd, invites regression to the mean.”

“You should remember that good ideas are rare — when the odds are greatly in your favor, bet heavily.” ~Charlie Munger

You’re missing it, folks.

— Sean

Read The Rest

30, 29, 28, 27, 26, 25, 24, 23, 22, 21, 20, 19, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14, 13, 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

Join The Fountainhead Movement for exclusive access to bleeding edge think pieces and technological inventions.

Humanizing Tech is a premiere technological think tank for building humanity’s future. It covers autonomous robotics, self-learning AI, superhuman augmentation, personal hedge funds, editable DNA, SAAS space platforms, personal power stations, and video as an app. This newsletter is a peek inside the Editor’s mind.

Diary of a Madman, Page 31 was originally published in Humanizing Tech on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

from Stories by Sean Everett on Medium http://ift.tt/2mlMqe1

#Stories by Sean Everett on Medium

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